QUESTION OF THE WEEK
My peaches have black spots and holes in them and look awful. What’s wrong?
Answer:Cuts in the fruit begin to bleed sap. This can be from physical injuries, such as from a stink bug, or a limb blowing the peach up against another branch. With stink bugs, they cause a condition called catfacing. It's not a worm inside, just some physical damage from some early feeding.
But it can also be caused by the plum curculio, a little weevil that cuts a small crescent-shaped flap on the peach and lays an egg in it. Out of that egg hatches a worm that crawls to the center and feeds around the stone (seed) of the peach, causing it to either look like it's ripening early. Then it just falls off.
If it happens when the peaches are small you'll lose them, but if it happens when they’re older, they'll go ahead and develop, but you'll be rewarded with a little extra protein in that fruit you pick at harvest time!
Plum curculios are controllable in many ways. Check your Extension Office for tips. Mainly, discard all damaged and/or fallen fruit, keep your trees mulched in summer, and remove all leaf litter in winter where the adults overwinter.
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PLANT OF THE WEEK
Shrimp Plant
(Justicia brandegeana)
 This is one of my favorites for shady areas. It provides wonderful color with its shrimp-like bracts, and once established, doesn’t need extra water or fertilizers. It also accepts quite a bit of sun.
It grows to about 4’ tall and blooms from late spring through fall. In severe winters, it will freeze back, but after you clip it to the ground, it returns reliably. In mild winters, it needs just a little cosmetic pruning in late March.
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PLANTING TIPS OF THE WEEK
- Plant hot-weather lovers like hibiscus, esperanza (Yellow Bells), and mandevilla.
- For summer annual color, add celosia and cosmos for upright color or portulaca (moss rose) for groundcover or to cascade down a container.
- Add zinnias. I like the narrow leaf zinnia, which comes in many colors, and provides a tidy mound of on-going color along a border or in a container. It also makes a good flower for drying.
- In the vegetable garden: plant okra, amaranth, Malabar spinach, pumpkins, winter squashes, watermelons and cantaloupes.
- Keep those tomatoes well fed, they need good vigor to continue to set fruit.
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THIS WEEK'S FEATURE
Jeff Yarbrough from The Emerald Garden has the scoop on shade plants from hostas to new varieties of shrubs, groundcovers, and specimen accents.
The Emerald Garden’s plant list for shade
Hostas: Queen Josephine, Gold Standard, Margarita
Hydrangeas
Crested leopard plant (Ligularia)
Heuchera (coral bells)
Abelia ‘Mardi Gras’ (variegated one)
Abelia ‘Rose Creek’
Japanese maple ‘Bloodgood’
Ajuga ‘Chocolate Chip’
Acuba
Japanese aralia
Taro
Plumbago (also check out Plumbago scandens, a shade-lover that blooms white)
Columbine (spring bloomer)
Bear’s breech
Aztec grass
Agapanthus
Cleyera
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