On my flight back from my summer home in England, while semi-dreading dealing with my neglected Mississippi garden, I decided to draft a cheery column on getting heirloom holiday plants to flower.
It was all about “photoperiodism” which is the bud-setting response of some popular seasonal plants to the amount of darkness and light they are exposed to. It’s what causes mums to bloom in the shorter days of fall and occasionally in the spring after a mild winter, and why poinsettias and holiday cacti naturally flower in time for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
In a nutshell, if yours are near bright lights in the evening, they won’t set flower buds, so try fooling them into thinking it is nighttime longer than day, by covering them with a box late in the afternoon and uncovering the next morning so they still get sunlight to keep growing and form flower buds. Soon as you notice buds or red leaves, you can chuck the box.
But I decided to not do an entire column on just this, partly because it is pretty straightforward, and partly because I was so disturbed by what I found in my garden after being gone all summer.
It wasn’t the weeds that cropped up along the edges of my mulched beds and driveway cracks, or accumulated fallen branches, tree leaves, and acorns. I expected those and raked and blew them to my compost pile.
But, unlike years past which were too dry even for the aphids and whiteflies that normally feed on undersides of tree leaves to survive, this year I have an overabundance. I know, because everything - and I mean everything, including my pink flamingos - is covered in sticky “honeydew” which is the euphemistic term for liquid insect excrement.
Right. That gently dripping stuff that falls onto plants, patio furniture, and cars parked underneath trees isn’t tree-leak; it is bug doo. It is sticky because it contains partially digested plant sugars. Don’t look up with your mouth open.
I did a fair job of cleaning the honeydew up by using a hose-end sprayer to wet everything down with a mild dish detergent solution, letting it set a few minutes to soften the hardened sugars, then rinsing with clear water. Did it twice, and most of the stuff is gone.
Worst thing is how a natural black stuff called “sooty mold” grows on the plant sugars, covering leaves, stems and the aforementioned flamingoes. The wash and rinse help loosen and flake it off, but it will be back until the insect problem and subsequent honeydew is dealt with.
Aphids and whiteflies on shrubs can be treated now with two or three sprays on the undersides of leaves, but this doesn’t work on big trees, or crape myrtles totally encrusted with tiny white bark scale which resist sprays. For those, it takes a root soaking of a systemic insecticide, which is best applied in the spring when sap is rising into the tree, not now as plants are shutting down for fall. Garden centers know what you need to apply.
Sheesh. Got a decent summer, and this is what happens. Honeydew making things sticky? Start rinsing with soapy then clear water, before it hardens. Got sooty mold? Live with it, or spray undersides of shrub leaves two or three times for insects, or for crape myrtles plan on a systemic soil drench next spring.
Next week, I promise to prepare a cheerier fall gardening topic. Meanwhile, start looking now for a box to cover that poinsettia or Thanksgiving or Christmas cactus overnight for a few weeks.
Felder Rushing is a Mississippi author, columnist, and host of the “Gestalt Gardener” on MPB Think Radio. Email gardening questions to rushingfelder@yahoo.com.
