You have to love the Net. I figured out how to add a single search box to all my sites so you can enter your search term in any of them and all the sites are searched. How cool is that? So, now if you go to http://www.gardening-tips-perennials.com and search, you can pull up bulb info, or water garden info or rose info. :-) And you can do the same from those sites as well.

Not only that, but now the entire site network is indexed every Wednesday night so when you get this newsletter on Thursday or Friday, a fresh site index will have been done to bring the sites up to date on all the new articles. Mind you, you can subscribe to my blog at www.simplegiftsfarm.com as well to get all the updates.

Somebody told me they liked the blog because I was getting more opinionated in it.

Can you imagine me “opinionated”? The “nerve” of that person to call me opinionated. I resemble that remark. :-)

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.http://www.gardening-tips-perennials.com/askagardeningquestion.html

Your Questions Answered

Would like to know how to take a cutting of my Clematis for my stepson. Can't tell you what type of Clematis I have but it has small pink blooms.

A: Clematis cuttings are fairly easy to take. Take them when they are tender at about the three to four inch long stage. Treat them like regular perennial cuttings.

And when I wrote those words, I had a sinking feeling that I hadn’t written any webpages on taking cuttings and propagation. This is a rather large and important topic (plant propagation) so I’ve put it on my ToW list (To-Write) and you’ll see something pop up by the end of next week.

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I live in Toronto, zone 6 and in the fall of 2003 planted a Lonicera Japonica Hilliana against a chain link fence. Full sun, good drainage, fairly well amended soil. The honeysuckle grew back beautifully last spring with lots of new growth and foliage but no flowers. The reason I'm growing it is for the fragrant blooms. Can find nothing in my gardening books or on the web regarding special needs of these vines. What might I be doing wrong? Thanks for your help,

A: OK – well, to begin with we’re probably looking at Lonicera japonica halliana (not hilliana) not that might make a bit of a difference. Called Japanese Honeysuckle. It is now classed as an exotic weed in many states and is threatening native plants in the mid to deep south where it is extremely invasive. You’ll get the best flowering if the plant is treated as an “edge” plant. That is planted on the edge of the woods where it grows naturally in part shade and sun. Full sun conditions promote nothing but rampant vegetative growth and not flowering. So from your note, I’d say you’ve planted it in the exact spot to promote vegetative growth and not flowering. Move it to another more shadier area to promote flowering or see what happens in year two (then move it in the fall if it doesn’t bloom again)

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My crocuses bloomed and then they were eaten by a wild rabbit. Is there anything i can do to stop him from eating my flowers? Thanks for the help.

A: Ah the famous dad-watted wabbit.
Hmm, well let’s see – we can fence him out.
We can get a big dog that is chained right next to the flowers.
We can spray the flowers with something like deer-off that contains bitrex (the higher the concentration the better) so that they don’t like the taste of the flower.
And that’s about the extent of it. Once they start eating, it is a terrible problem to get them to stop. You have to spray your plants with the terrible tasting stuff before they start flowering, during flowering and even sometimes after flowering. This holds true for preventing almost any critter from eating your plants. Get some of this stuff and spray it. Remember “Bitrex” in the product does the trick.

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My husband thinks I've killed our ornamental grass because I cut it back in the spring. There is no green new growth yet. It is April 11th. When will the grass start growing new growth in the spring, or, have I killed it like he said?

A: Ornamental grass is normally pruned back in the spring. And it does take quite a while for it to come back (April is pretty early) so I wouldn’t look for it much before the middle of May depending on the variety. And what does your husband know about grass other than how to massacre a lawn? Keep him away from your flowers.

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Last fall I put hay on my gardens. I was just going to leave it on the gardens to decompose but my neighbour said I should remove it. I heard that it makes beautiful soil on a radio show.

