It’s early spring which means time to pull the mower out of the garage and turn that engine over for the first time in months. As with most years, this task may be easier said than done. You fill the tank, check the oil, then pull that string hoping to hear that engine hum to life. Instead with a disappointing spurt, it putters back to sleep. Discouraged, you bounce between the carburetor and spark plug just knowing there is a simple solution. Finally, everything gets cleaned then reassembled, you pull that cord but this time the mower springs to life. As you stand there feeling the cold air on your skin you survey the lawn and think about how little you’re up for this effort today. Why not take another month off of this lawncare duty by partaking in your Panhandle horticulture agents’ “No-Mow March” initiative. Doing so can not only save you the early season frustration outlined above but may help you hold on to a little bit of your hard-earned dollars.
The Underlying Cost
It’s time we talk about the price of cutting your grass. A universal expense should you push your mower or ride on top is gasoline. Have you ever taken a minute to determine how much it costs to mow your lawn across the course of a season? For our purposes here, we’ll consider a single season to be March through September. Assuming you mow weekly as you should, that accounts for 28 sessions. On average, assuming your grass is dry, a walk behind mower will burn through about a liter or roughly a quarter gallon per acre of mowed lawn. With gas prices in Florida running at $3.45 per gallon according to AAA, that will cost $24.15 to cut your lawn across a single mowing season. Riding mowers exacerbate this even more burning through half to three quarters of a gallon per acre mowed. To be fair, they have a bigger job being as they must propel their own weight and that of the operator. In this instance, the cost of gas can run you anywhere between $48.30 and $72.45 in a season. All of this assumes that your mower is running efficiently. Why not cut yourself and your wallet a break and avoid mowing at all early in the season. Sit back and relax for a while longer this year and skip mowing in March and save yourself a little time and money. Your neighbors may complain. Tell them you’re helping both your back and the bees.
IFAS Photo
Beneficiaries
Early spring begins with emerging pollinator species. They spent the winter months holed up in their nests bunkered against the cold weather. Around March they stick their heads out and begin looking for nearby nectar sources. A good place to start is with the flowers which have popped up in your yard over winter. We see them as weeds, but to these titans of pollination they might just be the key to life.
Monarch (Danaus plexippus), Butterflies in the McGuire Butterfly Garden, flowers, plants. UF/IFAS Photo: Sally Lanigan.
Conclusion
Information on “No-Mow March” may be found by heading over to our information page located here. Information on pollinators may be found on these Ask IFAS documents or by contacting your local extension agent for this and any topic regarding your gardens and more.
Winter Storm Elliott brought freezing temperatures to the Panhandle on December 24th that lasted through December 28th, 2022. While we’ve seen freezing temperatures in years past, none remained below freezing for as long as Winter Storm Elliott did, resulting in significant injury to citrus in our region. Those trees that received significant freeze damage are more vulnerable to pests and diseases. One such pest we are seeing as a result of Winter Storm Elliott, are ambrosia beetles.
Granulate Ambrosia Beetle, Xylosandrus crassiusculus Photo credit: David Almquist.
Ambrosia beetles are a group of wood-boring insects that live in dead or severely stressed trees or dead wood. They are attracted to the odor that the dead/dying trees give off, which is why you may be seeing them now in freeze damaged citrus trees. Once they locate a sick tree, they bore into the lower part of the tree (about 2-3 feet from the ground), creating a tunnel or a gallery. You’ll likely notice sawdust from the galleries at the base of the tree or you may notice a toothpick like protrusion of sawdust at the base of the gallery.
Toothpick like protrusions from ambrosia beetles. Photo credit: Danielle Williams.
Several species of ambrosia beetles are considered true pests that attack living trees, but most species are secondary to another issue. Because ambrosia beetles generally prefer dead or dying trees, they are not typically a problem for citrus trees. If you are seeing signs of ambrosia beetles on your trees, the beetles are likely targeting trees that sustained major freeze damage from Winter Storm Elliott.
Unfortunately, there are no effective strategies to control ambrosia beetles once they attack a tree, so the best line of defense is to keep your trees healthy. Consider the first three UF/IFAS Florida-Friendly Landscape principles for maintaining tree health:
#1 Right Plant, Right Place: Select plants that match the site’s soil, light, water, and climatic conditions. Plants that are well adapted for our region will be lower maintenance and have a better chance of flourishing as opposed to those that aren’t. For information on citrus varieties adapted for our region, please visit: UF/IFAS Evaluating Cold-Hardy Citrus Varieties for the Panhandle | Panhandle Agriculture (ufl.edu)
#2 Water Efficiently and #3 Fertilize Appropriately: Proper irrigation and fertilization enhances plant growth. Over watering or over fertilizing can do more harm than good so it is best to follow UF/IFAS recommendation rates and application timing.
Wildflowers. Photo Credit: Tyler Jones, University of Florida/IFAS
To celebrate “No Mow March”, this month’s Gardening in the Panhandle LIVE was all about pollinators. “No Mow March” was inspired by “No Mow May” events that were originally organized in Great Britain then adapted by some of our more northern states. Lawns in the panhandle definitely need to be mowed in May, so we set our sights on March.
Most warm season turfgrass species don’t grow much (or at all) in March, but some people may feel the need to mow their lawns. If you feel the need to mow, we recommend you leave the borders of your lawn or a small area un-mowed. This will encourage flowering plants to bloom and bring more pollinators to your yard.
Butterflies are loved by many for their beauty, but they also pollinate a lot of our favorite plants. To encourage butterflies to visit your garden, try planting some things they like to eat. The publication “Butterfly Gardening in Florida” provides lots of information about bringing butterflies to your yard. Be sure to check out the tables in the article for information on seasons and life cycles. If butterflies aren’t your thing, then search for plants by pollinator species in this webpage on Nectar Plants. Some plants have Extrafoliar Nectaries to attract a diversity of insects.
