I’m celebrating this week. I thought my double Echinacea ‘Razzmatazz’ had died but apparently not. It is throwing a flower as I write and this makes me very happy. I’m still taking inventory of which ones I lost as they come into bloom (both yellows are alive as is the funny double-decker ‘doppelganger’) and two others that are later coming into bloom.

And the latest perennial to emerge award this year goes to a Hibiscus (not sure of variety) that emerged only two weeks ago and is already 24 inches tall. Still behind the other one that is budding out at 36 inches but closing fast. I confess I lust after some of the newer perennial hibiscus. Gorgeous plants.

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QUICK CONTEST. A free ebook of your choice to the first letter I get back with the correct botanical term for describing the flower on Echinacea ‘Doppelganger’. Send me the term and your choice for an ebook. It won’t take long to go so you’ll have to be fast. Professionals resist please.

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A month or more ago – a reader in Kingston wrote about her husband using Doktor Doom mosquito repellent while in Afghanistan.

If your husband uses Doktor Doom in an interesting part of the world or job, would you please email me (even if you didn’t email me the first time) :-)

thanks

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And the best tagline contest continues...

You can enter here

Entries are still coming in and still amazing me. This is going to cost me about 15 ebooks so far for great efforts. LOL! But you guys are great!

New Articles for You

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

Do You Want to Grow Lavender?

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

Your Questions Answered

i have lots of flowers but no cucumbers.what could be wrong? A: I’m glad you asked this question because it’s about to become a hot topic over the next few weeks. Here’s the deal. Cucumbers happen because there’s a male flower and a female flower. (We close the curtain on how they meet, how they get to know each other, their romantic entanglements and close calls)

What is clear is that the male pollen has to fertilize the female flower.

Speaking for the males of the human kind, I want to point out there is no relationship between cucumbers and humans.

Cucumber pollen is temperamental stuff. If it is too cold, it goes sterile. If it is too hot it goes sterile.

If you don’t have bees flying around because you or your neighbours have used Sevin or other insecticide to wipe out the problems on their lawns and killed off the bees, the pollen won’t get transferred and you won’t see cucumbers.

This is a growing problem in urban areas now with fewer and fewer bee populations alive to pollinate flowers. Plants that depend on wind or flies/beetles etc to pollinate them (tomatoes are a good example) are fine while those that depend on bees are struggling from year to year. I also note that excessive rain stops bees from flying and the flowers don’t get pollinated. So extremes of weather may produce great flower crops but not fruit.

And the question you didn’t ask but I was already asked this – what makes cucumbers bitter?

Hot dry weather stresses cucumbers and the plant produces a compound called “cucurbitacin” that is concentrated in the stem end of the cuke. You can cut off the stem end and peel the rest of the cucumber to eliminate most of the problem. Or, you can plant so-called bitter-free varieties (but I’ve heard they can go bitter as well).

And finally, why is my cucumber shaped funny?

Chalk this one up to the poor pollination fairy again. See all the above reasons.

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I have daisies in my garden and we had a heavy rain since the rain they seem to all be leaning and falling down. They are still very healthy and have beautiful flowers but they are not standing up straight and tall. I am going to deadhead them do you suggest that I cut them back to almost the ground or should I just attemp to stake them. When they are staked they are not as pretty as before.

A: And herein lies the gardener’s age old dilemma. Do you stake and get ugly or do you not stake and get whacked over by weather IF it weathers (pick any one you like – wind, rain, hail etc)

I had a brand new Helenium staked and the pelting rain broke the stake off and smashed the plant. It cut the stem right off at the ground level. I’m hoping the plant roots are strong enough to throw some more shoots. The new delphinium was also whacked by the storm and is now a cut flower on my desk. Next year, the new plants beside it should give it more support.

