The Muhley grass a Xeriscape grass, which is one of my favorite plants. I love to use this grass in clusters. Now, when we call a plant a grass, this does not mean that is looks like the grass we use or the lawn. For the purpose of landscaping, these ornamental grasses come in all shapes and sizes. Perhaps the most common denominators is that they are all clumping and usually most ornamental grasses have a very narrow needle like leaf.

There are literally hundreds of varieties that grow in many different states. What is nice about an ornamental grass from a maintenance standpoint is that you basically only have to trim them once a year, usually only in the spring. You can trim them fairly hard as they tend to recover quite quickly. I used them in many of the landscapes that I do, because I am extremely interested and fully understand the importance of water conservation.

These are plants that once established, can get dry but will not fall apart. They also are free of insects and diseases for the most part. The flowers of ornamental grasses are called plumes; plumes are always elongated, soft, feathery, and wispy. They usually tend to be white with some form of pink or blush. They are very pretty and tend to bloom in the fall.

I use them in the background of an island planting often placing six of them staggered, behind a small tree in the island. I also sue them in an English garden kid of landscape as they make a nice cluster in the background with a variety of perennials in the front. At our nursery we have three main types of ornamental grasses, small medium or large, and we invite you to come see them if you are interested in adding them to your landscape. Phone 352-383-3303.

It is such a gloomy day today and it looks like we are in for our first cool weekend. I think most of us are ready for a change in weather. I was going to mow but it looks like it will start raining any minute, so I will just take a break. I expect tat the cooler weather will slow the growth of the weeds and due to all of the rain the weeds have been terrible this year. So many homes that i see have lost their entire lawn as well as many landscape plants to fungus,so many have to start over. If you have had a problem with wet non-draining soil then you may want to consider a French drain to get the water out of the lawn and landscape, if not the soil will continue to pack and as the years go by it could get worse.

Dear friends, all soil need an occasional tonic. The following tonic is a soil stimulant-which will help to activate the existing soil microbes so that your soil can work for you rather than against you.

Fall Soil Booster
1 bottle of beer
1 cup lemon ammonia
1/2 cup murphy's oil soap
½ cup, Alaska fish fertilizer

*Note: The fish fertilizer must be strained through cheese cloth, before you add it to the hose end sprayer. Do not accidentally get this product on your skin, as it might have an odor and cats will chase you.

Add all the ingredients together in the hose end sprayer and apply evenly over the yard.

In regards to landscaping, many of you who have established landscapes may need to re-evaluate the size of your planting beds. Here is the reason why; when your specimen plants were first planted they were much smaller and most likely in proper balance with the size of the bed. As they age they become larger and this effects the balance and rhythm of the design. So, all you have to do is enlarge the bed, sometime only a few feet and you will find that the flow is much better, of course by increasing the size you will have add plants and they will specifically have to lower growing varieties.

If you do not want to do this yourself, you could always call Simms landscaping as this is one of the things we specialize in. That number is 352-383-3303

If you have clay pots stacked along the side of the garage, most likely covered with black mold, I have a solution for you. Why not rejuvenate those pots. You may need to set aside a little time to do some scrubbing but it will be worth it. The best idea, recruit a family member to help you clean them, as this may not be the most joyful thing you could be doing on a Saturday morning.

Here is a tonic which will make them clean up a lot easier:

Clay Pot Cleaner:
One gallon of water
½ dish detergent
2 cups of bleach

In the one gallon of water, mix the detergent and bleach and scrub away the mold. Be sure to only scrub the outside. No need to do the inside because nobody will see it.

Now this time of year there are still a few lingering aphids. Aphids are soft bodied insects that look similar to gnats. If there were just a few of them it wouldn't be that big of deal, however aphids usually appear in big numbers. In this volume, they can severely damage a plant, small plants can even be killed. Here is a very famous Garden Rebel tonic which has been used over the years and people of the country have had great success with it. I used this tonic as a child on my plants, and it has never failed me. Do not apply it in the heat of the day, only apply early in the morning or late in the afternoon.

Aphid Tonic
2 garlic cloves, finely crushed
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tables spoons rubbing alcohol
3 table spoons peppermint soap

The specific brand of peppermint soap I use is called Dr. Bronners Pure Peppermint Castile Soap. The places you can find this in health food stores and my wife has even seen it a time or two at Wal-Mart, in the pharmacy section.

This tonic is applied by putting it in a pump up sprayer and spritzing it directly onto the bugs. Be sure to never increase the dosage as these amount seems to be A oaky and do the job.