Man, it has been cold the last few weeks. I’m looking forward to gardening like you can’t believe. Or at least sitting in the garden surrounded by flowers.

I’ve been adding pages again to the websites. Check them out below.

Feel free to comment on the newsletter and web pages that I'm developing; your feedback is useful to me. After all, we both want this to be useful.

In the last newsletter, I recommended a Silver *Leaf* Vine to a reader. Well, you might have trouble finding that plant. However, the good news is that you might easily find the Silver *Lace* Vine. (insert a big blush here) LOL!

New Articles for You

Here’s a sampling of what’s new in the past few weeks:

An article on perennial Hibiscus can be found at http://www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/perennialhibiscus.html

The article on lavender was updated: http://www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/lavender.html

An article on Japanese Beetles http://www.beginner-gardening.com/japanesebeetles.html

An article about controlling white grubs in lawns http://www.beginner-gardening.com/whitegrubs.html

An article on perennial geraniums was uploaded to http://www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/geraniums.html

Articles on bulb growing uploaded to http://www.beginner-gardening.com/flowerbulbs.html

Remember that most of these sites are pretty new and "raw". That is they don't have a lot of graphics and the articles are being developed and added according to a plan - meaning there's lots more to come.

Your Useful Link

If you live in an urban area and want to investigate the how’s and why’s of trees in urban life, this is a good site to start your investigations. While it appears to be from the “left” coast, it does have an interesting database of trees that you can use to search. Check out http://www.ufei.org/

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

Special for newsletter readers If you hit on this newsletter, you’ll bypass the above form and get your question directly to my mailbox. When I see your return address and not the form address, I know you’re a reader and I put your question to the top of the queue. Please do me a favour though If you use the button, delete the bulk of the newsletter so it doesn’t clog up my mailbox space.

Your Questions Answered

l have planted a new garden below my robinia tree this spring and the tree has not put on much growth this year. can you tell me why this could happen

A: Hmmm, lots of reasons why trees don’t grow much. Maybe you cut up some roots when you were digging around under the tree. That would slow it down. Maybe the weather simply wasn’t good enough last summer for the tree to put on a lot of energy so it didn’t grow a lot this year. Most of the energy used by the tree in growing in the spring is accumulated in the late summer and early fall when the tree stores its carbohydrates for the following spring’s growth spurt. So if something got in the way of that, you get reduced growth. Maybe the tree is older and it is hard to see how much it is growing (maybe you need new glasses) :-)) Way too many reasons but there’s a few.

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First of all I know almost nothing when it comes to gardening. I recently bought potted daffodils and the instructions provided state to keep potting mix moist and place in a bright indoor location. Can I keep these indoor or do I need to plant them outside?

Jill

A: Keep them indoors until the blooms have faded off. Then when all danger of frost is over, plant them outdoors to the same depth as they were in the pot. Leave the green leaves on the bulbs to whither and die naturally as those leaves are pumping energy into the bulb for next year.

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Dear Doug: I enjoy your news letters. I want to start planting some tulips in a small pot for my mom. When should I start them? I guess I am asking. How long do they take to flower? I want them flowering by May 4th (her birthday)

Thank you Joanie

A: Well, I’m afraid unless you can find pre-cooled bulbs or have them stored in the frig we’re out of luck. Tulips need 8 weeks (more or less) of pre-cooling to allow the bulbs to set buds. Without these cold temperatures, they’ll not form the buds (which is why Southern gardeners can’t grow tulips – it is too warm). So, getting tulips to grow in containers is a fall chore. You plant them in November, keep them cool until March and then bring in the house to grow.

As an aside, I’ll have some pics up on the site by the next newsletter showing my big clay pot full of tulips. I just brought it into the heat and the leaves are starting to unfurl. If the buds start to shoot, I’ll show you time dated series (you need about 20 days from the tips unfurling to flower when the temperatures are around 70F. My pot has 40 bulbs in it in three separate layers and I’m hoping for a good show.

