I hope you’ve taken the time to visit www.simplegiftsfarm.com to see my blog in action. I now use it to announce new articles and links of interest. The blog works because you get the information you want without having the hassle of spam.

Even if you don’t have a blog reader, you can visit www.simplegiftsfarm.com/gardens-gardening-news.com to see all the new articles put up. I add new articles almost every day now. I also use the blog to announce interesting sites. It is a lot easier to do it there than to do it here.

Wow. Spring has broken and the questions are coming thick and fast. I’ve answered a lot of them immediately – mostly those that require simple yes/no answers but those that require longer answers are reserved for articles or answers here in the newsletter. So, if you haven’t heard back it is because I’m swamped with questions. And thanks to all of you who write in to thank me for answering your questions. It does make me feel pretty good to know that it is appreciated.

The newsletter survey was pretty clear – we’re going to keep the same format of articles along with questions and answers. I do appreciate you taking the time to answer that survey. It certainly helped me with the direction of this newsletter.

If spring is around the corner (and it is) that means that not only will my garden be up (and I’ll have pics for you of the new twenty-foot square garden) but so will Folly the Spitfire and Choir the Folkboat. Can life get any better? LOL

New Articles for You

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

See http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com/gardens-gardening-news.html for updates and new articles via my blog.

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

Your Questions Answered

How can you tell when your lawn is just right for rolling? Thanks Gary

A: You can’t. DON’T ROLL YOUR LAWN. See article under the lawn section at http://www.beginner-gardening.com

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Q: My hibiscus plant, which is quite large, had hundreds of little green worms all over it almost the entire summer. The leaves were so badly eaten and shredded that it was almost nothing there. I dusted Sevin over it several times, but it didn't seem to help. Several other people had the same problem. What can we do about this? My plant is about 5-6 years old and this is the first time this has happened. Thanks for any help you can give. Darlene

A: Sevin is nasty stuff – kills bees and earthworms and all kinds of good guys. Tiny green worms are easily controlled with BT or with Rotenone or most easily – spraying them with a jet of water to knock them off the plant.

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Hi. How did you get your first lotus tubers to grow? It sounds like if you can get them to grow the first time, they are hardy after that. I received mine in the mail last week, and put it in a round pan, it is under a warm light. Can you think of anything else I should be doing to make it grow? The temperature in my house is about 70 degrees, but warmer under the light. Thanks for any help, Drema

A: I told Drema that I never had a problem. Put them in the ground and they grew. I didn’t ever damage the growing tip though as that would simply kill them. They just sit and die if that happens. I also never force them as they don’t appreciate transplanting all that much; but if you do transplant a growing one, do it very carefully. Also to keep it as cool as possible so it wouldn’t grow at all until it was time to go outside. Forcing them along doesn’t help the plant or you.

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I recently bought a Pussy Willow Tree it's about 5 inches tall I wanted to know where would be the best place to plant it and how to care for it? I am a new lover of plants and gardening and I'm still learning Thanxamillion => Cheryl

A: ARRGGGGHH. Those things are everywhere now! LOL. They’re in the shopping malls and the food stores. Cute little fuzzy pussywillows. My kids used to bring them inside in the spring and they’d root them (takes about 5 minutes to root a willow) and then I’d plant them for them. Back in the swamp where they came from. This is pretty much a weed bush with no redeeming characteristics other than the fuzzy pods. If you really like fuzzy pods though, plant in full sun in damp soils. Or in shade in damp soils. Or in anywhere where there is decent ground. It will grow. If you have unlimited garden space, put a few in for spring cuttings. If your garden space is limited, I’d recommend you buy some cuttings every spring and use the space for better plants. Did you get the impression I’m not a fan of pussy willow? LoL

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When I start my tomato plants in the house in spring they grow tall and thin making them rather weak for planting. How do market gardeners get the ones they sell to stay short and have robust stems?

