An essential landscape garden chore is remedying plant damages, injuries, and stresses. The first step is routine inspection of landscape plants. This gives structure to garden maintenance by helping to prioritize chores. Quick attention to small and seemingly trivial problems keeps what should be minor maintenance tasks from becoming major renovations.
Inspection
Inspect leaves and flowers first. Not only are they the easiest to see, but disease and pest problems, along with moisture and heat stresses, may appear here first. Tree trunks and branches are next. Some problems like mechanical injuries are easy to spot, but identification of bacterial and fungal problems need expert identification. Roots, especially those of trees and shrubs, are inaccessible and hard to inspect. However, root injuries or diseases are important but sometimes forgotten pieces in plant health maintenance.
Help
Assistance may be as close as books like Pirone's Tree Maintenance (7th Edition) or The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting & Pruning Techniques by Tracy DiSabato-Aust. Another source of good information is The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Cooperative Extension System. Extension agents in many area offices offer help and may maintain landscape and garden websites through state universities. Staff in local garden centers is often well trained and experienced in diagnosing regional problems. They are usually qualified to make suggestions for combating problems.
Problems That Appear in Mid- to Late-Summer
- Disease and Pest Damage
A branch full of dead leaves in an otherwise healthy tree raises a red flag. Cut out problematic branches immediately, identify cause and plan for solution. Hopefully, quick action will prevent spread of the problem to the rest of the tree or neighboring trees. (Photo #1)
Deer and other mammals prefer some plants to others. The easiest solution is to grow plants that animal pests do not like. Taste deterrents are initially inexpensive and easy-to-use remedies. Repeated chomping on plants leads to stunted growth, little or no flowering and sometimes death. (Photo #2)
- Mechanical Injuries
Wires left in place too long bring about girdling - trunk damage that leads to tree death. Electric wire from light strings left in place year around is often overlooked until decorated trees cannot contend with midsummer stresses and begin to die. To prevent girdling, regularly loosen light strings left as permanent decorations. (Photo #3)
- Moisture and Heat Stress
Shrubs and small trees planted under building projections show desiccation and dieback due to lack of water. An unfortunate and illogical assumption is that rain will provide enough moisture. These same plants often suffer from heat stress because of their positions close to buildings. Windows and brightly colored exteriors may reflect intolerable amounts of light and heat into nearby plants. (Photo #4)
- Neglect
Allowing volunteer plants to grow through established trees and shrubs leads not only to initial untidiness, but formidable cleanup tasks later. Volunteers may also rob desirable plants of moisture, nutrients and light when continued growth is permitted. (Photo #5)
More about Garden Landscape Maintenance
Landscape Maintenance Mistakes: Common Errors in Residential and Public Landscapes. Landscape maintenance mistakes abound in both residential and public landscapes. What are some of these landscape maintenance errors and how do they happen?
Tree Death in the Landscape: Manage garden and urban trees for health and longevity. Avoid tree death in garden and urban landscapes by using appropriate planting and cultural techniques, good sense and attention to detail, especially during construction.
© Text and photograph by Georgene A. Bramlage. 2008. Reproduction without permission prohibited.
Georgene A. Bramlage - Suite 101 Landscaping Feature Writer and Topic Editor Free-lance Garden and Landscape Writer and Consultant
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