Trees and Shrubs Care

AGM Landscaping considers trees and shrubs an essential part of your ability to enjoy your lawn. We work to secure your complete landscape environment with stronger, healthier, more beautiful trees and shrubs that you'll appreciate for years to come.
 
With our tree and shrub services, you'll benefit from a program specifically designed to enhance and protect your landscape. Scheduled feeding of landscape ornamental trees and shrubs is imperative for the health and stability of this vegetation. We combine fertilization with insect and disease control measures customized to each region to keep your trees and shrubs thriving. Our trained specialists will always deliver a landscape you can be proud of. You can count on it.

Project Planet Hearth

Taking care of your lawn and garden is a labor of passion and love. You work hard to do things just right, because you want what's best for your landscape. But you also want what's best for the environment as a whole.

AGM Landscaping wants our customers to have complete information about the products being used, their purpose, and any special precautions you need to consider, because we understand that you want to know.  At the same time, we want you to know that we are committed to using only the safest products and using them responsibly.

Lawn Tips

To learn more about what you can do for your lawn, select a topic from the list below: 

Lawn Diseases

Most lawn diseases are caused by fungi, although grass species vary in their susceptibility to particular diseases. Other factors affecting disease development include the overall health of the lawn, prevalence of certain diseases in the geographic area, weather and seasonal conditions, and lawn maintenance practices.

Although their causes, symptoms, and treatments may vary, basics such as proper mowing and watering can help bolster your lawn's resistance to disease. Here's an overview of the diseases that could be invading and damaging your landscape, provided by  AGM Landscaping.


Brown Patch Disease

What’s Brown Patch Disease? Brown patch affects virtually all warm-season turfgrasses, but is most common in St. Augustinegrass. It becomes a severe problem when high temperatures and high humidity exist for a long period of time. Brown patch is caused by the fungus Rhizoctonia solani, which lives in the soil, thatch, and crowns of grass.

What to look for

Initial symptoms are water-soaked areas on leaf blades. Once dry, they wither and turn light brown. On St. Augustinegrass symptoms include circular patches that usually cover a large area of turf. The affected grass is closely pressed to the soil surface creating a sunken appearance. Infection of St. Augustinegrass lacks the well known “Smoke Ring” that appears around other infected grasses. Blighted grass may easily be pulled up because the rot occurs at the point of leaf attachment. In some cases the turfgrass may thin out in large areas, without the characteristic circular ring.

How to control

Avoid watering in the evening. Prune shrubs and trees to help dry out wet turf areas. Mow at the proper cutting height and frequency to prevent further stress to the lawn. Proper fertilization practices maintain a healthy, actively growing plant, which helps reduce disease severity. Where fungicides are warranted, timing of applications is critical, contact  AGM Landscaping.  We can help.

Lawn Pets

What can I do to prevent pests from damaging my trees palms and shrubs? Whether you have newly established landscape plants or stately mature trees and abundantly flowering shrubs, you have to stay on guard against opportunistic enemies. Certain insects, mites, and diseases, if not properly controlled, can weaken your trees and shrubs, making them unattractive and possibly causing them to die. Fortunately, with extra vigilance and a little preventive care, you can help reduce these problems and protect your plants' health and beauty. Here are some insights from AGM Landscaping:

Armor anyone

Controlling ornamental plant pests does not mean totally eliminating pests. That would be impossible and impractical. The key is to keep insect pest populations at levels below those causing damage. Before you have to take drastic measures to eliminate unwelcome invaders, here are four tips that will help prevent problems in the first place.

Plants out of place

When a plant is poorly adapted to its environment, it is more likely to have problems. For example, insects and diseases are more difficult to control on a shade-loving plant growing under the open sun. Make sure the location you have in mind is not contrary to the plant's needs.

Fertilizer

Maintaining plants in a healthy condition through proper fertilizing, watering and pruning will help protect plants against pest attack and speed recovery from damage.

Insects and mites are probably the most noticeable pests affecting ornamental plants. They hurt not only the appearance, but also the health and vigor of plants. These pests can be subdivided into chewing insects, and sucking insects and mites.
 
Chewing Insects

• Defoliation – Leaves are totally consumed. Likely culprits are gypsy moths, webworms, tent caterpillars, cankerworms, bagworms, and sawflies.
• Skeletonization – Feeding on leaves occurs between leaf veins. Japanese beetles and elm leaf beetles cause this damage.
• Notching – Insects feed at the leaf edge. These are symptoms of the black vine weevil and holly looper.
• Mining – Feeding on the inside of leaves creates tunnels, tracks or blotches. This is typical of birch leaf miners, holly leaf miners, and boxwood leaf miners.

Stem feeders include borers and root feeders:

• Borers – Destroy food- and water-conducting tissue, causing dieback and decline of the plant. These include the bronze birch borer, dogwood borer, lilac/ash borer, pine tip moth, shoot borers and bark beetles.
• Root feeders – These insects attack the plants roots, bringing on a general decline or the death of the plant. An example is the black vine weevil.

Sucking Insect and Mites

• Foliage or leaf feeders – Leave no evidence of holes, but cause small spots, discoloration, leaf curling or leaf cupping, and cause leaves to drop. Examples are aphids, white flies, scales, lace bugs, plant bugs, and spider mites.
• Stem feeders – Also do not cause holes, but their feeding causes plant dieback, decline, leaf drop, and death of the plant. Adelgid, scales, and mealy bugs are examples.

Danger Disease

Damage by disease can also be a serious problem for ornamental plants. Symptoms include discoloration, leaf drop, dieback, or death. Unfortunately, this usually occurs before the disease is identified. In many cases where insects, diseases or mites are involved, a chemical control is needed to reduce the damage caused by these pests.

The keys to chemical control are:

• Correctly identifying the pest
• Applying the proper material
• Correctly timing the application

Kevin Mc Davitt, President
Maritza Mc Davitt, Vice-President 
Servicing Southwest Florida
(239) 895-4536
(239) 603-2499 

mcdavitt6@juno.com