Weekly Garden Tip

September 3, 2006

By Gene Joyner, Extension Agent
Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension Service

If you’ve lived in Florida for a long time you’ve known from past experience that this month and next month are the worst months for hurricanes and tropical storms. The devastation caused by the last two years’ hurricanes have left many people very wary of doing large scale landscaping improvements until after hurricane season is over with.

If you wait till November though to do large scale landscaping rather than complete projects now, you will miss a good portion of the growing season. In November plants are beginning to slow down their growth in anticipation of the upcoming winter so you won’t see a lot of strong growing until late February or March the following year.

Even though we may run a risk of hurricanes in the next few weeks, this is something that Floridians have always lived with. Make sure that you have prepared your landscape though as much as practical to minimize the effects of hurricane force winds. All pruning should have been completed on large trees months ago so they offer less wind resistance. Overgrown shrubs that might be broken off or uprooted can be pruned back to minimize that happening.

Make sure that all pruning tools are sharp and in good condition so that they will be available if you’re doing clean up after storms occur. Having some heavy posts, stakes and tying materials for uprooting and standing fallen plants back up is a good idea, too. If you’re able physically to do large scale debris removal that involves the use of chain saws and other equipment, have those in good working order and have a good supply of gas and oil for those machines.

Trees that go down often dislodge or break sprinkler pipes running close to the root balls so if you’re a do-it-yourselfer that can fix minor breaks, keep a supply of sprinkler parts, PVC pipe, glue and other materials needed for quick repairs. Often times following major storms it will be days or weeks before irrigation companies can visit your property to do repair work and it’s important following storms to irrigate quickly, particularly if the storm is a dry one without a lot of heavy rainfall.

If a storms threatens, too, don’t forget to take down and secure outside hanging plants, birdfeeders, or other things that might get dislodged and broken. Plants in a screen room or patio if they are quite large and can’t be moved easily should be turned over or laid flat to minimize their getting damaged.

Some people will move large numbers of potted plants inside the main home to further protect them, but remember if the building is shuttered up and very dark many of these plants if they’re left in for more than 2 or 3 days will drop some foliage or show other signs of being unhappy with the darker than normal conditions.

Also check potted plants before bringing them indoors for unwanted hitchhikers such as frogs, ants, snails, or slugs which sometimes can be in these plants in an outside environment.
If you live in an urban area, check the street trees in your neighborhood and around your home to make sure they are not too close to power lines. If you see trees that obviously would be a danger in a hurricane to taking out power lines, report it so that it can be taken care of before the storm strikes and the power is put out in your neighborhood more easily.

If you have questions about hurricane preparations in your landscape or how to care for certain plants following the storm, you can get some valuable free advice from the Palm Beach Extension Service. Dial 233-1750 in the north and central county area or 276-1260 in the south county area