Ask The Expert
Our knowledgeable staff here at Garden-Ville are available to answer many of the questions you might have about gardens, landscaping, and trees. Many problems with plants, however, cannot be responsibly diagnosed other than in person. We're located in central Texas and may not be familiar with the details of gardening in very different climate or soil zones. One of the guiding principles of organic growing is adapting methods to the particularites of local soil and climate. With that in mind we'll do our best to answer your question, but if we can't we'll be happy to help you find the appropriate resources or professionals in your area.
Feel free to browse the topics below to see if we've already answered a question similar to yours. If you can't find the information you need, the question submission form is located at the bottom of the page.
Last spring our St Augustine was taken over by chickweed and I thought I'd lose my beautiful yard. I pulled weeds for months and finally the grass became thick again. I was told to use a pre emergent to avoid the same problem for next year. Do you recommend the corn meal gluten? Where do I purchase it? I don't see it on the garden ville website. Also, I have many roses. How often should I feed them and what do you suggest to keep the leaves healthy and dark green? I only want safe products since I have pets and many birds in my yard.
9/30/200811:52:10 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Yes, Garden-Ville sells corn gluten meal. Because G-V does not manufacture corn gluten, we do not list it on our website. Corn gluten meal should be applied when the weed you are trying to prevent from seeding in your lawn has brown seeds on it. Apply a solid fine layer on your grass and the seeds that fall in the corn gluten meal will not be able to form roots. Corn gluten meal will also act as a nitrogen fertilizer for your lawn. Corn gluten meal does nothing for existing weeds in the yard.
Garden-Ville has a superb Rose food for your roses. The food was formulated by Malcolm Beck and the San Antonio Rosarians. The primary nutrients are derived from cottonseed meal, alfalfa meal, fish meal, kelp meal, guano meal, molasses and greensand. I enjoy this product on all my flowering, fruiting and vegetable plants. All ingredients are natural.
I mistakenly put "broad leaf" weed killer on my double weeping cherry and red dwarf peach trees. They both lost their leaves and since the peach is sprouting new leaves. The cherry is not, and most of the branches are dead. I have been watering and fertilizing reguraly. Should I cut it back for winter?
9/29/20083:54:31 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Sick Tree Treatment, Tree Questions
It's ok to prune back any of the dead branches, but I wouldn't take off any of the live growth, as the tree is already suffering from a lack of photosynthesis. Mulching around the base of the tree always helps. I would go 4-5 feet to a depth of 3-4 inches. This will reduce competition from grass and weeds, as well as helping to retain moisture. We have a product called Sick Tree Treatment that's a mix of Volcanite, mature compost and greensand that you can apply around the tree to help it recover.
What is the best thing to lay down before laying 419 bermuda sod?
9/29/20083:26:32 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Bermuda Grass, Compost, Lawn Questions
Before laying down sod I recommend a thin layer of compost. Our Garden-Ville compost is composted wood chips and bio-solids. Spread 1/2" to 1" of this before laying your sod squares. Also mix in Rock Phosphate at 10 pounds per 1000 square feet along with Texas Greensand. This will provide all the nutrients your grass requires for healthy growth.
I have several types of trees with small infestations of Ball Moss. I was told this fungus had roots going below the bark and would not be killed by topical treatments. I was told of a systemic treatment but not the name of the chemical. Can you help?
9/25/200811:56:05 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Hello Gary.Ball Moss is not parasitic to your tree; It grabs nutrients and moisture from the air. Eventually ball moss can create a large colony in your tree and hinder the tree's ability to photosynthesizes, which would weaken the tree. Ball moss is easy to remove with a gentle brush or the careful use of a power washer. Common baking soda can be used to kill ball moss but a better product offered by Garden Ville is potassium bicarbonate (the sodium in baking soda is removed and potassium is added in its place, too much sodium can be detrimental to a plants health). The ball moss will die but not fall off the tree until it is physically removed.We live here in the San Antonio area and have asian jasmine in our front yard. This year it lost some of it's ground cover leaving us with patches. Many of the houses on our street have the same problem. We have tried adding mulch to the areas where it died back and one garden center suggested we use chicken manure which we also tried. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you!
