Giant pumkpins? Yes, please!

     I have had an epiphany. I want to grow giant pumpkins. Y’all are going to go along on the journey! Well, assuming someone reads this. Mr. Hatfield had purchased some seeds from an Atlantic Giant pumpkin and he and his boys grew some last year. He has brought me a bag of seeds from a pumpkin they grew that was around 130-140 pounds. I’ve started them in the greenhouse today and hopefully they’ll germinate and we’ll be on our way to growing some ginormous pumpkins. The pumpkins pictured to the left were around 400lbs, by the way.

     So, apparently, what you have to do is let the vine get goin’ and wait until it has 6 to 8 baby pumpkins on it and measure the girth of each of them every day and remove all but the fastest growing one, so that it gets all the nutrients that the plant produces. By the end of the growing season, you should have a really huge pumpkin! There are however, obstacles to this. Squash bugs can decimate your vines, the plants require a lot of water and fertilizer because of their fast growth, and they can grow too quickly and bust open! They can even grow so large that they tear their own vine if there isn’t any slack in it! What you need to do is pick a pumpkin fairly close to the base of the plant and pull it back toward it a bit so that there’s a bend in the vine that will allow the pumpkin to grow without putting a kink in the vine or tearing the plant out of the ground.
     I am no campaigning for a PLANET SCD fundraiser of a pumpkin patch for next year. It’s too late to start it this year… wish me luck!
     I’ll keep you up to date with this year’s pumpkins!


Jessica Logan Watters, GCLP                     Horticulture Technician, Chattahoochee Technical College

Pesky Pest: Japanese Beetles

     Japanese beetles, Popillia japonica, are probably the most frequent pest insect to harm our gardens and landscapes. Native to Japan they were first discovered in 1916 and were suspected to have hitched a ride in a shipment of iris tubers that arrived at a nursery in New Jersey. Since then, they have gone on to establish themselves in nearly all of the eastern United States as far west as Arkansas and north to Ontario Canada.  They are about a half inch long and have a greenish to brownish metallic sheen.

     Japanese beetles are not a problem in their native Japan because of natural enemies that keep their populations down, but here in the US that’s not the case. Here they tend to gather in large numbers and decimate plants. (see photo below, taken by D. Gordon E. Robertson). They eat the tender parts of the leaves between the veins so that they’re ‘skeletonized’. They love roses, filberts, Japanese maples, sycamores, and many, many other plants. They do tend to avoid evergreens, I guess the leaves aren’t as tender.

     Well, how do you get rid of them?  One form of control we’ve seen for years is that bag trap thing you hang in your yard with the pheromone/scent lure. Well, research has shown that yes they do attract beetles very well, but unfortunately, they do not trap that many. The beetles are attracted to your trap and eat your plants on their way to the trap and they eat them as they hang around not being trapped in the trap… So hanging one in your yard will actually cause more damage to your plants than not having one at all. So maybe sneak one in the yard of that mean guy down the street… (kidding!) Seriously though, there are many different chemicals to control Japanese beetle populations out there. Despite this they are still hard to control. You have to apply a chemical to your turfgrass in early spring to kill the grubs, and then you have to spray for adults repeatedly through the summer because they are so mobile they can come to your yard from anywhere. So to me, that sounds like an awful lot of chemicals that aren’t that effective. One old school way to kill them that works for small infestations or small yards is soapy water. You can just knock them off the plants early in the morning when they’re sluggish and drop them in soapy water.  Sraying soapy water is somewhat effective as well.

     Now the best Japanese beetle control, according to our esteemed Mr. Bishop is to make margaritas. His advice is to take the down-the-street-neighbor’s full trap, dump it in your blender, add some water and spray this delightful concoction on your plants. And of course, don’t use that blender again for actual margaritas. Having never done this myself, I can only say that research has shown that live beetles avoid dead of their own kind.

So, good luck!

Jessica Watters, GCLP Horticulture Technician, Chattahoochee Technical College

Native Plant of the Month: Bigleaf Magnolia

     The Bigleaf Magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla (macro meaning large, phylla meaning leaf), is a deciduous understory tree that grows to a height of 30-40’. It has the largest leaf and flower of any plant native to the United States, with the leaf measuring as much as 32” long and 12” wide! They are dark green above and silver below and are quite breathtaking.  Now, this photo, above, is quite beautiful but there's no point of reference for you to tell just how large everything is.  That flower is probably every bit of 8" tall.

     I’ve actually been campaigning to get one on campus when I discovered one last month in the woods surrounded by sweetgum saplings! (maybe I’m the only one who didn’t know it was there… I dunno.) Needless to say, the sweetgums are toast. Be sure you check it out next time you’re here- it’s back in the woods near the sidewalk at the hort. building, behind the adult-form ivy.

     If you have a wooded area and are looking for something a little different or unusual this would be an ideal specimen for a filtered/morning sun spot. It’d be a good idea to put them somewhere you won’t mind the leaves dropping in the fall… those big dried up leaves are fairly unsightly.

Jessica Watters, GCLP         Horticulture Technician, Chattahoochee Technical College

Beneficial Bugs: The Praying Mantis

     I know, I know. Here’s another ‘beneficial’ insect that isn’t prey-specific. They just eat other bugs. But they eat a lot of bugs, and the majority of them are pest insects. And so, the praying mantis stays on my list.

     There are 17 native species of mantids in the US and they all have the same basic shape but they do have differences in their size and their coloring. Some are camouflaged to look like green leaves, some brown leaves, some tree bark… you get the idea.

     Praying mantises are predatory insects in that they catch live bugs and eat them, not by scavenging dead stuff or eating plants. They catch their prey by laying in wait and snatching it with those creepy arms or by running a short distance to catch something. And, the rumor is true: the female does sometimes eat the male after mating. Sometimes just his head, sometimes she consumes him entirely. Ew. But, sometimes he does get away.

     In the fall the female will lay between 10 and 400 eggs in a casing of a light brown, fairly hard structure (left). It’s usually wrapped around a twig or blade of grass or is sometimes laid directly on the ground- depending on the species. The nymphs emerge the next spring and typically resemble ants for their first stage of life (you can see the modified legs though) in an aid for survival.

Did you know?

• That they are commercially available for placement in landscapes where gardeners want to avoid chemical pesticides?

• That they are bred in captivity as part of an exotic pet trade in parts of Asia and Africa?
• That non-native species are illegal to possess and release in the United States, under the Non-Native Invasive Species Act of 1992?
• They are believed to have evolved from cockroaches?
• The Australian mantis is apparently so tough that Austrialian geckos go into evasive maneuvers to aviod them?

....Now you know.

Jessica Logan Watters, GCLP             Horticulture Technician, Chattahoochee Technical College

June Horticulture Book of the Month

Apparently I missed May... Sorry y'all.

This book comes recommended from Bill Gruenewald:

" 'The Encyclopedia of Country Living' is a great book for any one to have. It's got a lot more than just Horticulture, but it has awesome "How to's" for grafting, Bee keeping (very detailed) Cultivating mushrooms and literaly anything you want to know about growing vegetables, shrubs and trees. It's also got a good list of medicinal herbs and ... See more plants that were commonly used "back in the days"(100 years ago) It's a great book! Every one in America should own a copy. Good for beginners and experts alike."


Sounds handy!  Thanks, Bill!