These lists are not designed to interfere with high school, college, or professional football games, sunset boating, shrimping, hunting, golfing, eating chicken wings at a local sports bar, oyster roasts, collecting oysters or clams from the local waters, or watching NASCAR on the couch with closed eyes.  

This is not designed to be a “honey do” list.

Many of you will be changing out annual color in the next few weeks. While the beds are empty, you have the chance to amend your soil for better flower production and address any drainage problems.

If the bed stays wet, this is a good time to raise it with the addition of soil or amendments.

You can also crown the bed so it drains off to the sides.

Back To Natures’ Flower Bed Amendment has proven to do a superb job in our Lowcountry soils. The special blend of composted cotton burrs, composted cattle manure, feather meal, cottonseed meal, and alfalfa meal has the best of gardeners coming back for more. Alfalfa contains Triacantanol, a natural growth enhancer, and is high in organic Nitrogen to get your plants growing.

The Flower Bed Amendment may also help in the suppression and control of certain fungal diseases.

Here is what Dr. Herman Daniell had to say about his experience with the product, “The cotton burr flower bed mulch with amendments has been a superior product for my rose garden. I have had healthier bushes with more blooms since I began using this product.”

Many of you will also be changing out containers, hanging baskets and potted plants.

If your plants are in an exposed place requiring daily watering, consider adding soil moist or other water holding gels to your soil.

These gels and the use of a wetting agent like Aqueduct can make your life much easier. If you go away for the weekend, your plants will hardly miss you.

If you applied preemergent herbicides in August, put your follow up application out eight to 10 weeks later. We have a very long season for weed seeds to germinate here, so you must keep that protective barrier in place. Up North the soil gets too cold for the winter weeds to germinate after a short window of time; however, here the window of opportunity for those pesky winter weeds stays open much longer.

I can see I got a little too fired up writing about Flower Bed Amendment, so I will have to continue this To Do List next week. If you try the product, you will see why so many people rave about the benefits of using this organic product.

Bill Lamson-Scribner can be reached during the week at Possum’s Landscape and Pest Control Supply, 481 Long Point Rd in Mt. Pleasant (971-9601), 3325 Business Circle in North Charleston (760-2600), or 606 Dupont Rd, in Charleston (766-1511).  Fax your questions to 406-2700 or e-mail them to your newspaper’s editors. You can also call in your questions to “ The Garden Clinic”, Saturdays from 12-1 p.m. on 1250 WTMA  (The Big Talker).