9/25/200811:08:06 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Sick Tree Treatment, Soil Questions
Asian jasmine is susceptible to several problems; it could be a bacteria that will stunt the plant. If this is your problem you will find woody galls near the base or on the roots. Other (fungi) diseases include blossom blight, leaf spot, or sooty mold. Identify the disease and then you can treat the sickness. The signs of die back are telling you something else, your plant needs nutrients it is not getting. Micro-nutrients and compost are the key ingredients to bringing any sick plant back to robust vigor and a lush cover. Garden-Ville offers a product called sick tree treatment that would be fantastic treatment. It is composted of lava rock, greensand and compost.I purchased a house last aug the yard was left in a mess everything had over grown. When I cut it I notice that there was bermuda grass in a small area and the rest of the yard was weeds . I tried to sow bermuda but it didn?t take. I was wondering when is the best time to sow seed and how do I treat soil with clay in it and kill the weeds. I live in Murfreesboro TN .
9/24/20082:36:38 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Lawn Questions, Natural Weed Control
Your best time to sow grass seed is in the spring after the last average frost date. Our Garden-Ville Natural Weed Killer or 20% vinegar can be used to kill everything in the area to be sown. Alternately you can mow the area to be sown as short as possible before sowing, although the weed killer is better. You can then sow, or for really good weed control you can broadcast corn gluten meal as a pre-emergent herbicide and wait 3-4 weeks before sowing your grass seed. Before sowing spread maybe a half inch of good mature compost over the area and then keep the area well watered until the grass has established itself.
I have a large bermuda lawn that is taken over with knot weed, spurge and some other grassy weeds. What can i use to kill these grassy weeds?
9/24/200810:47:40 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Most organic herbicides are non-selective, which means they'll kill any desireable grass you spray as well. You can use these to kill weeds in an established lawn only if you are very careful and don't mind some collateral damage. Our Natural Weed Control is the best product for this. It will probably take multiple applications, as most weeds have very resiliant root systems. We do have a product called Crabgrass Killer that kills crabgrasses, basketweed, chickweed, clover, and other related weeds and doesn't harm turf grasses. You can also mow areas overrun with weeds very close to the ground, then add fertilizer and compost and overseed them with bermuda grass seed. This will help to choke out the weeds.I have a 'weeping fig' that's what it says on the tag in the pot. Everyone calls it a ficus. it's very health with lots of new growth lately. I looked today and there is a waxy little 'blob' tiny, about the size of a seed bead or smaller, on the bottom of some/a lot of the leaves, at the base of the leaf, where it meets the stem. It looks like it's a natural thing, like the plant is producing it. But this is in an office, so if it's a bug or a home for a bug, i need to remove it from the office immediatly and treat it. Please help my baby?
9/24/200810:23:23 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Ficus is the genus name for all figs. If this is an insect it sounds like it could be an aphid or possibly scale. If that's the case you'll see multiple instances of the insect on some leaves/stems. Aphids and scale can be treated with Neem Oil or other organic insecticides. If there is a single bump at the base of every leaf it's probably just the internode, which is where next season's growth will come from. If you ever see one of these things moving it's an aphid. If it smears or rubs away then its scale. If it breaks off as if its a part of the plant then its the internode.I know that Red Maple trees are poisoness to horses. I am wanting to plant an Autumn Purple Ash tree in my pasture. Are all red leafed trees poisonous? Specificaly is the Purple Ash poisonous to horses?
9/24/200810:21:19 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Toxicity in trees isn't related to leaf color. It's controlled by a variety of factors, and not all animals respond to toxicity in the same way. I don't know specifically about the Purple Ash, although I've seen horses browse on our Texas Ash trees with no ill effect. You might check with a local arborist for more information.
I know that Red Maple trees are poisoness to horses. I am wanting to plant an Autumn Purple Ash tree in my pasture. Are all red leafed trees poisonous? Specificaly is the Purple Ash poisonous to horses?
