Geyata Ajilvsgi

currently in Austin

resources

Meet backyard butterflies and how to keep them around with tips from Geyata Ajilvsgi, author of Butterfly Gardening for Texas.

categories:

tags:

appeared on episodes:

Backyard Butterflies

Recent Episodes

Planting New Memories

Missing sentimental plants you can’t grow in CTX? Jennie and Matt Horvath from Wimberley Gardens start new memories with Texas tough versions that take the place of those you left behind. Cottage garden style meets contemporary design. Discover what’s troubling your fruit trees and learn to divide succulents. Read the blog!

New Garden Designs

Explore large space designs with Mandi Golman from Yarrow Landscaping, including an urban permaculture and lumberyard renovated into an art gallery/living space. On tour, as Alitza and Alfredo Vallejo approached their 50th wedding anniversary, he broke new ground for a garden of family memories. Daphne examines crown gall after a wet spring and why this | watch episode →

September To Do List

Plant: ornamental & wildlife

Late month: Perennials, shrubs, ornamental (clumping) grasses
Late month: Cover crops for dormant vegetable beds: clover, hairy vetch, elbon (cereal) rye, Austrian winter peas, or annual rye

Plant: herbs

Perennial herbs like thyme, rosemary, oregano

Plant: food crops

Start winter seeds like lettuce, broccoli, kale and spinach in pots in shady areas
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Vegetable Planting Guides (Central Texas) http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/travis/home-landscape/edible-gardens/growing-vegetables/

Prune

Early month: lightly prune roses and perennials
Oak trees safe to prune

Divide/Move

Iris, daylily, fern, liriope, spring-blooming perennials, violets, cannas

Prep

Add compost to vegetable gardens along with organic fertilizer in prep for winter vegetables
Decide wildflower seeds and bulbs to plant in November

Lawn

Brown patch: Apply a quarter inch of compost. Apply corn meal. Find out what’s causing the problem like low drainage spots or compacted areas.
Apply corn gluten as a weed pre-emergent. Results are erratic but it does add some nitrogen to the soil
Mow high to fend off weed seeds that germinate in September’s rains. Taller grass shades them out.

Other tasks

If fall webworms are a problem, puncture webs with broom handle for wasps to naturally control. Or spray with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt).

[back to top]