KTKA

The KTKA Community Garden is experiencing what many gardens are this time of year, so we brought in our garden expert to address these concerns.

Dave Jackson is seeing a lot of crab grass, even in his own garden.

"There's good news and bad news here, and that is you are seeing the seed heads now, and they are coming out just as fast as they can right now because the days are going shorter, and the crab grass wants to go to seed," Jackson said.

He urges property owners to mow off the crab grass before the seed matures otherwise the natural process will mean more crab grass next year.

Before you apply more crab grass killer, take a good look at coloration of your crab grass. If some of the stems are starting to turn red that means that the crab grass is nearing the end of its growing cycle. If that's the case, don't spray it. Just keep it short. The crab grass will die in about a month, Jackson said.

Labor Day weekend brings the peak season for seeding your lawn. Mow it to about 1.5" and rake it up before applying seed, he said.

Fall webworm or leaf rollers are plaguing shrubs and trees causing blight in your landscape.

The worm eats the leaf, killing it.

"About all you can do right now is trim that part off, just take your trimmers and prune the part out, and then this fall -- since it had some activity in terms of being killed -- remember to give your shrubs and your trees a little bit of fertilizer and that will happen in October," Jackson said.

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To contact Jackson, drop by Jackson's Greenhouse, 1933 NW Lower Silver Lake Road, or call (785) 232-3416 or submit your question via our Web site by clicking into the link (above right) that says "submit your garden question here.