9/24/200810:11:36 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Toxicity in trees isn't related to leaf color. It's controlled by a variety of factors, and not all animals respond to toxicity in the same way. I don't know specifically about the Purple Ash, although I've seen horses browse on our Texas Ash trees with no ill effect. You might check with a local arborist for more information.
I need to aerate, dethatch, fertilize, and over seed my lawn. My neighbor said I should also add pellitized lime. My question is in what order should I do the above? I live in Connecticut. Thanks!
9/24/200810:01:41 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
The proper order is dethatch, aerate, fertilize, and overseed. You especially want to be sure and aerate before you fertilize so that the fertilizer can penetrate into the roots. If you add lime it should be at the time of fertilization. Check your soil ph before adding that, or check with a local lawn care company as they'll have a better sense of what soils in your area need. Lime will raise soil ph.
new garden, bought premire compost tilled it good, planted tomatoes, they look good then start curlin the leaves,which turn to leather, all plants in the area don't want to grow, stunned,
9/24/20089:47:54 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
It sounds like your tomatos are suffering from curly top. Other indicators of this disease would be the leaf petiole curling downward while the stems and branches become very stiff. The disease is carried by beet leafhoppers and usually occurs in tomatos planted neer beets or weedy overgrown areas. If you know the disease is a problem future outbreaks can be mitigated by planting tomatos more closely together than normally, and by planting beets or chard away from tomatos in the garden, as well as by keeping adjacent areas well mowed. Control of current infestations is more difficult, but covering the area with shade cloth over the plants will help to repel the insects.Try planting several tomato variets next year. Also, soil health is critical to plants' ability to fight off pests and pathogens. Next season I would use our manure compost rather than the premium compost, as the former is better suited to vegetable gardening.I want to install a rock garden with medium size ginger rock.The area is 35x11@2 inches deep.How many yards is that, and approx. how many standard wheelbarrow trips will I need to make to fill in the area?
9/24/20089:04:20 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
That will be about 2.5 yards of rock. A standard contractor's wheelbarrow holds 4-6 cubic feet, although I wouldn't try to push more than 3 feet per trip, as rock is extremely heavy. At 3 ft/trip that would be about 22 trips in the wheelbarrow.I have a maple tree in my yard that for the first time in 25 years has started weeping a brown sticky substabce (not maple syrup) all over my deck and yard. It appears to be coming from the upper branches and is making a mess of everything. Need help as I have asticky mess to clean up everyday that is making its way into my house on all who enters shoes. I don't understand why all of sudden this is happening and is there a remedy for it? Thanks you.
9/23/200812:14:59 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Insect Control, Tree Questions
Without being able to directly examine the tree, my guess is that you've had a borer infestation. The borers have probably left the tree, which is producing sap in response to the injury. The sap problem should go away in a few weeks. Borer infestations usually indicate an unhealthy tree, as healthy trees are able to repel them on their own. Long term control of borers is best accomplished by promoting tree health. A good layer of mulch (3"-4") under the tree is the single best thing you can do for tree health. Ample water is important, although its equally important not to overwater, as that can promote fungal problems in the roots which can seriously compromise the health of the tree. If you apply fertilizer make sure to apply a low or no nitrogen organic variety with lots of micronutrients. If the problem persists I would contact a local certified arborist, as they'll be able to better identify exactly what the problem is.
I have White Fly infestation, what products do you carry that I can use to rid my gardens of this pest?
9/23/200811:53:54 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
White flies are generally not a serious problem for plants--more of a nuisance for gardeners. I'd recommend you spray soap & water or neem oil on the foliage for minor infestations. The larvae live in the soil, so a soil drench with Garden-Ville's Anti Fuego (usually used for fire ant infestations) will offer better control on major infestations.
I have White Fly infestation, what products do you carry that I can use to rid my gardens of this pest?
9/23/200811:53:41 AM Link 0 comments | Add comment
White flies are generally not a serious problem for plants--more of a nuisance for gardeners. I'd recommend you spray soap & water or neem oil on the foliage for minor infestations. The larvae live in the soil, so a soil drench with Garden-Ville's Anti Fuego (usually used for fire ant infestations) will offer better control on major infestations.
