Chicks and the City: Bill Finch answers garden questions

Bill Finch By Bill Finch
on September 11, 2009 at 5:18 AM, updated October 05, 2010 at 9:06 AM

In recent years, a number of cities -- including New York; Los Angeles; Chicago; Madison, Wis.; Austin, Texas; Portland, Ore.; and many others -- have recognized that allowing a sensible number of productive pets like chickens does no harm and can have many benefits. For more information, visit

Q: I hear the Mobile City Council has decided chickens are a threat to national security, and are planning on writing new laws to prevent people from keeping them.

I know you've written about chickens, and how they make nice, quiet and clean pets, and I've wanted some of my own. What I can't figure out is why the council thinks chickens are more of a nuisance than dogs? I've got neighbors who keep a dozen stinky, continuously barking dogs within 10 feet of my window, and I can barely sleep at night.

Can't you talk some sense into them?

A: Probably not. But they might respond to your calls.

Maybe I'm going out on a limb to say so, but Mobile is kinda behind the times on some issues.


Until recently, Mobile had allowed up to 25 hens (but no roosters), subject to an inspection by the county health department. Now it appears we're going to be developing 1950s-era laws that effectively ban chickens, even as other cities are removing those laws from the books.

If I thought it would make any difference, I'd ask the council and the residents they represent to compare the noise, the odor, the poopage and the nuisance of a half dozen chickens with a similar quantity of dogs or cats. And I'd remind them that unlike cats and dogs, pet chickens serve a genuinely beneficial role around the home. Rather than spreading (as dogs and cats do) damaging and unhealthy bugs such as ticks, roaches and fleas, chickens eagerly devour them. And home-raised chickens (unlike cats and dogs) actually produce wonderful, healthy eggs, fresher and richer than anything you could buy at the grocery.

If it's the nuisance that council members are after, they could, for example, rigidly enforce the city's noise ordinance as it applied to all pets. The trouble with that is, nearly everyone's dog would violate; I doubt the murmuring of hens would even be audible.

Maybe it's the usefulness of chickens that elicits such distrust from the council. Allowing anything as useful as a chicken might inspire homeowners to -- gasp -- start growing their own food in their own yards. Homeowners might even plant a few tomatoes and eggplants and a little lettuce instead of rows of useless Indian hawthorns, and you can only imagine what kind of anarchy that might lead to.

Rumor has it some chickens may be "grandfathered." You might call your city councilman now to figure out what to do before the ax falls on your chickens.


Q: I am new to the South, and was intrigued when you mentioned that there were some tulips that grow well along the Gulf Coast. Could you give me the names of tulips that can be grown in this area?

A: Two or three tulips have potential for general use in the Gulf South, but by far the most reliable is the species tulip T. clusiana (the "candy-stripe" tulip), which is listed in the Old House Gardens catalog (

All tulips, including clusiana, need very well-drained, even dry, soil in summer (but plenty of moisture in spring). I plant mine around the humps of raised soil that have formed around the roots of old trees. They have bloomed reliably for years, and have even multiplied well.

Candy-stripe tulips are not the high fashion tulips grown up north, but they are showy and charming, and in many ways far more interesting than excessively hybridized tulips.

In general, tulips perform poorly this far south because it is too warm in winter (most hybrid tulips were developed for the north, and need a long, cold dormant season); because it is too wet in summer; and because they have little resistance to the soil pathogens that are common in soils (like ours) that rarely freeze in winter.

Some have had success with other tulips on an occasional basis, but I can't tell you why these other tulips do OK in some places and in some years, and not in others (like the so-called Lady Jane Tulip or the Florentine tulip). So I recommend the others only to those who are willing to experiment, and who already have much experience with bulbs in the Gulf South.

Focus your efforts on T. clusiana, the candy-striped tulip (Old House Gardens is the only place I know that sells the real deal). And as you learn more about Gulf Coast gardening, you can begin to explore the many, many bulbs (crinum lilies, hippeastrum lilies, rain lilies, etc.) that are great performers for us, but won't grow worth a toot in the cold North.


