Busy week in the garden sitting around and watching flowers bloom and plants continue to arrive. This is the second week of June and my plants are still coming up – I’ve never seen such a late garden. I’m about to fill in all the spaces with impatiens to give me a bunch of colour. Maybe even a few zinnia seed in the open sunny spaces.

Lots of great questions and I’ve got even more articles up on the webpages. Check out the links below and check out the link to the blog at www.simplegiftsfarm.com below I even opened up a new website at www.learn-rose-gardening.com this past week and I hope to have it useful in the next month or so (just in time for rose growing problems to surface). My ‘Knockout’ rose is about to bloom in its pot – the buds are showing colour this morning.

Life is good.

New Articles for You

All my new articles are listed here. Click on the archives link at the site to see others.

Want to ask a question? Click here to ask a gardening question.www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/askagardeningquestion.html

Your Questions Answered

just wondering if it is too late to plant the money plant. i know it probably won't grow this season. or would i be better off to start indoors now until next spring. thanks, claire

A: You can plant any perennial at this time of year. The only thing you don’t want to do is disturb the roots. If the plant has been growing in a container, it will move with no problem. If growing in the ground, you can move it (I just wrote an article about moving perennials at this time of year with the main secret for success) http://www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/movingperennials.html

The money plant is a biennial – leaves the first year, flowers the second. If you start it now, it should put some growth on for summer and fall (just don’t feed it too well or at all so it is tough going into the winter). It will bloom next year.

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I an trying to grow "WORLDBEATER" Pepper-Sweet. When the plant gets its flowers, they are falling off. I am growing them indoors on a sunny window ledge and they are in pots. Should they really be in the garden? Obviously living in the UK does not always guarantee nice warm weather!!!

Should I be feeding them, they do get watered on a regular basis.

A: OK – you only feed your plants if you want them to grow new leaves, produce flowers or grow fruit. If you have some other reasons for growing vegetables, you don’t have to feed them. :-)

The question to be answered here is, “Why are my flowers falling off my plant?”

Stress. Plain and simple. In this case, it could be too low a temperature. It could be uneven watering; allowing the pots to dry out and then swamp them. It could be lack of fertilizer or wrong soil pH depending on the seed starting medium you’re using.

But flowers falling off is a stress related problem. Gardeneritis.

The solution is almost impossible from here – you have to correct whatever is going wrong. There’s lots of info on the websites about growing in containers (that’s what you’re doing and the rules for growing roses and annuals are the same for growing veggies)

So, other than saying you’re stressing your plants and that’s why the blossoms are falling off – I’m not going to be of much assistance.

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had a nursery plant a few trees last year guarenteed to grow.One,an 8footer didn't do a thing this year- they came out & said we drowned it-& had too much mulch (cedar chips) is this possible? THe other 10 footer planted at the same time survived the same conditions.WE also had heavy duty landscape fabric below.

A: Drowned in cedar chips?

Maybe you overwatered it. That’s one thing and that would surely kill off plants. However you don’t say what kind of tree you’re trying to grow or how much water you applied or soil you have. Remember that clay soils are easy to overwater and trickier to grow some kinds of trees when compared to sandier soils. So I don’t know whether you overwatered it.

Overmulched it? You’d know that if you had rotting around the collar of the plant where the mulch hit the bark (soft bark) which is one reason the recommendation to pull the mulch away from the trunk is made. Mice eating the bark is another reason we pull back the mulch.

Too deep a mulch? You don’t say how deep. Three to four inches shouldn’t hurt anything. Twelve inches *might* be another story.

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a tree overmulched.

Heavy duty landscape fabric below. I assume you mean below the mulch, not below the tree. That won’t make any difference at all to the tree.

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Hi Doug --I planted a new mandarin honeysuckle vine. The leaves are turning yellow and are wilted. What am I doing wrong? Too much water or not enough? Will it "come back to life" if I correct the problem

A: Yellowing leaves are a sign of stress. The first symptom is usually *either* too much water or not enough water. So the answer to your question is “yes”. :-) What are you doing wrong? Man, I have enough trouble figuring out what I’m doing wrong (like not getting the mast up on the boat yesterday when it was sunny and today it is raining). With the plant? Probably over or underwatering it. Search on the “finger test” for how to water any plant.

