Question: The bougainvillea are so pretty in many yards but mine only has a few blooms. What can I do to improve the flowering?
Answer: Benign neglect is often the best way to treat bougainvilleas with few or no blooms. You can skip the three “H’s” when caring for these plants that include heavy water, heavy fertilization and heavy pruning. Neglected bougainvilleas are often the best bloomers as frequently found in old homesteads. Get your bougainvillea in the flowering mode by keeping fertilizer applications to once in March and May using a slow-release landscape product. Then water only during the very dry times. Bougainvillea are often encouraged to bloom by skimping on water. Prune only as needed as many varieties are meant to grow as large shrubs to almost tree forms. Complete all pruning by early summer. Lastly make sure your plant is in the full sun or light shade. Your bougainvillea may not flower this spring but should be in bloom late fall through spring with the suggested care.
Q. After gardening for years in Pennsylvania and New Jersey I am stumped growing raspberry plants in Florida. One planted about a year ago died and another is doing poorly. What is needed?
A. More cold weather would make your raspberry plants productive but regretfully it is not available in most of Florida. Raspberry plants you grew in your northern landscape needed several hundred hours of temperatures below 45 degrees Fahrenheit to mature their flower buds and produce fruit. These temperatures are also vital for good growth. Gardeners can substitute a tropical raspberry for their northern favorites. This one needs the warm weather and would be damaged by a freeze. Looks for Mysore raspberry plants at independent garden centers or tropical plant suppliers. The plants produce fruits on previous years’ growth. So, they may need a year before yielding their sweet black raspberries December through June.
The Plant Doctor: What do with your Easter lily plant after holiday
Q. My St. Augustine has become thick and spongy. The lawn care company says it needed to be dethatched. Can it grow as the thick but good-looking lawn?
A. Most likely your lawn care company does not appreciate mowing the thick spongy lawn where the wheels sink down in the turf. This does make care more difficult but the lawn can survive. It would be better if the grass is more compact but dethatching is not the answer as it could remove much of the lawn. First, thick spongy lawns are usually due to over watering and fertilizing. Try putting your lawn on a lean diet of only water when needed and permitted. Then reduce fertilizer applications to once in March, May and October. If the lawn is good and green you might even skip one or more of these. As a last resort you might try sanding the spongy areas to try and fill the voids among the grass runners. Up to an inch of builders sand might be applied and watered in to make the turf more compact.
Q. I have two older dracaena marginata plants in containers. I suspect they are root bound. Do I plant them in the ground or keep them in their containers?
A. Sounds like it is time for some new containers. Select ones about two inches wider in diameter as homes for your plants. Loosen the roots during planting and fill the containers as you plant with a good potting soil. Planting them in the ground is an option but you lose the versatility of moving the plants about as needed or if severe cold is expected.
Q. My papaya fruits are developing black spots on their surface and they rot. What can I do to protect them and get a crop?
A. Papayas with black spots are not very appetizing plus as you note they rot quicker. The blemished fruits are caused by the fungus asperisporium once known as cercospora. Gain control by removing as much affected fruits and foliage as possible. When the disease is noted, apply a fungicide. Use of a copper fungicide is recommended by the University of Florida but it is hard to find one labeled for papayas. It may be possible to find this fungicide with instructions for fruits to use following label instructions.
Q. My lawn is covered with oak and sweet gum tree leaves. A friend told me to run over them with a mower to semipulverize them for fertilizer, which leaves an unsightly covering on the lawn. Will this harm the turf?
A. Have fun pulverizing the leaves but then rake them up and add them to the compost pile or use them for a mulch in the gardens or shrub beds. They do contain plenty of nutrients and can help soils retain moisture but they can also suffocate a lawn. The often-thick layers can keep sun from hitting the turf and prevent water from moving uniformly into the soil. Also, they build up the thatch layer which can be a hiding place for chinch bugs and other turf pests. Put this bountiful supply of leaves to a better use in other areas of your landscape.
Q. I bought a beautiful blue hydrangea that I was told should be in direct sun all day but all it does is wilt. What is best, sun or shade?
A. If you purchased the hydrangea up north, the full sun site might be good advice — but not in Florida. Sunny hot weather is brutal when it comes to these pretty blue or pink flowering plants. They are quite finicky and may do some wilting no matter where they grow but a spot with morning sun and afternoon shade or filtered sun all day is best. Keep the soil moist and feed every other month, spring through fall where permitted, for the best growth. Also, if you want to keep the blue color, you need an acidic soil. So have the soil tested where the plant is growing and adjust, if needed. Also, it is probably best to use an azalea-camellia fertilizer, that should help keep the soil acidic to encourage the beautiful blue look.
Tom MacCubbin is an urban horticulturist emeritus with the University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service. Write him: Orlando Sentinel, P.O. Box 2833, Orlando, FL. 32802. Email: TomMac1996@aol.com.