Q: St. Augustine is my favorite lawn grass, and I have grown it successfully in many locations. Here in Daphne, I mow it high and follow the fertilizer and watering regime that you suggest.

But my otherwise healthy lawn has patches where the grass has turned a light yellow-green. I have not been able to determine what causes this. It comes back in roughly the same spots every summer.

One lawn specialist told me that St. Augustine does not like to have its "feet wet." He surmised that maybe I had too much clay soil in those areas, which was holding water. He told me to aerate (core) those areas and spread additional sand over them. I did this with no change.

I live in an old subdivision and many areas do not have curbs. Could I be getting chemicals washed off of the road onto my yard? Any ideas?

A: In residential areas, anything is possible, and since your areas of pale, thinning grass are so close to the road, I couldn't rule out some kind of contamination with road salts.

But I'd put my bet on more common problems, and I strongly suspect that your lawn is suffering from an infestation of a scale insect commonly called "ground pearls."

The feeding of ground pearls often causes that characteristic yellowing and thinning of the grass. Ground pearls move very, very slowly, only a few inches a year, so infestations in St. Augustine tend to be rather localized and return to the same spot year after year, just as you describe.

St. Augustine is mildly resistant to ground pearls, which is why the grass simply turns yellow -- if you had a weaker growing grass like centipede, it would be dead as a doornail by now, and the damage would have continued to spread.

A few ground pearls will turn up in many yards, but only in some of those yards do they get out of hand and cause visible damage like you're seeing. And even in yards where they do occur, the infestations often remain small and isolated.

That's fortunate, because there is no direct treatment that will control the ground pearls, which live deep under the soil, well out of reach of pesticides.

So why is it that ground pearls decided to become a problem in this one little area of your yard? I suspect your lawn adviser was only half right, but he was on the right track -- there likely IS a problem in your soil that has weakened the St. Augustine, and made it more susceptible to ground pearl feeding.

Because this part of your lawn is so close to the road bed and would be a tempting parking place, I'd predict that you have seriously compacted soil in that spot (it may or may not have much clay in it; compaction is often worse in our sandier soils).

Compacted soils are really tough on plants. They stay too wet when they're wet, because the water has nowhere to drain (the water reaches the compacted layer a few inches underground and just sits there).

Perversely, grasses in those areas may also dry out excessively during dry periods, since the roots can't penetrate the soil very deeply. And because the area is so near the hot, impermeable asphalt, it's even more prone to excessive drying and flooding.

Coring usually has very little impact on seriously compacted or poorly drained soil, and neither does simply piling on a layer of sand (which in fact, often makes wet areas wetter, for a variety of reasons).

To really break up that compacted layer, you'd need to break up the soil to a depth of 10 or 12 inches over a significant area (a tiller won't break compacted soil, so you'll need a shovel or a fork). You'd be wise to add a layer of composted pine bark and rotted manure 4 to 6 inches deep, which will further improve drainage and will for a short while be relatively free of ground pearls (DO NOT dig the pine bark into the soil; leave it unmixed on the surface of the soil). Then you can resod.

Rejuvenating the soil and resodding will eventually dramatically improve the growth of whatever you plant there. But don't expect a miracle. The new St. Augustine sod will be highly susceptible to ground pearl attacks until it's well established. And nothing completely eliminates ground pearls -- lawn researchers aren't even sure it's possible to eliminate ground pearls by removing and replacing all the soil.

But it is likely to make the grass in that area healthy enough that the lawn more easily fends off attacks.

Finally, one last solution: If ground pearls remain a problem no matter what you do, you can further control the problem by growing plants highly resistant to ground pearls. Bahia grass makes a scruffy and rather annoying lawn grass, but it does grow like a weed and is resistant to ground pearls.

If it were me, I might consider replanting with something other than grass (ground pearls tend to do their worst damage to grasses). An island of Southern Indian azaleas or (I'll hold my nose while I suggest it) liriope or Asiatic jasmine should not show the damage. You'll still need to break and build up the soil as described above before replanting.