Will it come back to life? Surely hope so. Most plants will if you don’t feed them when they’re sick. That’s like asking you to have a full course dinner when you have the stomach flu. Get the watering right and the plant will likely throw new leaves or shoots. (note how I said “likely” to cover my anatomy) :-)

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My neighbor has morning glory vines covering a fence that we share between our properties. How can I get rid of the vines that are popping up all over my perenial bed on my side of the fence. The vines are choking and killing my perenials. Thank you.

A: OK – I wrote an article on how to kill plants because I’m getting a lot of this right now. There’s grass in the ajuga, there’s morning glories and convolvulus spreading across the land. Here’s the article on how to kill plants

One of the interesting ways you can kill plants in ajuga or grass in the middle of the hens and chicks is the double glove system.

Put on a rubber glove. Over top of that, put on a cloth glove. You now have two gloves on one hand with the rubber one protecting your skin and the cloth one over top of that.

Spray the vinegar concentrate on to the cloth glove.

Wipe the wet cloth glove onto the leaves of the plants you want to die.

They’ll die to the ground.

If perennial, they’ll come back and you’ll have to repeat this. If annual, they’re gone.

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Ok, first of all, thank you so much for the newsletters. They are a big help. That said, I am 30 years old and have been gardening since I was a child. My dad taught me everything he knew. But, the scientific side to gardening is knew to me. I have some basic questions on compost and compost tea. I just had a house built a year ago and have a garden growing this year. I know the soil is mostly clay and not very healthy. I dump my grassclippings in the woods and have added them to the garden. But how long should i leave the grass in the woods to compost? I will be adding the clippings to my compost tea this week, but is there a way to know if i actually have bacteria in the clippings? I have also been adding fresh grass clippings to my garden. Should I compost it first? I have been using the clippings as food for the garden and to help control weeds, but they seem to decompose faster than I can mow the lawn. I guess my main question is how do I know I have bacteria and enough of it? Sorry, i thought of a couple more questions. Feeding the organisms after spreading them on the garden: Can i just use a mixture of fish emulsion and water? Since chlorine kills bacteria, is it bad to water the garden with a hose?

A: OK, let’s start with the grass clippings. Unless you have major growth in your grass, I don’t understand why you’d collect them and dump them in the woods. I would simply leave them to decompose right on the lawn. Saves work and the lawn is better for it.

Grass clippings are almost the perfect compost material. They are composed of the specific ratio of carbon to nitrogen that encourages fast composting.

If you want to do all that work and deprive your lawn of the organic matter by removing your clippings, you can either put them onto the garden as a thin mulch and mostly for the organic matter use or you can compost them.

How do we know there’s enough bacteria in the compost and lawn? There’s two ways. The first is to run a test (costs 35-250) depending on the test and what you’re looking for. The second way is to simply assume there’s good bacteria and fungi there. If you’re really concerned, use some forest soil/duff in the last stages of composting and you’ll quickly see that bacteria range colonize your compost. Or, if you’re making compost tea, throw a handful of that soil into the mix and you’ll get a good range of bacteria.

Don’t worry about feeding them once they hit the soil. They’ll do fine on their own if you’re providing compost, and organic matter.

In **practical terms** here, I make the assumption that every time I compost or add compost tea, I’m adding a wide range of good guys to the soil. I might be adding good guys of one kind this time and some other varieties next time. The point is that this is an organic environment that is constantly changing and in flux. All we can do is help it out as much as possible. Again, in practical terms home compost is not the “magic silver bullet” that is uniform and the same from month to month. It is part of a living system and while you can test to see what is happening (and commercial growers do) it simply isn’t cost effective for homeowners to constantly test compost and their soils.

Learn to make great compost (articles coming). Use it and compost tea on your gardens as much as you can. Regularly. You’ll see a difference – even if you’re doing it “wrong”. LOL!

