Trillium Garden Club of Jonesboro

10/22/2024

Lawn burw**d or “sticker w**d” is a winter annual that germinates in October and grows all winter long. Next April, it produces the burs that are capsules that contain burw**d seed. To avoid the stickers in the spring, you must treat lawn burw**d during fall and winter.

The most important factor for effectively controlling lawn burw**d is to apply post-emergence herbicides in early winter prior to flowering and seed set. The plant becomes highly difficult to control once the burs are formed. View our publication for control practices: https://tinyurl.com/LawnBurw**d

10/18/2024

Those bright yellow flowers you're seeing along the highways and ditches are called swamp sunflowers (Helianthus angustifolius)! 🌼🌼🌼

These plants appear in the fall and are native, herbaceous perennials. The flowers grow on single and multibranched stems, and their native habitats range from lowland sites such as bottomland and floodplains to drier upland areas. They prefer full sun but tolerate partial shade. These native beauties attract both birds for seed and bees for nectar and pollen.

Learn more about swamp sunflowers from our friends at the LSU AgCenter: https://ow.ly/O2OM50TNS5H

You can also access our Wildflowers for Mississippi Meadows and Gardens Extension publication here: https://ow.ly/IKQN50TNS5I

07/11/2024

🍅 The July Garden Guide is out! 🍅

Some produce you can plant this month include: basil, Irish potatoes, tomatoes, southern peas, sweet corn, cucumbers, pumpkins, summer squash, winter squash, pak choi, bok choi, cabbage, and collards.

Some flowers you can plant this month include: daisies, sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, black-eyed susans, coneflowers, lantana, pentas, gomphrena, and moss rose.

Show us your garden with !

Happy gardening,
Randy 🌿

P.S. .extension Social Media Manager here with a message:

Hello everyone! I'm sure many of you noticed we took a hiatus from posting on Instagram. Our Instagram page has been a hit, and we are so happy to see how supportive everyone has been.

In the abundance of support we received, we also got several requests to make our content more accessible to folks who aren't on Instagram. To accommodate, you can now find more robust Garden Guides on the website as well as a page for The Arkansas Garden!

July Garden Guide: https://www.uaex.uada.edu/yard-garden/arkansas-garden/garden-guides/july.aspx

Thanks so much to everyone who has followed us so far, and we hope to keep sharing the gardening content you all love! —Melissa J.

06/10/2024

TREE OF THE MONTH: SASSAFRAS

Sassafras is a small to medium-sized tree growing along slopes, tree lines, and bottomlands as an understory tree. Sassafras marches to the beat of its own drum. It is dioecious, which means its male and female flowers occur on separate trees. Only 5% of trees reproduce in this manner.

Here are some characteristics of sassafras:

Leaves: Each sassafras leaf is unique meaning they grow in different shapes. They range from 4 to 6 inches long and 2 to 4 inches wide with a yellowish-green coloring.

Bark: Younger sassafras trees have grayish-brown bark that slightly furrows. As they mature their bark becomes darker and furrows deepen.

Fruit: Dangling from a thin red stalk, sassafras fruit is a blue drupe about one-half an inch long and eaten by birds, squirrels, and other small mammals.

Habitat: Sassafras grows throughout Oklahoma, Texas, and the eastern U.S.

Its wood is watertight, making it an excellent resource for constructing small boats and oars. Historically, dugout canoes have been made of sassafras trees and used along the Mississippi River. But the most interesting fact about sassafras is its oil. Made from the tree’s bark, twigs, and roots, sassafras oil has been banned by the Food and Drug Administration for its high concentration of safrole, a carcinogen.

BLOG POST: https://extension.msstate.edu/blog/tree-the-month-sassafras

06/03/2024

Want to grow grapes in Arkansas? Check out our resources.

04/19/2024

01/31/2024

When putting a unique plant in a plain ole pot just won't do.