Q: Help! I have 5 or 6 large mophead hydrangeas in my yard that are at least 15 years old. I have never had the first bit of trouble with them -- until this year. They look like they are dying.

The leaves on a branch will start turning a mottled green, then yellow and then the whole branch dies. On each branch, it is starting at the bottom of the branch and working up. New growth is trying to come out at the bottom but is dying before it can barely get started. I have no sprinkler system so they are just getting the rain water.

You asked me if I had any sick or dying oak trees nearby.

Yes to the oak trees! I have one within 50 feet that is dying and several others in the yard that are in distress (yucky water oaks)! But never mind the oak trees. Is there anything I can do for the hydrangeas?

A: Ah. Well, the oak tree decline and the hydrangea decline could well be related, I'm sorry to say, and once I explain, you're really going to think water oaks are yucky.

Dying and dead oaks develop a fungal disease called oak root rot (or armillaria root rot). Here in Mobile, the disease seems to be most closely associated with water oaks, perhaps because they're so common AND because they're always dying!

Unlike most underground fungal diseases, armillaria can attack live plants, and is rather well known for attacking hydrangeas (oakleaf hydrangea is particularly susceptible, but many other shrubs, including the common "French" hydrangeas are also susceptible).

What can you do about the plants that are already dying? Nothing. Once the fungal disease develops, it's just not practical to control, and the plants should be removed promptly.

The root rot will continue to be a problem as long as the water oak roots continue to die -- the fungus spreads readily from the oak to surrounding plantings. Removing the water oaks will eventually reduce the incidence of the disease, but as long as the roots remain and continue to decompose, the fungus will proliferate.

With common hydrangeas that are not yet infected, you may be able to help them avoid infection by watering carefully and frequently during dry spells, and by mulching. Armillaria root rot most often attacks plants that are already severely stressed by drought.

On the other hand, you don't want water to puddle around the roots, or the hydrangeas may become susceptible to other root rots that proliferate in soils that stay too wet. That's why it's always a good idea to plant hydrangeas in beds built up with abundant quantities of organic matter, such as composted, ground pine bark.

Because you might prefer not to believe me when I say there's not much you can do once plants are infected, I'm going to pass along this paragraph verbatim, written by Auburn University Extension Specialists Austin Hagan and Jackie Mullen (please note the last two sentences):

"Good growing conditions are the best defense against mushroom root rot. Establishment of hydrangea on sites where they are best adapted and proper site preparation will reduce the risk of disease development. Also, avoid planting oakleaf hydrangea on sites where oaks or other trees have succumbed to mushroom root rot. During periods of summer drought, thoroughly water established hydrangea every 4 to 7 days. Fertilizing according to the results of a soil fertility assay is also suggested. Diseased hydrangea should be removed and destroyed. Fungicides will not control mushroom root rot."


Q: My question is what to do for a crabapple that is not growing. I got two trees at the tree giveaway about three years ago. Neither tree has flourished or bloomed. It does not have a single trunk and looks more like a bush. One tree is 2½ feet, while the other is about a foot taller. What do these trees need, and will pruning help?

A: Sometimes there's a reason people give away plants!

Crabapples in general are very, very poorly adapted to life on the Gulf Coast (and many hybrid crabapples won't grow well anywhere in the South). It's extraordinary when standard crabapples survive long enough to bloom, and even those that survive may not bloom because they often don't get enough cool temperatures in winter to initiate flower bud formation.

Pruning will certainly not help, and may further weaken an already weakened tree.

To improve the growth of most trees, the key factors are: 1. Digging a very wide, but fairly shallow, hole, and making sure that the root crown (where the roots meet the trunk) sits an inch ABOVE the soil level; 2. Removing as much grass as possible for SEVERAL FEET around the tree and replacing that grass with a good mulch; 3. Watering regularly while the tree is very young.

These may result in some minor improvement in growth for your trees, but no matter how much care you give, you're probably going to end up being disappointed with the crabapple's performance here.

Sorry for the bad news, but maybe you could take this as an opportunity to buy a flowering tree more suited to our climate, such as the fringe tree, or silverbells, or magnolias or Taiwan cherries or many others?