Fish emulsion is great for gardens. I use it all the time (in fact, I have to buy another bottle this week). It is particularly great stuff for containers.

Chlorine in city water – does it kill off bacteria in the garden. That’s a darn good question. I’ll have to find out. I’m sure it does in containers when you flood the containers but I’ll have to see what the pro’s say about the garden. I suspect it will in the first few important inches of topsoil. This is one reason I use compost tea regularly in the garden. Once you knock back the good guys with things like chlorinated water, it is necessary to replace them. Compost tea does this.

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might have a little sprayer or a big one. "composed of several tablespoons of Tabasco sauce, a dash of soap and the rest of the household spray bottle filled with water."

How much is several. I would like to try but can you be a little more precise?

A: Last week, I said I used Tobasco sauce to deter pests. I got asked for a specific recipe. Hmmm, as is my particular talent in the kitchen (my kids will attest to this) I seldom follow a recipe. However – just for those of you that do. I used approximately 25ml of Tobasco sauce in one l of water. I can’t measure a “dash” of soap but it wasn’t more than three of four big drops. The water turns a pale red and this mix has effectively stopped slugs and beetles to date. They do not like it one bit. (and you’ll have to do the conversion if you use imperial measures) :-)

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We are attempting to grow potatoes in straw,a new concept to us, we are using chopped dry alfalfa to cover them . In places they are a little slow in coming through and on examination we have discovered that the straw has gone a little miffy . we have had some wonderful rains ,the cause of it we're sure.Is this harmful to the potatoes? Could you outline the pros and cons of growing this way? How high can you mound the straw onto them? We dug a trench in the garden planted the potato and covered them and are adding straw as they grow. Thank you Anne

A: LOL! Been there, done that. OK – to begin with chopped dry alfalfa isn’t straw. It is hay. And it will rot down in a different way than straw will – it will rot while straw will shed a lot more water. But either will give you rotting at the bottom where the soil meets the straw (so to speak). And I never chopped my straw - chopped decomposes much more quickly (with more "rotting" than does unchopped.)

Is the rotting harmful to the potatoes? You’ve buried the potatoes so it shouldn’t hurt at all. When I did this system, I never even buried the potatoes but laid them on the ground and covered them with straw. Then when I wanted to harvest, I just forked the straw away from the row of tubers. Much easier than digging. Other than in a few instances where the rotting straw and slugs got together to eat a few tubers, I didn’t have any trouble with decomposing straw. (don’t know how the alfalfa is going to work out though).

Seeing as how your tubers are down six inches, I’d probably settle for a foot of mulch. I used to put about 18 inches of straw down over the rows and it would settle down to 12 inches.

I don’t see the advantage to burying the tubers and then mulching with straw. You still have to dig. I liked straight straw because I didn’t have to dig and the potatoes were clean and white with no soil on them. The upside - straw (or your hay) will hold moisture at ground level for sure so your watering needs will be less but that’s about the only advantage I can see.

I suspect you’ll have a LOT of grass weeds next year in this garden area from the alfalfa. Hay typically contains many more weed seeds than straw. Search for “straw” on my websites to see the difference between the two. (not to repeat myself here)

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This is more of a comment than a question. RE article about Liatris: I was surprised at your observation about liatris and clay soil. I started my own liatris a couple of years ago due to an article in a gardening mag that *advised* planting it in clay soil to help break up the clay with its deep taproot. Seems to be working, although I've also regularly added organic material (leaf mold and compost) as well. But the liatris has always done well--and the Penna. clay is still pretty nasty, even after 4 years of working with it--liatris produces numerous seedlings and comes back even after I decided to remove it (dug up the plants) from a couple of beds. SO--go figure??

Love your newsletter--my #1 source for REAL gardening info! Long may you dig!

Diane

A: Thanks for this – I’ll modify the website as well. If anybody else has some suggestions, I’m open to practical experience. Most of my gardening has been done on good soils, or sand/crud or even a little sand/clay crud mix but never good clay. Interesting that you think this tuber has a deep taproot. Are we talking about the same plant?

