Garden Talk: Preparing trees for autumn

Jill and Rick Van Duyvendyk answer all your gardening questions in Garden Talk on 650 CKOM and 980 CJME every Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Here are some questions and answers from the Sept. 28 show:

Read more: 

• Garden Talk: Autumn leaves changing colour is a good sign to prune
• Garden Talk: How to start winterizing some of your plants
• Garden Talk: Will the recent cold snap stop my corn from maturing?

Q: I bought a braided willow, which I bought two at Costco, and the bottoms are still braided, but the tops have grown out quite rapidly and beautifully. Do I rebraid it? Or how do I keep it together? Is this normal?

A: If you want them to stay braided, you’d have to continue braiding them by attaching them with maybe a twist tie or a soft braid. Rubber coated wire. Careful the twist tie, because then you have to take it off very shortly after, as it’s being braided, you’ll have to remove the tie. As the tree grows, you have to remove it so it doesn’t grow into the bark. But you can also just leave it grow. Then you trim and prune the top and trim it almost like you’re bonsai-ing it okay? Now, this type of willow generally isn’t hardy in Saskatchewan. It’s usually grafted on the top or something like that. You’re going to have to bring it in inside for the winter time, give it a nice grow light, put it in a south or west facing window, and just keep it as a house plant. Or if you want to, you can allow it to go dormant in like a cold storage area or a garage or something like that that has a consistent temperature, so it can go dormant but not freeze.

Q: I have an issue with slugs. I’m using Bug B-Gon, aerating the soil, trying to get lots of sun in the bed and picking those creatures. It was recommended that I condition the soil. And there was a product, which is a liquid that can be broadcasted over the soil, as recommended by someone. What are your thoughts on this?

A: Yeah, anything that that’s a slug type of a bait, they work pretty good. Just have to go by the directions. Most of the slug baits now are mandated to be pet friendly. I’ll put a little piece of wood down, and I’ll sprinkle some of my baits underneath the piece of wood, like a little thin piece of plywood . The slugs will naturally want to migrate underneath there, because it’s a little moist is dark during the day. When they just feed on the bait, they die. Once you have slugs, it’s really hard to get rid of them because they because they produce a lot of babies. It’s an ongoing thing to watch. Maybe attract more birds to your yard as well, too. Put out a water source nearby, like a little dish or a bird bath on the ground, where, by where you get the slugs attract the birds there. That’s a great natural way to get rid of them, too.

Q: I’m wondering about my grass for winter. I’ve got it cut down to two inches. I was going to get it aerated this fall. Is that good idea?

A: It’s okay to aerate it. I like aerating in the spring, because you get a lot of compaction. You could aerate in the fall. It’s not a problem. Leave it till spring which is the best time because sometimes the only thing I don’t like about aerating the fall, if you have the plug style, is that you’re leaving holes open right to the roots. That’s the only reason I don’t like doing it in the fall, unless I do it early enough that those plugs can kind of fill in a bit.

Q: Should I fertilize now?

A: The weather is going to change soon. And then you’re going to shut you want to do before you can shut your water off, so that you can get it watered into the ground. I did mine last weekend. You can see it, take effect where the roots are getting established down and, and is getting ready for wintertime, and cut it down to two inches. You don’t want it too tall that it’s going to lay over, okay, but you don’t want it too short that it’s going to actually dry if there’s no snow right away that doesn’t dry out your roots.

Q: I have about some spruce trees, some Blue Spruce and other variety. I always seem to lose a couple every winter. What can I do to prevent that this coming winter? Any fertilizer I should put down or rototill it?

A: Not any new fertilizer. If you have a tank or something like that, even if they’re dry, give them a good watering because it builds up the moisture in the needles for winter time. Go ahead and give them a good slow watering soak anytime between now and the middle of October. It’s a bit warm now, so the soil could dry out again. You may want to wait another week or two, before the ground freezes. No need to rototill or aerate them. If you rototill too deep, you’ll cut all the roots. If you have a pump on it, if you have a root feeder, you can put the end of your hose. That’d be even better way of doing it. But other than that, just make sure how tall are they right now, between two and four feet. If they’re sticking out of the snow, they’re the ones that get burned on the top. I like make sure I cover those that get a good snow drift on them, if there’s got places where they’re exposed all winter. Otherwise, gather some tops all right now and put it in some bins or pails and put it in your shop or somewhere in a cold place where you can heat it up. And then you can in March or beginning of April, when it gets really warm, you can take some of that top soil and you can spread it on top of the soap of the snow and make your snow black. And then that you don’t get the reflection the sun, and it makes the needles turn brown or purple.

Q: I laid new new sod down in my front yard on July 6. I fertilized with groundskeeper on August 17. I have two large, full grown city trees on my front lawn and a 10-foot high evergreen so there are fibrous roots all underneath the sod. Should I keep applying groundskeeper green again or should I wait until spring?

A: You can wait till spring. If you did at the end of August, you’re fine to go right now. Put it on first thing in the spring, and you’re good to go. Keep the moisture there right now so those roots can get established and really into the ground. And so every once in a while, your watering should be a deep watering, so that you’re watering down into that fibrous roots, so that the roots can get down into the little deeper, other than staying shallow, if you just do shallow watering.

Q: Should I keep root vegetables and onions in the ground as long as I can? With this warm weather coming this week, should I give them a bit of water? I’m worried about frost.