A: Ahhh. The answer is light. Lots of natural light. You have to use an artificial grow light to replicate the sun or your seedlings will stretch out. And you have to keep them cool. Most growing-on greenhouses run at 62F to keep the seedlings short and blocky. And you have to feed them plant food that is low in Nitrogen but higher in Phosphorus and Potassium (5-15-15). And the most important thing is you have to sing sweetly to them before you go to bed so they know they are loved. :-) ps.I was kidding about the singing

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We live in Perth but head to a lake nearby for the summer. The deer have pretty much destroyed all my gardens at the lake, eating everything (but monkshood) to the ground.There isn't much they haven't destroyed.I'm at the point of possibly forgetting having any gardens there at all. However, my house gardens have my spring and fall flowers and shrubs and except for a very occasional deer, we have been fairly lucky here.However, last week some deer came into town (during the night or early morning)and ate my beautiful new saucer magnolia, buds and most of the shoots almost to the ground. They loved my yuccas too. Short of getting a gun, (but what do I do with their big carcasses?)have you found ANYTHING that helps ward off the deer? I'm desperate b/c I watch a lot of money, tons of hard work and so much joy disappearing infront of me. Wendy

A: OK – here’s the real answer to all those deer problems. Fencing. And even that comes with some problems. Look folks, there are tons of web pages that tell you that this plant and that plant will not get eaten by deer. (I just did a search on google for “plants that deer don’t eat” and I got 301,000 websites links)

The reality is that deer will eat almost anything if they are hungry. (I’ve never heard of them eating daffodils or aconitum - both of which are poisonous) So if we exclude daffodils and the second bite of cactus, they will eat anything IF they are hungry. I know about the lists. I know about different gardener’s experiences with deer in their area not eating X or Y. I know if you bring three gardeners in they’ll all have different lists and that those lists overlap. Bring in 20 gardeners and there won’t be a single plant that deer somewhere don’t eat regularly.

Your challenge is to find out what the deer don’t eat in your area. That’s an expensive challenge.

So you’re left with the challenge or 1) silk or plastic flowers 2) no flowers 3) fencing the property with deer fencing to keep them out.

Or you could plant your garden with nothing but highly poisonous plants.

Sorry to be so pessimistic about this but I could tell you that they don’t eat geraniums in Alberta (but they do in Eastern Ontario as I can attest) or that they don’t eat Hellebore (maybe they do and maybe they don’t) or they don’t eat Taxus (yew). They do eat Taxus if hungry locally. But if they’re hungry they’ll come right up on your porch to eat the pansies out of your window boxes (or if they just feel like pansies for lunch).

Yes, I know there’s recipes out there for preventing deer from hitting your place. I know you can buy sprays and some of them come highly recommended and work for the average non-hungry deer.) Deer Off is one such product.

But when the bambi crowd is hungry – you’re talking deer fencing. (plastic netting, quite tall and invisible to the eye)

Darn I hate to be a pessimist. * * * * * * * *

You mentioned adding compost to make a garden healthy,disease free and beautiful. By adding cow manure [the kind which can be bought at your local garden centre] Question: Is that the same as making your own compost and adding it? Does it work as well? I wait for your reply back. Thankyou.

A: Does it work as well? No. But it works better than chemical fertilizer.

The compost you make on your own under a tree is the best compost in the world. It gets inoculated with the bacteria and fungi that live in your soil and they get fed very well. They grow and the beneficial microorganisms develop so that when you put them on your garden the garden is getting a boost of good guys. Commercial cow manure is produced from commercial feedlots where there is no soil and there are growth hormones and medicated feeds. This comes through in the compost with a reduced level of beneficial organisms.

Mind you, chemical fertilizers don’t have any.

So, on balance the purchased stuff is far better than the chemical option but not as good as the compost you make yourself. If it were me (and it is this year) I’ll use my own compost (worm) for compost tea and the purchased stuff for general spreading. A little bit of compost goes a long way when you make tea out of it.