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I put horse manure in the garden in the fall. Should I have put some where I am going to grow my potatos? I usually do straw potatos where I grow them on the ground and cover them with the straw. Thank you, Patricia

Straw system are great way to grow potatoes if you don’t have a slug problem or if you can control the beasties. As a general rule, we do not put fresh manure in areas where we’re going to be growing potatoes. The issue is that fresh manure will increase the alkalinity of the soil. Alkaline soils are more likely to allow the potato scab problem to infect the tubers. Now, if the manure is old then there isn’t the same problem as it will be partly composted. (we hope). So, old manure isn’t a problem but never fresh onto potato growing ground.

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Regarding your latest newsletter email in which a reader discussed the wheelbarrow "clip" to hang a wheelbarrow by - I bought one from Home Depot here in Ottawa and highly recommend it. Works great!
cheers, Bruce

A: Dutifully passed along.

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Have you ever written a column on prevention of damage to lawns and gardens by moles?

I'd be interested in reading it

A: As a result of this query, I’ve put up an article on moles and one on voles at the http://www.beginner-gardening.com website. You’ll find them under the lawn section.

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Hi Doug: Just started subscribing not long ago and have thoroughly enjoyed your back issues. I read recently to use sphagum moss to prevent damping off from seedlings. Can you tell me what properties are in sphagum that would help? I've also wondered about coffee grounds or wood ashes on top of cell packs to ward off mold for those of us who try germinating a few trays in a window sill and have trouble keeping the soil warm.
Thanks for any insight Willa

A: Interesting. Peat and Sphagnum moss are essentially sterile mediums but they will not prevent damping off in seedlings. Sorry to have to be the one to tell you that. Damping off is usually a stem rot problem (although there are other problems lumped under this name – damping off) and the peats tend to hold water and thus are part of the problem rather than the cure. Note that all commercial growing mixes are made with peat. I’ll write an article about seedling damp off but nothing you can “add” to the soil will prevent this. Wood ashes will likely burn the seedlings with their alkalinity and coffee grounds may simply add so much acidity that the seedlings won’t grow. I know there’s a lot of good “advice” out there about this problem but after 23 years of running my own specialist nursery, I’ve started more seed than I care to think about.

The solution to damping off problems is good aeration. It is that simple. Damping off is a function of a combination of things beginning with unsterilized starting soil and ending with too much humidity around the seedlings because of overcrowded seedlings, too heavy a hand with watering them, too cool temperatures, and not enough sunlight as the principal problems.

But get the water under control and increase the air around the seedling and damping off becomes a thing of the past.

If you do have a problem, the easiest and most effective home recipe is to crush a few garlic cloves in a half inch of warm water. Simmer to release all the oils and then cool the water. Pour the water or spray it (if you spray you should remember to strain out the bits first or you’ll clog the sprayer) over the seedling tray. Garlic has anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties that will stop most seedling rots. You can use this mix to “prevent” damping off but if you have to do this regularly, you might look at your entire seed starting system. Hint: most home gardeners crowd their seedlings too much because they try to grow too many seeds in too small a space.

But the key is cultural – how you grow the plant – not what you put on the soil. I’ve put this onto my to-do file to write a full article on the web pages.

Sorry to be the bearer of news that says what you’re doing isn’t going to help all that much. But the good news is that it is easy to fix.

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From My Garden To Yours

If I told you that you could grow a plant named both after an eagle as well as a dove, would you be interested? I would hope so because it is an easily grown perennial that will self-sow and delight you for years by popping up here and there throughout the garden. Aquilegia is the name of this delightful plant – aquilegia comes from the Latin word aquila meaning ‘eagle’ and if you look at the individual petals, you can see the resemblance to an eagle. Well, OK, you have to use your imagination but I can see one. Columbine is the other name for this plant and this comes to us because the upside-down flowers resemble a circle of drinking doves. Columba is Latin for ‘dove”. I’ve also heard Aquilegia called Culverwort but that’s easily explained because the Saxon word for ‘pigeon’ is culfre and ‘plant’ is wort. But, no matter what bird is drinking or sitting around in a circle, this is a great garden plant.

