Lawns, Gardens & Landscapes

Eastern Nebraska tends to have high soil pH, also known as alkaline soil, which can cause problems for some plants, like river birch, pin oak, big-leaf hydrangeas and blueberries to name a few. Alkaline soil changes the availability of certain plant nutrients in the soil, often making them less available, resulting in deficiency symptoms.

There are so many decisions to be made when it comes to vegetable gardening. Selecting the right location, determining what to plant, even how many plants you might need. One topic that might not have crossed your mind is how to make the vegetable garden more water conscious. Conserving water in the vegetable garden may sound more difficult than it really is.

Warm summer temperatures prompt vegetable crops to grow and thrive. Keeping garden vegetable crops hydrated is crucial for these plants thriving as water is essential to the photosynthesis process, plant growth, and production. When water availability is reduced, carbohydrate production in the plant, the building block of plant nutrition, decreases significantly. That decrease leads to reduced growth, vigor, and crop production potential. Here are some very simple tips to help provide the needed moisture levels in vegetable and fruit crops.

Tall fescue tolerates dry periods better than KBG due to a deeper root system that uses moisture deeper in the soil. However, it does not have the physiological ability to go dormant to avoid dying from drought. If tall fescue begins to turn off color from a lack of water, it requires irrigation.

Many urban landscapes have a forlorn narrow planting strip between the curb and sidewalk, otherwise known as a “hell strip”. Healthy curbside plantings help filter and absorb rainwater, preventing landscape fertilizers and other pollutants from entering storm drains.

Drought conditions have led to stress in established trees and difficulty starting young trees. With the need for supplemental watering, correct irrigation practices are important to tree health and efficient water use. Fall is tree planting time and an important time to water established trees in the absence of adequate precipitation. Whether a new tree or an established tree, correct watering is important. Too little as well as too much water can lead to tree stress, a decline in growth, and water waste.

Mulch is very important to the overall health of our plants, but are all mulches created equal? Some may have more benefits than others and some may not be as helpful as we think they are. Benefits of Mulch Mulch, when properly applied, can provide a lot of great benefits to our plants, including:

I often hear from vegetable or flower gardeners who are unhappy with their soil quality. They routinely incorporate organic matter in the soil each fall, but are still disappointed with their heavy soil. Why aren’t they developing beautiful crumbly dark brown soil that’s easy to plant and great for vegetable root crops? Routinely tilling your garden soil each fall and spring could be the culprit.

Leaves. Useful to the tree. Great for jumping in. Not much fun to clean up. Find out what you should be doing with those fallen leaves to let them help you and your landscape in the long run.

As we are ending 2023, the temperature high and/or low could be consistently at or less than 32°F with a possible chance of snow precipitation. For turfgrass areas in December, the process of dormancy for both warm and cool-season grasses has already occurred. In regards to water use in dormant lawns in cooler temperatures, December is not the time to use irrigation in grass areas. The Photo above is from Pioneer Underground Lawn Sprinklers. https://pioneerunderground.net/sprinkler-winterization-omaha/