Staking can be done unobtrusely and you don’t have to use ugly stakes and string. Try saving this year’s Christmas tree and when the needles all fall off, you have perfect plant stakes left. These trees are multi-branched and by placing individual branches in the garden strategically, the plants requiring support will fit in these branches but will grow up and over the branches. The wood disappears into the garden looking quite invisible (or at least invisible compared to string and bamboo poles)

Put strong upright plants next to floppy plants. Use those roses to support floppy perennials.

I’ve written about peony staking on the peony page.

Iris – I don’t grow the floppy bearded anymore, far too much work because they do need staking of some sort. I much prefer the Spurria, Japanese or Siberian iris as they are far less work and give me great pleasure in the perennial garden.

When the inevitable happens, simply deadhead the plant and enjoy the flowers as cut flowers.

Don’t cut those daisies back to ground or you won’t see them next year. It’s a little late in the season for drastic cut backs. Right now, we’re looking to let our plants put as much energy into the roots as possible. We’re not looking to have them throw new shoots with their stored energy.

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There is a trumpet vine that is rather bothersome that desperately needs to be eliminated.We have dug them up and disposed of most of them. the remainder have been sprayed etc. with most of the options available at the garden centre's, but no luck in getting rid of them. They are taking over!!!!Please help if you can.

A: OK – first of all – I don’t do housecalls so I’m not going to be able to help you get rid of this plant. Sorry.

However, if you’re asking for advice on this plant taking over, then I’ll be glad to help. :-)

When you have an aggressive plant such as trumpet vine, or lysimachia, or aegopodium or (you insert the name of your garden thug here) you have a problem.

How do you get rid of aggressive plants? One word. Persistence.

That’s the advice. And it works. It isn’t magic. It isn’t romantic nor is it necessarily easy but persistence works.

You have to start digging and you have to keep digging if you want to get rid of an aggressive thug like trumpetvine or goutweed or ??? You’ll get 95% the first time and you’ll get 2% the second time and two years later another shoot will pop up and you’ll do some more digging and eventually, you’ll find no more shoots coming up but you’ll be three to five years down the line by the time this happens.

With a plant that throws a hundred seeds an hour while it is flowering like trumpet vine, you have to show the same persistence. You just keep snipping off the shoots. You dig up the main plant. Sprays are less effective than a shovel for this kind of work.

The hands of a gardener are the best tools in the garden.

There is NO MAGIC BULLET that will get rid of aggressive plants in one swell foop (as we used to say when we were kids). It is not likely a one time event no matter how persuasive the spray sales guys and the advertisements are.

Persistence.

I’ve dug up almost every plant that you guys have asked about over the years as I’ve grown those (and worse). It can be done. It is a pain in the anatomy and it can be hard work. But apply a liberal dose of persistence and a few years of watchfulness and you can get rid of any spreading plant thug.

I’ve written about these in the past so I’m not going to elaborate here but you can use clear plastic to sterilize the area. It takes all summer. You can also use incredibly deep layers of impenetrable mulch like overlapped newspaper sheets to smother out specific areas of problem plants. You can paint the ends of freshly cut woody trunks with unadulterated glyphosate (roundup) – note this is not the ready to use spray but the straight stuff. You can get these and other techniques by doing a search on problem plants or eliminating plants on one of my websites.

Do a search at www.simplegiftsfarm.com for how to kill plants.

Isn’t it amazing what our garden teaches us? In this case, it is teaching us persistence and patience. :-)

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I have two zucchini plants side by side. One is producing nice, dark green zucchini while the other zucchini is a very light green. What is the difference?

A: Regular readers will know what’s coming. :-) The difference is that one is light green and the other is dark green… :-)

Isn’t it interesting how much variation we find in our soils in only a few feet? I’ve found this to be true in every garden I’ve ever had. You can grow something with ease in one part of the garden and only a few feet away, the same plant struggles.

Why this is so in this case – likely something in the soil. One is getting enough feed, the other is not.

One is attacked by a pest such as a borer, the other is not.