A: Ohhhh. Hay as a mulch. I would NEVER recommend hay as a mulch. Hay comes with a bajillion or two weed seeds (all those grass plants have seeds) and you’ll get them firmly installed in your garden. I only made that mistake once when I was first starting out (must have been the same darn radio show) and never did it again. I cursed that hay for several years while I weeded and weeded. Straw is a good mulch as the leftover grain seeds generally germinate, green up the garden but then they have the decency to die over the winter. (don’t put straw on in the spring for that reason – the oats will grow)

As I told this reader – leave the mulch there – try not to disturb the soil at all (removing the mulch or disturbing the soil will only make the situation worse) Plan on getting some straw over top of the hay at the soonest possible fall moment to try to hide those grass seeds rather than expose them to light and encourage them to germinate.

Another option I didn’t discuss was to remove the mulch and cover the entire area with clear plastic. Seal the edges of the poly to the ground so no air can escape. Everything under the poly will start to grow like stink. Ignore it when it pushes the poly higher and higher. The heat of the summer sun will eventually roast off and kill all the vegetation under the poly and the heat on the bare ground will kill off most/all of weed seeds. I guess if this were my garden, I’d probably take the bull by the horns and do this right away. Get rid of the grass seed in one fell swoop – lose this season but gain the time and lack of weeds in future years. Otherwise you’ll be fighting grass seed and weeds for a few years to come.

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I have 4 large ornamental grass plants on the back edges of my pool landscape. These plants have become very large, and while they are beautiful, I would prefer to contain them into narrower plants. Can I separate the roots into two individual plants each? If so, what method of separating them do you recommend? Also, once separated, do you recommend planting them in containers (without bottoms) in order to limit their growth? Thank you.

A: You don’t say what kind of grass these are but the answer to your question is simply – divide and chop with a very sharp shovel. Seriously – sharpen the shovel before you start and you’ll save yourself a lot of effort. If they are large grass plants, you can probably divide them into LOTS of grass plants - so two isn’t a problem.

As for containers. bottomless containers are fine as long as the bottoms are far enough down so the grass can’t send runners out the bottom. Most will try. I’d grow them in containers with bottoms to restrict their growth or just chop them up every few years once they grow out of bounds.

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I'm a newlywed and new to gardening. Last fall I planted tulips, daffodils and hyacinths in a raised bed across the front of my west-facing house. We put cedar mulch 2-4" thick to protect from cold Michigan winter. Do I need to strip all mulch completely now that the snow has melted in order for my bulbs to thrive? We are near a large lake (St. Clair)so we're still a few weeks behind other areas in our hardiness zone due to the lake effect on our temperatures. Hyacinths are just starting to pop up.

A: Do you have to remove the mulch before gardening? Nope. Most bulbs will come up nicely through a mulch and it is far too much work to strip off a mulch. You get tons of good things happening when you mulch gardens so don’t remove it.

Did I ever tell you folks about how deep you can plant bulbs? (a little mulch is nothing compared to what I did) I had some tulips growing beside the old farmhouse and they did nicely there for several years. When I wanted to redesign that bed, and raise the level of the soil by approximately three feet, I simply brought in the soil, and huge boulders and laid them right over top of the old flower bed. I was darned if I was going to dig up a few tulips. The next spring the tulips reappeared in their regular spot. Understand that the bulbs were originally planted one foot deep and with three feet of new soil over top of them, they were coming up from four feet deep. They did this for several years before I ripped them out and wouldn’t let the leaves flourish to replenish the bulbs. (I didn’t like the colour anymore) That killed them. So a few inches of mulch is no problem at all.

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And that’s all for this week folks – by actual count I still have 75 questions I haven’t got to yet. If yours is one of them, I’m working at it but with spring here, I’m getting a lot of questions and the feeling is one of bailing out a very leaky boat. The hurriedier I go, the behinder I get. LOL!

Have a great week in the garden!