It grows best in the full sun in my garden although it will tolerate some light noonday shade. I’ve also found that it grows best on a well drained soil; it dies out if given clay or wet soils. Think of it as a woodland edger or meadow plant; it requires adequate moisture to continue flowering but good drainage so that the roots don’t sit in moisture. The height of different species varies between 3 to 36 inches so there’s a drinking dove to fit any space in your garden. We’ve had a full range of colors of this plant – from blues, pinks, whites and yellows as well of shades and combinations of almost all of them. Depending on your viewpoint, the flowers are either one of the earliest summer bloomers or latest spring bloomers. They start easily from seed and after a few years, you’ll find them popping up all over the garden. The major problem with aquilegia is the leaf miner. Simply squeezing the ends of the tunnels eliminates the miner and its unsightly tunnels.

A. alpina is a delightful plant with deep sky-blue flowers on 12 inch plants and it is wonderful for the front of the border or rock garden. However, A. bertolonii is my favorite columbine. This 6 to 8 inch tall plant is wonderful for the rock garden and its blue and cream flowers are the earliest to bloom in my garden. You’ll likely find this one from seed catalogues rather than in garden centers

A. caerulea is the Rocky Mountain Columbine and it grows 18 to 24 inches in my garden and has blue and white flowers. An attractive plant, I’m told it is one of the parents of many of the hybrid forms on the market today.

A. canadensis is a smaller plant. It thrives naturally at the front of my farm and stands about 18 inches tall in full sun and part shade spots. The flowers (red and yellow) are smaller than the garden center hybrids but equally charming. It is easy to naturalize and grow (I didn’t do anything – they just arrived one year to colonize the area). The textbooks say they prefer moist shady areas but mine are growing on poor, rocky, thin soils in full sunlight.

A. flabellata is one of the parents of modern columbine breeding. One of the nicest forms is the pure white form ‘nana’. It is only 12 inches tall with glistening white flowers reaching to 18 inches.

The columbine known in Europe as Granny’s Bonnet is really A. vulgaris and it grows 18 to 24 inches tall. This plant is the parent of the Vervaeneana group that have variegated or gold flecks in the leaves.

Many doubles have also been bred from A. vulgaris genetics. The old stand-by ‘Nora Barlow’ with pink and green colored flowers, is quite stable and has bred true year after seeding year in my garden.

Growing up to 3 feet tall, A. chrysantha and its delightful yellow flowers are one of my favorites. The flowers are large with long spurs so it stands out in the garden. This is the plant that brought the yellow gene to the columbine breeding program. Unfortunately, it has also been one of the shortest- lived columbines in my garden, seldom living longer than two to three years.

In hybrids, ‘Biedermeier’ is offered by many seed companies. The blue and white Biedermeier is acceptable – other colors are muddy and not worth growing. The excellent ‘Dragonfly’ hybrid is a color mix and grows to 24 inches tall. ‘McKanna Hybrids’ are 18 to 24 inch tall hybrids quite commonly found in commercial nurseries. They’ve had good color ranges in my garden. The ‘Music’ series is one of the better hybrids at 18 inches because the colors are more intense than other varieties.

I have to tell you that Aquilegia are also promiscuous. They interbreed quite quickly and easily so it is quite difficult to maintain a pure line of species plants. After a few years, the hybrids will self sow and produce offspring quite different in appearance from the parents. The gardener has a choice at that time; to select the blooming plants they like and allow these to go to seed or to pull the offending plants and re-purchase the hybrid. I note that some of the colors of the hybrid offspring will be quite terrible and I recommend digging out the ones you don’t like. A few years selecting the most desirable colors will produce a relatively stable population.

So, call them pigeons or eagles but just make sure they are in your garden next spring. They’ll take you away on flights of fancy.