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Once a year I try to write about the grass part of our landscapes and usually use my own lawn as an example. This year I have good news and I have bad news. The good news is that it is wonderfully green. The bad news is the large number of species growing there, each contributing their own shade of green.

As we approach the fall season what can and what should we do with our lawns? Some university research suggests that fall is the most important time to fertilize our yards. I'll admit that I have never fertilized my yard and it seems to grow like crazy when it has moisture.

Being an old farmer, I have learned that nitrogen is a partial substitute for moisture. During dry summers it is easy to pick out the farm fields with adequate nutrition and those where they were skimped with fertilizer. The same holds for your yard. Quite honestly, I accept a brown yard when rainfall is inadequate.

The use of a mulching mower, which leaves the clippings in place, is also a great way to reduce the dependence on supplemental fertilizer. I have both a mulching and a conventional mower and I like the mulcher except for the fact that it's slower and groans more frequently as I race around the big field I call my lawn.

If you are thinking about any supplements to your yard, get a soil test first. Quite possibly that will show you that you have a need for lime and that fertilizer is not needed. As I look at my yard I should do three tests. One from the hill sides, one from a damp area that seems to have its own unique colony of grass and one from the valley that often acts as a floodplain for the neighboring fields.

Lime is more important than fertilizer. A ph of at least 6 is necessary for the grass plants to utilize the fertilizer in the soil. That's not too tough to maintain in our limestone soils, but if you use fertilizer you should know that most fertilizers would lower soil ph.

Another issue is weeds. A year or so ago I spot sprayed a bit to reduce the white clover population. My reward was a better crop of fall grass.

The literature suggests that chemical weed control is best in the spring or fall. You can get a lot of opinions on the weed and feed products that both kill weeds and fertilize the grass. I've never used them.

If you follow an organic approach there is a product called corn gluten, which is an effective seed germination inhibitor. It has a life span of four to six weeks so it's labor intensive for season long control. I've never used it but my guess is that one or two applications a year would go a long way.

The other attack plan on weeds, including fall grass, is to raise the mower blade. We live in a society that praises well-sculpted landscapes. Several days ago I had just finished mowing the whole place and immediately asked my wife to compliment me on how nice it looked.

Japanese beetles were nasty this year at my place. Soon the larvae or grubs in their life cycle will be in our gardens and yards. Fall control catches them quite small and near the surface. They are back near the surface in the spring but then much larger.

You have chemical options and the organic approach with bacteria called milky spore.

Fall is also a great time to start new grass, overseed, dethatch and aerate the lawn.

That's a long list. Perhaps there is something on it that I will try. Then I will have something to report back and an easy column to write next year.

Recently I had the opportunity of conversing with a garden writer for one of the larger Pennsylvania daily papers. Needless to say he was a bit more organized than I will ever be. He was also quite willing to share some of his notes.

Today I will use part of his gardening calendar to write about an area of gardening that I often dream will disappear if I ignore it long enough. I'm talking about garden insect and fungal problems.

Personally, I'm on the slow side of average when it comes to sprinting for the sprayer when a problem appears. I also am quick to admit that I still scoff at the thought that you can grow every plant in our location without any spray.

Anyway, in August the chief insect problems are bagworms on evergreens mostly; scale on euonymus and magnolias; webworms on fruiting trees; spider mites on spruce, other evergreens and fruit trees and lace bugs on azaleas and pieris.

Last winter I noticed lots of bagworms on two blue spruce trees in the yard of my son's recently purchased house. Knowing that it was either they or the trees, I tackled them with summer oil and an insecticide in late June and scored nearly a perfect kill.

Meanwhile, seeing only a few bagworms on a row of evergreens in my own yard I ignored them. I came back from a lengthy wedding trip (not my wedding)) in late July to discover a major infestation, partly bagged already. Again I sprayed with no better than a fifty percent kill. Next year I have no choice.

If you see any bagworms now, plan to spray as they hatch in late June of 2006.