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From My Garden To Yours

T'is the season to get questions about seedlings that are having trouble in the house. The big one this past week was, “How come my seedlings are thin, tall, spindly and light green?” One neophyte gardener wanted to know what disease was causing it and I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was an extreme case of “new-gardeneritis”. Ah, we all have to start somewhere. I guess the best starting place is to point out that these symptoms are caused by overcrowding your seedlings. When you put too many seeds in a small space, and they all germinate, they are going to be tall and spindly because they are too crowded and fighting for the available light and space. So you have to thin out the seedlings. I remember looking at unexpectedly successful flats of seedlings in the greenhouse and knowing that I had to kill half of the seedlings in order to let the other half live and grow properly. Thin them out or sow your seeds much further apart.

The second reason that seedlings get too tall is that there isn’t enough light for them. Even those who provide grow lamps forget a basic rule of light dispersal. Let me see if I can explain it in layman’s terms. For every unit of distance light travels, it roughly doubles its area of coverage. Now this means that a light bulb that is placed one foot over top of the seedlings will produce 10 units of light for the plants. But a light bulb placed two feet above the seedlings will produce only 5 units of light for the plants. Gardeners who want to produce stocky seedlings have to get those light bulbs down to six inches above the foliage. Having a grow lamp sitting two feet above the seedling crop just isn’t going to cut it when it comes to producing thick stems. And yes, the light fixtures should be on chains so they adjust and move upwards with the growth of the crop.

Another reason for spindly growth is a lack of plant food or an excess of nitrogen plant food. If the growth is dark green and spindly, you’re feeding too much and the plants have a full tank of growth gas, the foot is to the floor and these guys are trying to grow way too much. If you have light green spindly growth, then you don’t have enough plant food (or not enough light or both). With seedlings, I like to use a plant food that is high in phosphorus and potassium; something like a 5-15-15 works well for me. Just keep the first number, the nitrogen, lower than the second and third numbers.

Now, the real moaning comes when the gardener does not keep the soil temperature warm enough, allows moisture to accumulate on the seedlings through too much watering or too high a humidity and a fungus attacks the crowded seedling trays. This fungus is commonly known as “damping-off” and it attacks the stem wall causing the stem to weaken and collapse. Too cold conditions, too damp, too crowded seed flats with no air circulation (a really big cause of damping-off) are the primary culprits here. You can spray all you like but if you keep the seeds in those conditions, you’ll always have problems. The simplest solution is to always plant seeds far enough apart to ensure good air circulation, keep the heating mat on so the soil temperatures are in the low 70F range, and ensure there is excellent air circulation around the seedlings even if it means putting a small fan across the room to blow fresh air over the seedling bench. And if you want the magic ingredient in all of this, always water with warm water. This will keep your seedlings extremely happy.

If you do wind up with damping off, the best spray for is a garlic mix. Simply crush up a clove or three of garlic in an inch of water in the bottom of a saucepan. Simmer for a few minutes to get the oils out of the garlic into the water and then cool the water. When you can easily put your hand in the water, you can water your seedling flats with this mixture. Garlic is a terrific fungicide and it will stop most damping off problems in its tracks. But if you don’t fix the cause of the problem, it will only return. So continuing to overwater, keep the seedlings crowded etc will only cause the problem to return with a vengeance.

I’m also told that live sphagnum moss has fungicidal properties and that if you go to a florist or garden centre and purchase real sphagnum moss (not the bagged stuff but the live stuff) you can whiz it up or powder it in a blender and dust your seedling flats with it. Sounds like a lot of work to me and really dusty (don’t breathe this stuff) with the garlic being far easier. I simply pass it along because it does seem to work for some gardeners. Personally I can make enough of a mess in my kitchen without having to create a peat-based dust storm with a blender.

Spring showers are misting my office window as I write this column; the geese are flying north, east and west with a few confused birds still heading south. But they are flying and the high Vee’s are heading straight north. Last fall’s mulch is appearing from under the shoveled snow banks and spring is in the air. This is going to be a gardener’s year and I’m ready.