I’ve been off plant touring again this past week. Got several hundred pictures of plants to put up on the websites this coming winter. (I filled an entire Dictaphone tape with the names) Lots of very neat and interesting introductions that are coming your way in the next few years.

Very! exciting.

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I’ve received several notes in the past few weeks and while outraged is not a word I might use – severely concerned is. And this topic has been on the garden writers listserv as well in the past two weeks.

It is about invasive plants.

And I want to make it clear here that a plant in its proper environment is not invasive. It has a home, it has natural predators and it fits into the ecological niche that it developed into.

Invasive is only about moving plants into areas out of their proper environment and growing them. Think any kind of gardening other than a strict interpretation of what is indigenous to that small geographic environment. (Even aboriginal folks adopted and adapted plants from other areas I note with their trading patterns.)

So Kudzu isn’t a major problem in its native land. Trumpet vines are not a scourge in their home (thanks to all who wrote to suggest that they were). Ajuga is a weed when released into a lawn (see below) but not when struggling in its native haunts. A plant that will barely survive here in Eastern Canada becomes a major pest in Oregon.

That’s what plants do. EVERY plant can become a weed (by definition – an unwanted plant) somewhere in the world.

Gardening is about growing plants – mostly about growing plants that are not indigenous to your geography (impatiens and petunias simply wouldn’t cut it here in Eastern Ontario, Canada) :-) I’m not part of the invasive plant debate nor do I intend to get into it. I appreciate that some gardeners are passionate about this (and I have some emails to prove it) :-) but I’m not entering the debate nor joining that movement.

My personal concern remains with the more pressing concerns about massive amounts of toxic chemicals we insist on needlessly pouring onto our gardens and homes. And the shameless lack of concern that the mainstream horticulture industry has for these products.

And I really, really like the new plants I saw this week.

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Your Questions Answered

my pond is 15'x10' but only 2' deep. i have too many fish to bring in this year. what would you suggest to keeping them in the pond over winter?

A: The quick answer to that is to read the info on aerators on the website at pond aerators Point an aerator or small pump at the sidewall of your pond so it keeps an area of water clear. That should do it if its going to be possible. And remember that too many fish is a sure way to wreck your pond’s ecology.

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When is the best time of year trim lilac hedges?

A: Within six weeks of their finishing blooming. If you prune them outside of that time frame, you’re cutting off the blossoms/buds for next year’s bloom.

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My Landscape grass is getting so big it is falling over. I cut it at the end of the summer, so I dont want to cut it now. Do they have any type of bracket or brace to support the grass?

A: Sounds like you’re either feeding too much, don’t have enough sun, or have a floppy variety. But yes, you can stake it as you would any other plant. It will simply look as ugly as any other staked plant. Try using the technique that I use for peonies found on the peony pages at www.gardening-tips-perennials.com That coathanger trick will work with any floppy plant and it’s the simplest thing to do.

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have a weed problem in my daylily bed and am digging up the bulbs for storage so that I can work on landscaping during the fall to have it ready for next spring. I am thinking about using a weedblocker and rocks or mulch. I don't really like the idea of mulch because I think it invites unwanted bugs(termites and ants) so I am considering using rocks.My question is how is the best way to store my bulbs so that I can replant them when I am done with my landscaping?

A: I’ve received several questions like this lately. The first thing to understand is that a daylily is NOT a lily with a bulb. It is a Hemerocallis and is an herbaceous perennial with a well defined fibrous root. Yes, it has small storage organs but it is not bulbous. And you can’t “store” it like you’d store a lily (cool and dry) You can store it but you need to keep the root hydrated and cool (likely in the crisper of the frig would work for an extended time).

Weedblocker is a major problem in a perennial garden. The plants can’t come up through it. Don’t even consider using it if you want to grow perennials.

Rock is my least favourite mulch. You can’t dig around it at all and you wind up burying the darn stuff in your garden. And once somebody puts rocks down as a mulch, they are a royal pain to remove or do anything with. Use it on rock gardens where it “fits”. Keep it out of other gardens.

But your daylily roots will store cool for an extended time – just not overwinter like a real bulb.

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I would like to know how to successfully REMOVE Ajuga from my lawn. I don't even know where it came from. I never planted it, but it is smothering out my Bermuda grass. Round-up seems to temporarily kill it but also kills the Bermuda around it. Is it possible that the seeds (or whatever) are just down in the soil & no matter what I do, it's going to come back??