The other real villains on the above list are spider mites. To identify, look for nearly invisible moving red dots on the underside of the leaf. The other telltale signs are small traces of webbing and leaves losing their color. They thrive in hot, dry weather and are especially troublesome on plants on the sunny side of white walls.

The common insecticide, Sevin, is candy to spider mites. Don't use it on plants susceptible to mites. They are difficult to control.

Continue spraying roses and fruit trees. I love looking at roses in somebody else's garden but am not diligent enough with the sprayer to keep them happy in my garden. Fruit trees need regular attention. The critical time for fungus is at bloom and just before harvest. Insect control is most important in the spring.

Lilacs, dogwoods, phlox and bee balm are at the top of the list of plants susceptible to mildew. Select sites with good air circulation. Keep uniformly moist. There is some evidence that milky water provides control. Mildew won't significantly harm the plant. Finally spray if you can't stand the ugly.

In the vegetable garden remove diseased plants and practice sanitation. Fungicide spraying will prolong the life and production of vine crops and tomatoes, if you wish.

Before you spray, read the label and consult an established spray seller or talk to the people at the Master Gardener's Hotline in Lancaster at 394-6851. We shouldn't fear chemicals but should pause to consider the environment, our safety and the safety of others before we grab the sprayer.

Several days ago I heard the weatherman say we are in the dog days of summer. Since I don't have a dog to watch for clues, I guess he just meant that it is hot and humid and we will welcome every shower that comes our way.

It is also the time when the spring gardener often finds too little action in his perennial flower and shrub borders and too many weeds in his vegetable garden.

Mom is pushing ninety-nine and I regularly take her on short rides to see my gardens. Her last ride was August 1.

In the shrub border we saw the hibiscus blooming wildly. She also enjoyed the blooming clethra, vitex, Rose of Sharon, Limelight hydrangea and crape myrtle.

The toughest part with the large flowered hibiscus is to remember that they die back to the ground and are very slow to emerge in the spring. I also sprayed them once for small black beetles but ones that are unsprayed seem equally happy.

Vitex is long blooming, purple, woody and very slow to sprout in the spring. The clethra is native, likes moisture, is fragrant and will tolerate some shade. Expect some winter damage most years on the crape myrtle but this long bloomer re-grows rapidly. The secret is to give crape myrtle lots of light and as much protection from winter winds as possible.

The Rose of Sharon and the Limelight hydrangea will grow almost anywhere they get some sun. I have them in the worst sites for winter wind and they never complain.

In the perennial border we saw the final blooms of the daylilies. The coneflowers, Black-Eyed-Susan's, heliopsis, and balloon flowers are at their peak. Other long bloomers like dicentra exima, coreopsis and scabosia and nepeta are still hanging in there.

I am happy to report that I have good vibes about the new echinacea or coneflowers at this point. My new off yellow and orange varieties are blooming well but may not be quite as rapid growing as their purple cousins. That would be good.

Soon the ornamental grasses will step up to a place of prominence in the garden. If you are thinking ornamental grass, now is a good time to plant it. They like warm soil to get started and early spring and late fall plantings are usually less successful than summer plantings.

In the vegetable garden mom was impressed with the tomatoes, peppers, beans and the dozen large cantaloupes on the two plants my wife planted. I didn't show her the last planting of cabbage and friends that the rabbits have played havoc with.

If you are thinking about more cole crops, now is the time. You have a bit longer with cauliflower and brocolli than cabbage but it's about time to finish. I found the wire fence, now I just have to replant and use it.

Thanks to late arriving furniture from Texas, which gave me houseguests for a week, my vegetable garden is about weed free.

Who needs a dog for dog days? I have my gardens, several cats to patrol them and now regular visits from Buddy the beagle from Texas.

I just returned from a somewhat solitary, three-day road race that took me from the cotton fields of west Texas to the patchwork of farms and suburbia in Southern Lancaster County that I have called home all my life. In addition to chasing the pace car I had lots of time to look and think.