I don’t know the difference without being there to examine the garden and plants but again, in my experience if you spend enough time examining the situation you can usually find a difference – even in a few feet with the same plant (sometimes it takes a soil test or microscope).

In the meantime, I’d give them both a shovel of compost and a bit of water.

And another view of this is that maybe you’ll be happy one of the zucchini plants isn’t performing very well. :-)

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I have a silver mound. It grows well and looks great in the spring, but gets too tall and leggy by July 1. Should I trim it back now or have I missed the boat. Maybe I should have trimmed it back a lot earlier. Thanks for your help. Ellen

A: This is a plant that benefits from a hard pruning. As soon as it grows tall and lanky, prune it back right to the ground and it will regrow in a bushy, attractive form. If you do this, you really have to ensure the plant is well-fed (compost in spring) so that it has the energy needed to produce two crops of foliage in a single year.

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The roots of my tree were exposed and my landscaper suggested covering the roots and existing grass with sod. It sounded like a good idea since we were always tripping on the roots in our backyard and my landscaper's mower was taking a beating. The sod was looking great and was meshing with my existing grass (since he only put sod on half the lawn) Now I have unsightly mushrooms! I read your article about mushrooms on the lawn and it sounds difficult to get rid of them. Was this a bad idea to put sod on top of our existing lawn? It this what caused the mushroom growth? Thank you for your time in this matter.

A: Heh, heh. OK – is it a good idea to lay sod over tree roots? Tree roots do several things for trees besides anchor them and exchange nutrients between the leaves and roots. And one of the things they depend on is oxygen in the soil layer; in fact, they grow very near the surface so they can maximize this oxygen layer. (the vast majority of tree roots are in the top 24 inches of the soil no matter how large the tree – they do not go much further down than that) So when you cover over the natural growth of the roots, you’re simply helping to smother the roots. And it simply means the roots have to grow up again. Is it a good idea? Not really.

Why would a landscaper suggest this? 1) They can sell you sod. 2) They might look like they’re doing a better job and it is easier to mow than to hand trim 3) They really don’t know anything about trees. Their job is to sell you services and mow your lawn – most lawn care guys are woefully uneducated when it comes to tree care (they don’t do trees).

As the article suggest, one cause of mushroom growth is rotting organic matter under the soil. So, if there has been some bark damage on the surface roots and you’ve covered that damage over with sod, then yes the organic matter is feeding the mushroom fungus rather than drying out. Is this a problem? I guess that depends on the extent of the damage and how much soil/sod you put over the roots.

But in general. Roots are just as important in your tree’s life as the tops. They’re there in their present form for a reason. Their reason – not ours. let them do their thing.

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I just picked up some parkland roses at end of season prices & I can't put them where I want to until next year.Can I plant them at the end of the veggie garden for now?How will they take to being moved in the fall or the spring?Thanks for the advice on moving my new double coneflower,it's happier in fullsun

A: Sure you can “park” plants in a veggie garden until fall or over the winter. They’ll move well in the spring before the buds start to swell. I now do this myself and there will be a huge number of plants go into my tomato patch this fall to wait out the winter. They get popped out first thing in the spring and potted up or moved. Then the veggies will go back in when the soil heats back up.

By the way, I used to routinely summer-grow hardy mums in the veggie patch, growing them out there and then moving them to the garden for fall display. Overwinter them in the perennial garden and then move them back to the vegetable patch for summer growth. Sort of the reverse of what you’re going to do. :-)

From My Garden To Yours

One of the most dependable plants in the garden is starting its bloom cycle right now. A member of the lily family, the Hemerocallis or daylily is one of my garden stalwarts. I have newer hybrids scattered throughout my garden because they survive almost any soil and winter condition and the second reason is that the newer hybrids are repeat bloomers giving me effortless colour for much of the gardening season. The good news is that this plant will thrive in my sandy soils but will also grow quite comfortably in heavier clay soils. Plants grown in clay soils will have more foliage than those grown in well-drained soils and unfortunately, fewer blooms. They will survive all except water-logged soils.