A: You know I don’t normally answer Southern questions but you and most of the rest of the civilized world would like to know how to remove this plant from the lawn. Ajuga is also called “Bugleweed” and when it gets into a lawn (and it will if planted closely) I refer to the resulting product as a Buglelawn.

Your answer is not one you’re going to like. Lawn chemicals rarely touch it although some broad leaved herbicides have been known to knock it back.

Vigilance. Vigilance and Persistence. Vigilance, Persistence and a Stiff Rake will remove the plant from your property.

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From My Garden To Yours

It’s that time of year and when you think you’re about to get a great harvest of tomatoes, the proverbial compost hits the can. I’ve received several questions via email in the last week about tomato blight. Without a lot of further ado’s, let me give you my take on blight.

Unfortunately, there are three kinds of “blight” that you’re likely to see in your garden at this time of year. The first one and most common is “Septoria leaf spot”. This particular problem appears roughly around the end of July and starts out as small round black or brown rotting marks on the lowest leaves. It works its way up the plant to hit all the leaves but it starts from the bottom first. You’ll get fruit if you have this problem.

The second most regularly seen is Early Blight. It usually appears about the same time as the Septoria but it has concentric target-shaped marks. In other works, the spots on the leaves look like targets with circles within circles. This too spreads all over the plant and you’ll get fruit but the yield will be reduced.

The least common of these blights is the Late Blight. It appears later than the first two and the first symptoms are a watery type of lesion on the lower leaves. If you get this one, you won’t have to ask what you have because the elapsed time from the time you first see it to the time the plant wilts and dies is about a week. If your tomato plants simply shrivel up and die with big brown spots on the leaves – and it seems to happen almost overnight – your plants are suffering from Late Blight.

The interesting thing about the blights is that they are not regular. There are a multitude of causes and seasonal variations and you think you’ve got the problem solved and the next year’s weather will come back, change, and create the problem all over again. I do note that the older tomatoes – the heirloom varieties – do tend to be more susceptible to blight problems than the newer hybrid cultivars.

So if you have the problem now, what can you do? Generally if you’ve already seen the problem, there’s not a lot you can do. A preventative spray of lime-sulphur or Bordeaux mix will slow down the spread of Septoria and Early Blight but the real key is in the prevention of the problem

Next spring, mulch your tomatoes. Mulching will reduce the stress on the plant but more importantly it will prevent “splash-back” from the ground to lower leaves during rainstorms. If you’ve ever noticed the lower leaves on tomato plants tend to be dirt splashed, it is because rain or overhead irrigation tends to splash dirt up. This dirt can contain the spores for blight and it is this inoculation that we want to avoid.

Install drip irrigation or use individual watering bottles (I’ve written about them before) with pinholes in the tops to water each plant. The trick is to prevent the splashing while ensuring the plant has enough water.

Do not water in the evening. We want our leaves to be dry going into the evening. Damp leaves and dark conditions are ideal for spore starting and keeping those leaves dry is the way to keep them healthy.

I’ve said this before but too many folks try to crowd tomatoes together. You really do need to space them apart. I find that staking the plants and giving them at least two square feet each is the best way to keep those leaves dry. I also prune off the lower leaves once the plant has set that bottom cluster of fruit. This lets the air and sunlight into the fruit and it also removes those lower leaves that can be water-splashed.

If the dew is on the plants, you’ve just watered, or it has just finished raining, do not work around the plants. Your hands and activities around the plant can spread the problems as quickly as anything can. While I’ve written this advice before, I’m about to do so again. Do not plant any crop in the same place more than one year. Planting in the same spot from year to year is simply an invitation to problems. They build up in the soil and there’s little you can do to prevent them using your tomatoes as a food source. Also do not plant peppers, potatoes or eggplant in that garden region as they will act as alternate hosts and be just as quickly wiped out by the problem.

If you have plant debris and you’ve had a problem, do not compost this material. The average home composter is not working at a high enough temperature to knock back the overwintering spores so the best thing you can do is bag up the dead leaves and stems and send them to the dump or municipal composting facility where the compost temperatures are high enough.

If you do see a branch with a problem, prune it out immediately. Do not let is sit on the plant to infect all other parts of the plant and reduce your yield. Similarly, remove weeds from around your tomato plants. They reduce air circulation, scavenge nutrients your plants need and can act as a host for the blights.

If you have a problem with blights, then do plant modern cultivars with disease resistance. Look for letters after the name of the plant in seed labels that might say “V” for verticillium resistant, or “F” for fusarium resistant. While not specifically blight resistant, they do have better overall resistance to diseases than those without those initials.

In the case of blights, the cure rests in good gardening techniques rather than any kind of magic spray.