Beets. Photo courtesy of www.progressivealaska.blogspot.com

In most parts of the country, September marks the beginning of fall. In Central Florida, it marks yet another month of heat! Here are what we at John Madison Landscape recommend you can do to help keep your yard thriving through one more month of the Florida sun.

• September is the best month to seed your lawn with improved varieties of quality grass seed.
• Continue to monitor your yard for insect damage. Chinch bugs, fall armyworms, mole crickets, and sod webworms are still active in September.
• Look below your plants for accelerated weed growth due to all the recent rain. Once the rains stop, you might need to re-mulch.
• Start to think about your winter plantings. We recommend Beans, Beets, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Chinese Cabbage, Carrots, Cauliflower, Collards, Cucumbers, Eggplants, Escarole, Kale, Lettuce, Mustard, Onion Sets, Peas, Peppers, Radishes, Romaine, Rutabagas, Spinach, Squash, Strawberries, Sweet Corn, Swiss Chard, Tomatoes and Turnips.
• If you are wondering what plants have the ability to stay green all throughout winter, here are our best bets: Boxwoods, Pieris, Japanese Hollies, Rhododendron, Yew, Sky Pencil Holly, and Long Stalk Holly are known to give green leaves all through winter.
  

  Boxwoods. Photo courtesy of www.gardentyrant.com

• A good tip to know (in case we ever get snow): Don’t shake branches to remove snow. It will actually cause them to snap back and do more damage. (Tell your family up north!)

Keep that lawn looking great and if you would like one of our professional designers to come out and give you a free estimate for updating your lawn for the cooler months, click here or call us at 407-935-9151. For more landscaping tips in September or any other month, click here.