From My Garden To Yours

I don’t know about you, but I wander my garden every morning to get a sense of what’s going on out there. Even if it is a short wander now, I still enjoy taking a coffee out and and looking at what’s growing or flowering. I see my Primula are in full flower and are bulking up quite nicely so that next year’s flowering will be heavy. If your Primula are more than a year old and well bulked up, you can divide them right after they finish blooming and have lots of blooming-sized plants for next year. I’ll do this next year and every second year after that to get a good sized colony going but for this year, I’m just accepting the blossoms with grateful spring wishes. I only planted them last fall so any flowers are welcome. I also note that these are named varieties of Primula veris rather than the cheap bedding type Primula available everywhere in the spring. I never found those cheap plants were very good at surviving winter and have given up on them.

I confess I’m a little disappointed that my Hellebore are not flowering this spring. They were decent sized roots going in last fall and I had good expectations for blooms. One did throw two blossoms but the rest are simply throwing leaves. At the cost of them, I guess I should be happy they’re alive. I’ll be feeding them big time this summer to get them up and strong for next year.

I’ve also discovered that some of my plants are still thinking about whether they’re alive or dead. I know I write that gardeners have to be patient when it comes to deciding if plants are alive in the spring but really, am I supposed to follow this advice myself? My garden should be up by now! I find that there are big holes in the garden and I’m poking around under the mulch to see if there’s a plant there or a hole to fill. One of the plants that has really surprised me by not showing up is the Echinacea. I only have one that is up and rolling along this year, the new ‘Doppelganger’ or ‘Double Decker’. This is the same plant but is sold under two different names. This is the one with the weird two-story flowers. I guess I’m about to get my wish to get pictures of it but the wonderful double ‘Razzmatazz’ and all the others have not yet appeared.

Naturally the hibiscus and the buddleia have not yet appeared; those plants are always late. The Coreopsis ‘Crème Brulee’ is also a late grower but I did find shoots under the mulch this week so I’m relaxed about it. This is a larger flowered version of the old ‘Moonbeam’ that grows on a very compact plant and has improved mildew resistance. I also found the variegated Chrysanthemum ‘Barbara Bush’ has survived the winter. I have lost this plant several times in previous winters and this is the first time it has survived for me. So whether you like the politics or not, the plant lives and life is good.

I’m also finding that there are a lot of weak plants poking their noses up. Centaurea ‘Gold Bullion’ with its golden leaves has shot a single rosette up into the sunshine and is looking like it might give up the ghost as is Symphytum ‘Goldsmith’ with its single weak shoot. I really like both of these plants and will be feeding a little compost tea in the next week directly to them in an effort to stimulate some healthy growth. I’m not sure whether to blame the plants, the new garden soil, the winter or the gardener on these. I’ll have to get back to you.

I’ve also already lost a plant. I mean, it is only May and I’ve already killed a plant. Millium effuses ‘Aureum’ is supposed to be hardy in my garden (sure, I’ve heard that story before) and I was delighted to see it start throwing spikes very early this spring. This morning I see those spikes are well and truly brown instead of golden yellow and they’re lying on the mulch, dead as a doornail. This might be a record for speed-dying.

But the fun part is that I have several plants that I don’t remember planting and I can’t begin to tell you what they are. One is variegated and I don’t ever recall seeing the leaves before. It has flower buds sitting nicely up about to start swelling so perhaps I’ll figure it out then. If all else fails, I’ll dig around until I find the tag. When I plant new perennials, I also plant the tag so I can identify the plant if I have to. I don’t do garden records so this is as close as I’ll come to formally figuring out what I have. I also think one of my unidentified plants is Liriope muscari ‘Variegata’ that is a green and cream-white striped leaf and a violet flower. The flowers have not appeared but this is the first time I’ve ever had this plant overwinter for me so I think that’s what it is but I’m not taking any bets at the moment. I do love garden surprises and the older I get, the more surprises I seem to be getting.

And there are also these yellow flowered things I’m digging up out of the garden and if anybody wants some, I seem to have plenty. Something called lion’s tooth or dente-de-lion or something like that. Cute little flower though.