A: Yeah, you can give them just a bit of watering. I just watered my garden just this last week, and I think I need to get another watering again. If you’re worrying about a bit of frost, that you can always throw a blanket or a tarp. So you can do it for quite a while, as long as you protect the soil. But in answer to the watering question, I would water in the morning, so it has time to dry out a little bit throughout the day, and then when you’re watering, you remember you’re not watering as much as you were in the summertime. You just just to keep a little bit of moisture in there so that those root crops aren’t all the moisture is not coming out of them.

Q: I heard on this show a year ago about a product that you could put on your loan, on your lawn to help with winter kill and and mould?

A: In the spring you can put copper sulfate down. There’s some other products too, which aren’t really available to the public, like all the golf courses spray a special fungicide. But they’re readily available. You want to apply that as just later in the season as you can so you’re going to be waiting till about the third week in October. Then I put it down. You can get it any pretty any most garden stores, you can get it at Dutch, you can get it at early as you can get it a bunch of places like a lot of year round type of garden centers will have copper sulfate.

Q: When you talk about the final watering of trees in mid October, are you referring to only carnivorous trees or deciduous as well?

A: Absolutely everything. Everything can use a drink every winter to sustain them. It puts some moisture into the roots and up into the trunk of the tree, and helps them sustain themselves. Because you get Chinooks. That’s why I like to slow them down, because I don’t want to get too much moisture in certain plants, like your cherries where you can get a frost crack. That’s why I like doing it as late as I can, and slow it down now, but give that one last so that the roots can suck up a little bit more moisture and prepared for winter.

Q: I bought two apple tree, bare root plants. Do I plant this fall, winter, or pot them over winter and water them when I plant in spring?

A: Put them in the ground right away. You can pot them, but then you have to put them in a cold storage area that doesn’t go below -10 C. That’ll be the key, and water them into the pot, but keep them in 4 C to -10 C. And anything above 4 C, you’re going to get them start putting it out and start growing. You don’t want to do that inside. If you want to put them in a pot, because you don’t know quite where you’re going to put them, yet, you can always dig a hole, bury the pot into the ground, and then you can move them easier in the spring. Otherwise just plant them, give them some starting fertilizer and water them to keep them moist, to get them to root a little bit this fall. Put a trunk guard around them so you don’t get any sun scalding on the tree trunk, which will discolour and dry out the trunk. Or pop a little snow fence around them. That snow fence will give them a bit of shade as well and also keep the critters like rabbits and deer off them as well.

Q: I planted two apple trees, seven footers, Gemini this spring. They’re doing well, just wondering if I need to do anything special as we go to winter.

A: Slow down the watering rate about now, in another two weeks, give them a one good watering. I want those leaves to turn yellow or fall off, because a lot of my apples are still green. I don’t want to go into November with leaves are still green on this hanging on the tree. So that’s why I’m slowing down the watering. Put those trunk guards on them, stopping the voles and different things from chewing on the bark, or the rabbits or the deer in the town, in the cities and towns. We got lots of jackrabbits.

Q: I have a couple of Colorado Blue Spruce trees in my yard. I’m starting to see these brown needles underneath the branches and also to the tips, far up the tree. I’m wondering what’s happening to them?  

A: What you probably have is needle cast disease, a fungus thing. You need to start spraying. It’s a little bit too late this year to spray them. You could spray them once with copper sulfate. Spray as much of the tree you can. And then starting about June, first spray them three times, 14 days apart with copper sulfate. You could spray one right now, because we’re still in the season where you could help suppress it and keep it from spreading. You could use a hose with a high pressure sprayer. You can pick up copper sulfate from your farm service centres, Dutch Growers or Early Farmer Garden Centre in Saskatoon.

Q: Our mature ornamental crab tree is enormous. It’s about 35 years old. Can it be pruned back by at least a third by an arborist?

A: Absolutely, is now the time to do that. We’re getting very close now where it could be done, because the leaves are very close to falling off now. This fall, or otherwise in March or the first week of April, you can do it as well. Sometimes the arborists are booking quite a bit in advance, so it’s best to get your name in as soon as possible. And they’ll advise you, if they don’t have room to time to do it now, they’ll advise you when the next best time to do it.

Q: Can I bring my potted fern in for the winter?

A: Absolutely. Right now is a time when you want to start bringing it in or into a garage at nighttime, at least, because our nighttime temperatures are getting quite cool. And then you can tip it upside down and give it a good spray with, like an insecticidal soap, and then give it a good shake, to get all those dead leaves. If you just want to put them in like a room that’s like a four season room. If you want them to look nice and pretty, then continue treating them the way you would, but sometimes we’ll put a bucket of water beside my fern and just let that water evaporate around my fern in the winter time, because that’s going to help our houses are way too dry. It’s just a pebble tray where you put a nice big tray underneath it. Then fill the tray full of water so that the plants are not sitting in the water, but all the water is evaporating up through it.

Q: I’m concerned with some evergreen trees, some of them would be roughly 50 years old. The trees are losing their needles from the lower branches and moving up, and or the inner part of the trees. What’s causing this?

A: A spider mite, a tiny microscopic spider. It goes between the needles, and it starts from the bottom, inside, up and out. You need to spray those, especially the bigger trees, with malathion. Spray them after June the first next year, and spray them three times, 14 days apart. You need to somehow blast it. You can’t just use a backpack sprayer. You need to spray into the center of the tree with. If I have a lot of them, I’ll mix up a 80-litre plastic garbage pail and I’ll put a submersible pump into it, and I’ll hook it to my pressure washer. Then you spray because that fine mist goes right up into the tree and gets it gets a good handle on them.