Amy- I have a small Pin Oak that is not looking healthy. Two people have told me it neds iron. Is that something I can do myself or do I contact a company? Bob
9/18/20086:11:07 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment
When plant become deficient in iron the symptom is called iron chlorosis. The identifying signs are yellowing leaves with green veins. You can definitely apply greensand yourself. First aerate the root zone of the tree by probing the ground with a fork half way past the drip line (the drip line is the trees canopy). Then scatter the greensand and water well. Garden-Ville sells a product called sick tree treatment that is a mineral rich blend of compost, volcanite, and greensand that you might consider. Malcolm Beck told me Howard Garret and himself saved two old pecan trees on his property with this product - that was actually the reason why the product was developed.
We have an area in our yard that is approximately 20 x 30 feet where grass will not grow. Even our St. Augustine will not creep over into this area. It has fairly new top soil that we bought to level out that area and to cover some large pine tree roots that had surfaced. The soil kit we bought shows the PH is fine. We've tried grass for sun/shade areas/shady areas/dense shade areas to no avail. Any advice would be appreciated.
9/15/20082:19:01 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Pine needles inhibit the growth of pretty much anything else, including grass and ground cover. If this area is under pine trees I'd recommend mulching around the trees rather than trying to grow anything.
Amy - The building put a mix of Bermuda and St. Augustine grass in my front yard and Tif in the back & side yards. When should I fertilize and what should I use? When should I treat for weeds and what should I use? I am from the Great Lakes and am not familiar with lawn care in San Antonio, Texas
9/15/20081:49:19 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Right now is a good time to fertilize since we seem to be leaving the worst of the summer heat behind. Garden-Ville has a lawn fertilizer called 7-2-2 Soil Food that has a good balance of nutrients and natural ingredients for Texas soils. For weed control we do offer a non-selective natural weed killer. This will kill any green it touches, though, so you should be careful applying it to weeds in the lawn. We also carry corn gluten meal, which is a very effective natural pre-emergent herbicide. These can be applied any time, although the weed killer is best applied on a hot, dry day when the plant will be transpiring a great deal.Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any more questions.Amy - The building put a mix of Bermuda and St. Augustine grass in my front yard and Tif in the back & side yards. When should I fertilize and what should I use? When should I treat for weeds and what should I use? I am from the Great Lakes and am not familiar with lawn care in San Antonio, Texas
9/15/20081:49:08 PM Link 0 comments | Add comment
Right now is a good time to fertilize since we seem to be leaving the worst of the summer heat behind. Garden-Ville has a lawn fertilizer called 7-2-2 Soil Food that has a good balance of nutrients and natural ingredients for Texas soils. For weed control we do offer a non-selective natural weed killer. This will kill any green it touches, though, so you should be careful applying it to weeds in the lawn. We also carry corn gluten meal, which is a very effective natural pre-emergent herbicide. These can be applied any time, although the weed killer is best applied on a hot, dry day when the plant will be transpiring a great deal.Hope this helps. Let us know if you have any more questions.
Categories
- 20% Vinegar
- 6-2-2
- 7-2-2
- Anti Fuego
- Beneficial Nematodes
- Bermuda Grass
- Buffalo Grass
- Cedar Mulch
- Compost
- Container Planting
- Corn meal
- Fertilizer
- Garden-Ville Organic Insecticide
- Gardens
- Greensand
- Insect Control
- Landscape Questions
- Lawn Questions
- Liquid Seaweed
- Living Mulch
- Molasses
- mulch
- Natural Weed Control
- Neem Oil
- Plant Questions
- Potassium Bicarbonate
- Premium Compost
- Product Questions
- Rock phosphate
- Rocket Fuel
- Rose Food
- Rose Soil
- Sandy Loam
- Sea Tea
- Sick Tree Treatment
- Soil Questions
- St. Augustine
- Sulfur
- Tree Questions
- Tree Trunk Goop
- Turfmaster
- Weed Control
- Zoysia