The daylily takes full hot sunshine but also part-shade with afternoon sun. Growing them in morning sun and afternoon shade will lead to a weaker plant with fewer blooms but it can still be done. Growing in full shade is not recommended if you want to see blooms from year to year. And this is the last great point about the daylily; it is almost rock hardy, able to withstand early frosts, late frosts, deep mind-numbing temperatures and the odd drought.

If you want to see the best blooms though, give daylilies full sun in a soil that is liberally enriched with leaf mold and compost. Building up your soil with organic matter will convince this plant it is in heaven and it will respond with flower shows that are simply stunning. Adequate water right up until bloom time will also provide the best flower show. This is not a plant for the dry or xeric garden.

Garden books and authors who grow these plants tell us that lifting the plant and dividing it every three years will produce the most blooms per plant. On the other hand, those same clumps will survive on their own in one place for many years and do not require dividing if you decide to be a lazy gardener. You won’t maximize your blooms per plant but you’ll have an amazing show from the clump. If you want to increase the number of your plants, you’ll find a well-fertilized garden will let you divide the plants almost every year. First thing in the spring when the clumps start to grow, dig the plant out of the ground and divide off the young shoots. They’ll come easily away from the main plant and as long as the division has a good chunk of root with it, it will quickly establish itself. Larger and more established plants can be ruthlessly divided by using a shovel to cut off a piece of the plant in early spring. The entire plant does not have to be dug up to divide it; in fact, digging up a mature daylily can be quite a challenge and not done quickly.

The daylily can also be dug during or right after flowering and divided at that time. It doesn’t like doing this but if you happen to go to an old-fashioned nursery or daylily specialist, they’ll often do it this way. Cut back the leaves by one-third and plant as soon as possible in your garden. Keep the plant well watered and it will establish itself with little setback.

In general, this plant is bug and disease free but there are a few things you have to watch for. Slugs love the early shoots and you’ll often find chunks missing from the edges of new leaves in the spring. Gall midges like the flower buds (you’ll see small white maggots in the bud) and aphids regularly take a chunk or two of the leaf (leaving white flecks on the leaf). If you have a mild winter, you might see some crown rot in new shoots and this is mostly because of heaving and thawing and the roots getting disturbed. You can prevent this by mulching the plants in their first year. Once the plants are established, it is rarely a problem. The other problem that is rearing its head is daylily rust and this creates yellow streaked leaves with rust pustules and will eventually kill the plant. There is no cure for this at present although research is ongoing. Garden sanitation is critical and if your daylily leaves start developing symptoms, the leaves should be cut off and taken out of the garden (no composting).

The American Hemerocallis Society categorizes daylilies into three classes: Evergreen, Semi-evergreen and Dormant types. Generally, unless you live in a USDA zone 6 garden, you’ll want to take a pass on the evergreen types, and the semi-evergreens are unreliable in USDA zone 4 to 6. A year with a poor snow cover or thawing to put a layer of ice over the plant will see death rates rise in the evergreen and semi-evergreen classes. The Dormant plants though are hardy right up to zone 2 and these are the can’t kill ‘em type of plant for beginners. There are also leaf colour and shape variations in these plants as well as height differences. The days of just getting a “daylily” are long over with well over 25,000 different varieties registered with the AHS.

In popularity polls taken by the AHS of its members, those in our region cited ‘Strawberry Candy’, ‘Moonlit Masquerade’ and ‘Ruby Spider’ as their best performing varieties. The repeat blooming ‘Stella D’Oro’ also is on most folks lists as a good performer. I note that this is one of the few daylilies that has actually died in my garden and I think some of the newer repeat bloomers are better plants.

In summary, this is one of the backbone plants of the summer perennial garden and belongs in every garden.