If you’re interested in anything about any insect, then you’ll enjoy the Featured Creatures website. You can search by species name or by what they like to eat.
Not all bees live in hives. Some bees, like mason bees, prefer to live in above ground “houses” or “hotels”. You can build your own pollinator hotel if you follow the simple steps found in the article “Build Your Own Pollinator Hotel”. And here’s even more information on “gardening for bees”.
Some of us live in the woods and need suggestions on shade loving plants. The article “Landscaping in the Shade” provides some good information on what plants can handle shady spots. A number of different ornamental gingers like the shade.
Turfgrass isn’t the only groundcover on the market. There are lots of alternatives like frogfruit and perennial peanut that attract pollinators.
If you’re interested in being a part of “No Mow March”, the first step is to sign the pledge at go.ufl.edu/NoMowMarch. Also, be sure to record your “No Mow March” observations at iNaturalist.
Past episodes of Gardening in the Panhandle LIVE can be found on our YouTube playlist.
Every spring, a certain type of pollinator is busy in the yards and landscapes of our area. It may be alarming to see small piles of soil mounded up amidst carefully tended grass, but there is no need for concern. In fact, quite the opposite! The creatures making those mounds are bees, but they’re not the type that want to sting you. Instead, they’re harmless, solitary pollinators who just want a safe place to lay their eggs.
Miner bee burrows. Photo Credit: University of Florida/IFAS
It’s easy to confuse a bee digging in the lawn or landscape for a yellowjacket and become alarmed. Yellowjackets are very different; they form hives underground consisting of hundreds or even thousands of individual hornets. Miner bees, on the other hand, each dig their own small burrow. Each miner bee is looking for the same sort of place to build a little hidey hole, so many individuals might be attracted to an area with prime real estate, so to speak. This can lead to large numbers of mounds in close proximity to one another, but again, there is no reason to be alarmed.
A miner bee. Photo Credit: University of Florida/IFAS
Each female bee will dig a vertical tunnel up to a foot and a half deep, then make side chambers lined with waterproof material. She stocks each chamber with pollen and nectar, then lays her eggs. Larvae remain in the ground until the following spring. When they emerge as adults, they start the whole process over again.
It is important to understand and protect pollinators such as the miner bee, because they all provide a valuable service to the environment. Pollinators ensure that all the plants around us can reproduce, by carrying genetic material from one flower to another. You can help these little messengers in their task by learning about their habits and making a little room for them in your landscape. When you see these small mounds of soil in your yard, don’t worry! The bees will do their job and the next rain will likely wash away the soil.
Consider attracting other pollinators as well! Plant flowers that attract native pollinators, or leave an area of your landscape “wild”. Let dead plant stalks remain over the winter as nesting sites for pollinators, or try letting a patch of native wildflowers escape mowing for some time in the spring.
For more information, there are plenty of publications out there:
With the arrival of spring weather in the Panhandle, many people have begun planning a vegetable garden. However, many gardeners that I talk to tell me more of their gardening frustrations than successes. I surmise the main reason for their frustration is simply doing what gardeners have done across centuries and all over the world, planting in the ground. That’s a great strategy in many places; unfortunately, in the Panhandle, we are not often blessed with great soil. We can overcome our poor soil conditions and be more successful by going above ground with raised beds!
Gardening in raised beds has three primary benefits for area gardeners: the ability to control soil conditions, reduce disease problems, and be space efficient. The first raised bed benefit is the most critical. Soil in and around much of the Panhandle is sandy in nature with little rich organic matter. To make matters worse, much of our native soil is either too well-drained and dries out rapidly or is the opposite and frequently stands in water – neither is conducive to garden success. We can alleviate all the above issues by creating our own perfectly draining, nutrient-rich soil environment inside a raised bed. One can either make their own soil concoction by experimenting with different ratios of compost, aged pine bark, peat moss, perlite, etc. or simply purchase bagged garden soil. I use either 100% mushroom compost or a 1:1 mix of mushroom compost & aged pine bark, but many soil component combinations work well.
Cabbage grown in a 4’x8′ raised bed. The soil media is mostly mushroom compost. Photo courtesy of Daniel Leonard.
Gardening in raised beds can also dramatically reduce the incidence of disease. Many of the most serious vegetable garden diseases like Bacterial Wilt and Late Blight in tomato are soilborne, surviving for years in the ground and only needing a splash of rainwater to transfer them onto your vegetable plants. Growing in beds with curated soil mostly alleviates this issue. Our sandy soils also tend to have damaging levels of difficult to control nematodes (microscopic round worms that feed on plant roots). Because nematodes prefer porous sandy ground, switching to raised beds with rich organic soils also removes that concern.
Finally, growing in raised bed gardens allows for a very efficient use of space. A typical raised bed is 4’x8’ in diameter, meaning you can site one nearly anywhere, regardless of how big or small your yard is. You don’t even need a yard space in some cases! If you have only a sunny porch or driveway, you can certainly mimic raised bed conditions with large containers. Most people are surprised by the amount of produce that you can pack into one or several 32 square foot raised garden beds, especially when you pay attention to plant mature size and group accordingly. The square foot gardening method is a great way to maximize raised bed produce yield.
If you have struggled in past years to produce a fruitful, high-yielding, mostly disease-free garden, your problem might be below your feet in the soil. As you plan your vegetable gardening activities this year, try gardening in raised beds and get ready for your best gardening season yet! For more information about vegetable gardening, raised bed construction, or any other horticultural topic, contact your local UF/IFAS County Extension office. Happy Gardening!
