October is a transitional month in Louisiana flower gardens. Many warm season annuals have finished or are finishing, and gardeners' thoughts are just beginning to turn to cool-season bedding plants for fall, winter and spring color.

This publication outlines some options for design, operation and maintenance of ornamental ponds and discusses basic environmental requirements of fish and plants commonly grown in these ponds. 20 pages. Full color.

Varying your mowing pattern can cause you to spend a little more time mowing, but the result will be a greatly improved appearance in your turfgrass.

Louisiana summers are a tough time for tomatoes to set and hold fruit. The heat causes irregular flower growth in most cultivars, and the result is poor fruit set, according to LSU AgCenter horticulturist Dr. Tom Koske.

When you buy a bag of fertilizer or granular pesticide to spread on your lawn, it will usually have a label on the back of the bag with settings for several common fertilizer spreaders. Do you know where those settings come from, how they were developed or how reliable they are?

Rotary spreaders offer the advantages of wide, fast coverage and forgiving patterns, but they are not well suited to working along turf edges. Some spreaders offer a pattern cut-off mechanism to address this problem.

Some rotary spreaders can deliver a reasonably uniform distribution pattern with some products, but not with others, and some homeowner rotary spreaders don’t deliver a good pattern with any product.

Pruning shears are an important tool for most homeowners and grounds maintenance professionals. They are useful for trimming trees and shrubs and for harvesting fruits, vegetables and flowers.

Although manufacturers are doing their part to reduce corrosion of lawn and garden equipment, how well you maintain your tools will determine their useful life.

February starts the Louisiana vegetable gardening season. This is especially true for the southern parishes.