Follow this to-do list to revive your North Texas landscape ravaged by the summer heat

Hopefully you’ve paid at least modest attention to your lawn and landscape these past several months. If not, the brutal weather may find you starting over from scratch. But let’s not assume that. Let’s figure that you, like most of the rest of us, have tried to pull your plants through. Let’s develop a list of those things you’ll need to do to get the train back on its tracks.

▪ Water deeply. Hopefully you’ve been doing that all along — certainly within the restrictions imposed by your city. The smaller the plant, the more critical this thorough and frequent soaking will have been. Mature trees and large shrubs can probably survive on just one or two irrigations per month, but groundcover and low shrub beds often can’t wait more than a few days between waterings. Use water bubblers and soaker hoses and water deeply.

▪ Prune out dead wood and reshape the healthy growth. If your plants died back due to last year’s extreme cold, you can prune out the dead and damaged growth now. It’s not going to come back. Add that plants that were hurt or killed by the drought and you’ll have more pruning and even removal to do. You’ll be amazed at how quickly things will look better just by tidying up.

▪ Make plans now for fall replantings. Maybe you planned to do some relandscaping anyway, or perhaps you have plants to replace after the drought. Either way, fall is the best time for planting new trees and shrubs. It gives them the longest possible time to get reestablished before the following summer. Plus, this is the best time to sit down with a landscape designer to develop your roadmap.

▪ Your lawn is likely to be invaded with cool-season weeds like never before. Turfgrass is weaker than ever after two consecutive challenging winters and one extraordinarily ugly summer. You can deal with broadleafed weeds such as clover, henbit, dandelions and chickweed either before they germinate or once you can see them, but you only get one chance with the grassy weeds, and that’s with an application of pre-emergent herbicide to prevent their germination in the first place.

Apply Dimension, Halts or Balan granules the last week of August or the first week of September to keep weeks like Poa annua (annual bluegrass), rescuegrass and ryegrass from germinating. There is no post-emergent treatment for these grassy weeds. In other words, if you miss this treatment before they germinate, you’ve blown it for another entire year. And these products aren’t easy to find. Wise gardeners will shop now, a couple of weeks ahead, to have their supplies ready. (Note: if it stays really hot and completely dry through that two-week period, the application date may slide a few days later. Details here later.)

▪ Spring color beds may have played out. Wax begonias may be burned. Pentas may be puny, and angelonias may be shadows of their former selves. But the stars of this summer for many Texas gardeners have been trailing lantanas, specifically New Gold. Those babies are showing their bloomers off.

▪ Plants you can set out now (or plant into pots) for color as temperatures cool: ornamental peppers, purple fountaingrass, firebush, marigolds, zinnias, celosias and even bronze-leafed wax begonias for shade. Begonias will fare better from this point going forward.

▪ If you’re interested in attracting birds, bees and butterflies into your gardens, they’re all in need of your help. Our feeders have been busier than I have ever seen them in summer. Supplies of seed in vacant lots and farm fields have dwindled due to the droughts. Birds will come into your landscape as grateful guests to your feeders. Specialized companies offer blends of seeds mixed specifically to attract desirable birds and to provide them with the kind of nourishment they need for migrating, nesting and molting (replacing of feathers before winter).

▪ Bees, butterflies and hummingbirds are looking for sources of nectar to fuel their tiny engines and foliage to fuel their larvae. Monarchs will soon be migrating through on their way to Mexico and this year’s drought has taken a toll on milkweed, their only food source. Monarch butterflies dine on nectar from its flowers. Their larvae feed on its foliage.

▪ If you plan to plant other Texas wildflowers, September is the time. You’ll need to start buying your seed, hopefully only of types that are native to our part of the state. You’re wasting your seed if we don’t get some rain, so watch the weather maps carefully.

Remember where you see wildflowers growing in nature. They’re on barren hillsides, not stirred in with grasses. Don’t plant them into your lawn. They would bloom in late March and April and you wouldn’t be able to mow until late May or June because you’d be waiting for their seeds to mature and shed. Sow them into a dedicated area where they can grow undisturbed. Water the seeds after planting to get them established, then hopefully winter rains will carry them through.

You can hear Neil Sperry on KLIF 570 AM on Saturday afternoons 1-3 p.m. and on WBAP 820 AM Sunday mornings 8-10 a.m. Join him at www.neilsperry.com and follow him on Facebook.

This story was originally published August 12, 2022 at 5:30 AM.