Plants & Pests with Nicole

May 2023

Important Dates

Thursday, May 18th at 6pm: Kids Container Salad Class at Tall Tree Tastings, $10 per person. Bring your children or grandchildren. Adults are welcome to attend and make a pot for a child. You must RSVP due to container availability! Contact Denise at Tall Tree and confirmation will be given. Kids will decorate a garden pot, plant lettuce seeds, then harvest and eat their plants.

Monday, May 22nd at 6:30 pm: Tree Planting Program at the Falls City Middle School Commons Area, located at 1415 Morton Street in Falls City. Register with the Richardson County Extension Office by May 18th by calling 402-245-4324.
Tuesday, June 6th at 6:30pm: Final Spring Series Water Dogs Zoom Program for Master Gardeners. Brad Jakubowski will present on drip irrigation in landscape beds. For information and to register, visit: https://communityenvironment.unl.edu/waterdogs

Listen to the full recording...

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Shopping for New Plants

This is the time of year we really get the gardening bug. I would wait until closer to the end of this month to do much by way of garden cleanup and new plantings to avoid having to cover things up. If you do have some plants out, you need to cover them up when temperatures go back down to near freezing. April 25th is the average last spring frost date for most of southeast Nebraska, so we can start to shop for new plants to fill in where there are gaps in the garden or where some from last year didn’t live. When we go to the garden center or plant sale, be sure to pick the right plant for the job.

Plant a Tree for Arbor Day

Trees are so important to our lives! They provide us with many wonderful benefits including clean, fresh air, many fruits and nuts to eat, beauty, and shade. Arbor Day is a day to celebrate trees and to plant new trees, because we can always use more trees in our world. Arbor Day is celebrated on the last Friday in April which fell on April 28th this year. Just because we are past Arbor Day doesn’t mean you can’t still plant trees, they are fine planted well into May. Arbor Day is just a guideline for tree planting.

Planting Vegetable Gardens

Don’t put vegetable plants out too soon in the garden. Check the soil temperature to determine if it is the correct time for our plants, go.unl.edu/soiltemperature.

50 degrees: beets, chard, onions, parsley, and turnips
60 degrees: beans, cucumbers, eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes
70 degrees: okra, melons, pumpkins, and squash

If you plant too soon can stunt plants and cause them to perform badly over the summer, so it is best to wait until the soils warm up more before we plant.

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Evergreen Winter Injury

We are seeing a lot of winter injury to our evergreens this spring. This includes trees and shrubs that are brown and look bad in general. There isn’t much that we can do to correct the damage, but watering can help. This damage is due to the drought we are still facing. Ensure that trees are receiving a slow trickle irrigation for 45 minutes to an hour every week or 2 or weekly as the temperatures increase, for shrubs, you only need to irrigate for 20-30 minutes each time. Wait until later in May to prune out any dead areas, there is still time for them to green back up or shoot new growth. Do not fertilize these stressed plants at this time.

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Crabgrass Control

Crabgrass typically germinates when the soil temperature is at about 55-60 degrees Fahrenheit, it is now time to get yours out. Even if some plants germinated before, it will be low in population and easy to manage with post emergent herbicides. April into early May is also a great month to overseed your lawn. Don’t use crabgrass preventer if you recently overseeded or if you plan to overseed yet this spring. Don’t use herbicides on newly seeded turf until you have mowed three times.

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Spring Plants

Spring is here and we are starting to see some activity in our landscapes. There are some great plants starting to green up and you might even be seeing some things bloom already.

About Nicole

Nicole Stoner is the Horticulture Extension Educator located in Gage County, serving Southeast Nebraska. Nicole's focus areas include trees, shrubs, lawns, gardens, and insects. Nicole obtained her Master's Degree from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for Horticulture with a minor in Insect Science, she also has Bachelor's Degrees from UNL in both areas. Nicole is also an ISA Certified Arborist and has her Tree Risk Assessment Qualification (TRAQ).

Email: nstoner2@unl.edu
Website: https://extension.unl.edu/statewide/gage/gage-county-horticulture/
Location: 1115 West Scott Street, Beatrice, NE, USA
Phone: 402-223-1384
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NicoleStonerHorticulture
Twitter: @nikki_Stoner