01/05/2024

Hate "stickers" in your yard?

👉If you missed the preemergence timeframe in the fall, it’s time to turn to postemergence herbicides. Postemergence herbicides such as 2,4-D, simazine, dicamba, metsulfuron, mecoprop, fluroxypyr, or auxin containing formulations will get the job done. These should be applied in January, February, or March.

These herbicides can be found in products at your local garden store. Ask for help finding the right herbicide, and you’ll be right on track for a sticker-free lawn. Always read and follow label instructions when using these herbicides.

This pesky winter annual lawn burw**d starts growing in the fall. The tricky part about this w**d is that it often goes unnoticed until fully matured. When temperatures rise in the spring and summer, the plants start to form prickly spines, a.k.a. stickers, on the tips.

Blog post: https://extension.msstate.edu/blog/tips-for-treating-lawn-burw**d

11/29/2023

The main types of holiday cacti are Thanksgiving cactus (Schlumbergera truncata), Christmas cactus (Schlumbergera x buckleyi), and Easter cactus (Hatiora gaertneri)!

The Thanksgiving cactus typically blooms early in the holiday season, from Thanksgiving through Christmas. The leaf margins on this cactus have two to four saw-toothed projections pointing upward on the sides of the stem. This cactus comes in several flower colors, ranging from red and lavender to salmon-orange and white.

The Christmas cactus blooms later in the season, from Christmas through March. The leaf margins usually have four rounded scallops along the edges of the stem. The flower colors are usually red and white.

Although not a winter holiday plant, the Easter cactus is a great plant to give in the spring. The Easter cactus generally blooms from March to May. It may bloom again in the fall. Flowers are usually pink or red. Leaf margins are smoother than the other seasonal cacti and have brownish, hair-like bristles at their tips.

Caring for holiday cacti is not difficult. They will bloom if kept in cooler parts of the house, away from heating vents. A coarse soil mix (high humus, sharp sand) that provides drainage is important. Keep the soil medium moist, not wet. Holiday cacti can easily be overwatered and are susceptible to root rot.

For repeat flowering, place cacti in a room with cool temperatures (60 to 65 degrees), stop fertilizing, allow the soil to become dry between waterings, and provide 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness every night for 5 to 6 weeks. Once flower buds appear, move the plants to a bright-light location and resume normal watering and fertilizing. Maintain cool temperatures (60 to 70 degrees) to avoid bud drop. Cacti are easy to propagate by making cuttings of stem sections. Propagation works best when done in early spring or summer.

08/04/2023

Let's show pawpaw some love!

The pawpaw fruit is one of the most tasty late-season rewards for wildlife and hikers. These trees produce the largest edible fruits native to North America! The fruit begins to ripen in late summer and peaks in late September and October.

The flavor of this fruit is often compared to bananas but with hints of mango, vanilla, and citrus. People often use pawpaw fruits in such as pawpaw pudding, ice cream, and more. The fruit has the ungainly appearance of a small green potato and may occur in clusters, like this image here.

To produce fruit, a pawpaw tree receives pollen from flowers on a different tree. However, this "other tree" can be farther away than you think! Although pawpaws frequently grow in clusters (or a “patch”), the trees in one patch are often genetically identical, connected underground by roots. Thus, they are a single plant, and pollen must come from elsewhere.

Image: Once you see one cluster, look around for more! Pawpaws grow in small groves or patches. (NPS / Zoie G.)

08/02/2023

Here's your landscape checklist for August! Some tasks include...

🌱Plant daylilies.
➗Divide and transplant Louisiana iris, Easter lily, canna, liriope, ajuga, and Shasta daisy.
🌼Plant mums for fall blooms.
💧Water plants.
🐛Watch for garden pests and diseases.
🌹Prune rose canes to encourage growth.

We discuss each of these tasks in more detail + provide further resources in our latest blog post. Find it here: https://ow.ly/aCbP50PpnEc