Two things caught my attention. First, I was surprised by the universality of the weeds along the way. There was a lot more variation in the desired plants than in the weeds. Our weeds are often their weeds.

Second, what I saw put in stark terms how much Southern Lancaster County has changed since I was a kid. Traveling much more than a thousand miles along the interstates from west Texas into Ohio I saw just two intrusions of suburbia into farm land.

According to the sign, one promised a development in southern Illinois. To date there were two houses built. The other one was in Ohio and was being worked quite actively. Every time I go west I am reminded of this area during my childhood.

It was really great to stop at a diner and see a lineup of pickups covered with a good coating of field dust and laden with feedbags and hay bales. It makes me wonder about the future. Are we as citizens, and are our elected officials, feeling the pulse of what is happening, or are we living with the romantic notion that we are and always will be an agricultural community?

Meanwhile, back with the weeds. The first thing I read after my return was an essay about the origin of weeds. I think you could make a strong case that most of our worst weeds were human induced.

Dandelions and many other problem weeds came to this country with the settlers to be used as a salad green. Weeds seem to thrive with cultivation and other agricultural practices. A lot of our grass-like weeds only flourished after the land was subjected to over-grazing.

Another practice in colonial times that brought us lots of European weed seeds was the shipping trade. The boats headed to Europe loaded with American raw materials and often returned carrying soil back as ballast. These weeds met no natural enemies and spread across the country with each swing of the farmer's hoe.

Even more fascinating is the fact that there are always plant collectors looking for plants with ornamental value. The early European collectors who came to this country were quick to take many of our native species back to European gardens. Once there, they were refined by breeding and selection. The net result is that a lot of cultivars of our native plants were developed in Europe and then reintroduced into this country.

I'll conclude without trying to define either a weed or a native plant.

The race. I was in a well-loaded small pickup truck. In the pace car were my daughter, son-in-law and Buddy, the beagle. The only victory I will claim is that they are now living an hour away instead of five days.

If you are one of those gardeners who are knee deep in hostas, I recently read some disease information in the Delaware Valley Hosta Society's summer newsletter that I will pass along.

The disease, called southern stem blight, is one that loves hot weather and seldom appears before June. It is not a new disease, but one that seems to be getting more problematic in our area. I have seen it on occasion.

Infected plants will show stressed leaves that tend to fall over from the crown. With closer inspection you will spot small, hard, spherical balls about the size of mustard seed near the junction of the petiole and the leaf. The diseased leaves will also give off an unpleasant odor.

Recently, someone discovered that a Bayer product called "All in One Rose and Flower Care" is quite effective in controlling the disease. It is one of those all in one products for the home gardener. It is a systemic chemical for both disease and insects as well as a nitrogen fertilizer.

If you have the problem, try it now, but more important, use it next spring in early June before symptoms appear. Since it contains fertilizer, be careful using it in the fall. Fall fertilization on any plant often will promote unwanted growth, which slows the plants preparation for winter.

With our hot, muggy weather and irregular rainfall, diseases and insects seem to be flourishing. I will quickly admit that especially disease identification is difficult to determine without professional evaluation.

For starters, I will point out that, generally, if the plant problem appears on the new growing tips you are looking at an insect problem. If it starts with the lower leaves it can usually be traced to a fungus, virus, nutritional or moisture problem.

I'll slowly close with a review of some recent problems I have seen or heard about. Spider mites are very small red insects that feed on the underside of leaves. Look for small webbing, leaf bronzing, pitting of the under part of the leaf. Repeated use of an insecticidal soap helps but they are difficult to control.

Early blight and late blight seems prevalent on tomatoes this year. Of course there are the Japanese beetles and the troublesome aphids. Various funguses, some a problem, others quite harmless are commonly out there.

A good reference source to consult with specific problems is the Master Gardener's Hotline at 394-6851 in Lancaster. They are there at least week day mornings and are tied to Penn state University.