* * * * * * * If you buy tulips now 2-2005 and had them bloom, can you put them in the freezer and then plant in the spring to have them bloom again? Thanks

A: If you put tulips in the freezer, you’ll kill them. I get this question all the time about seeds and bulbs. Folks don’t put them in the freezer (either of them) Naturally, yes they do freeze but they are acclimatized to that outdoors. Moving from alive to frozen in one hour is a good way to move from alive to dead in about an hour and five minutes. Sorry.

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And that’s all the questions for today folks.

From My Garden To Yours

I understand I should know better. After all, I’ve been gardening for more years than I want to count, I’ve won awards, I write books, I give talks on how to grow plants so what was I thinking of when I made a mistake of this proportion. I surely don’t have a clue. You’ll recall that last fall I planted a rather large clay pot with forty tulips, crammed them into the pot in three layers. I babied this pot outdoors and then indoors in an unheated bedroom for the winter. The bulbs started to grow a month ago and poked their leaves over the soil line. It looked like all forty were growing and sending up shoots. Two weeks ago, I had a pot full of buds with colour starting to show. I took a few pictures and this column was going to be accompanied by a website address where you could see the pot in full and glorious bloom. This morning as I write my column, I have a pot full of sorry-looking buds, wilted leaves and dried-out expectations.

In anticipation of a rather large show of blooms, I moved the pot to the living room in a big sunny window. I note that this window overlooked the street and the potted plant would be on display for all the neighbours as well. It was, as I note now, strategically placed right over the massive electric heating element for the room. This weekend, I forgot to water my plants and was occupied with the Kingston Flower Festival and some other activities. This Monday morning, instead of celebrating forty flowers, I’m mourning forty dried out buds, a few wilted flowers, and bone-dry soil. The change from cool to hot and dry was complete and the flowers are the worse for wear. After all that work, I managed to kill the flowers in a few days. The lime and lemon trees are still fine as are all the other plants but the bulbs simply didn’t like the abrupt change in temperature. So, lesson learned; and I’ll do it all over again next year. For now, the pot is in the kitchen and will be dumped in this afternoon’s cleanup to the small vegetable growing area in the backyard. All that soil shouldn’t go to waste.

And that leads me to other questions about bulbs that you may be asking right about now. Can you plant your Easter lily outdoors after it finishes blooming? Absolutely! Easter lilies make wonderful flowering bulbs and I’d recommend you put yours in the garden rather than shoving it in the garbage. Plant it in a sunny spot and enjoy it for years to come.

But what about those bulbs you forgot to plant last fall and have found on a dusty shelf? To begin with, do not put them in the freezer to think they’ve had winter. I wish I had a dime for every time I’ve heard about this trick. Putting them in the freezer will only do one thing – it will make them deader than they might be now. If the bulb is still firm and hard, I would plant it outdoors as soon as you can dig in the soil. If the bulb is soft, I’d put it in the garbage bin before it starts to stink. If you’re really a little antsy to see some growing leaves, you can pot the bulb in a six-inch flowerpot and try growing it in the house. Put an inch of soil on the bottom of the pot, then the bulb and cover with soil. Yes, it seems deep but that’s how deep you will replant it into your garden. Just don’t do like I did – water it instead of letting it turn into the Sahara Desert. If the bulb grows, you’re a winner. It might flower or it might not but in any case, as soon as the danger of frost is over, you can plant it in the garden. If it doesn’t flower this year, it will next spring.

And what about those mixed planters of bulbs you’ve received as gifts from adoring friends and relatives? Heck, do the same thing. Enjoy them now, keeping them cool and moist and then after all danger of frost, you can handle them in one of two ways. You can either plant the entire pot en masse in one spot or you can carefully divide the bulbs and replant, at the same depth, in different spots in the garden. As long as the bulb roots are not too badly chewed up, they will move successfully. Bulbs are quite hardy and resilient creatures. In fact, my own potted bulbs are still alive but flowerless. If I had the space for bulbs, I’d keep them alive and plant them in May. Unfortunately, in the twenty-foot square garden, every inch is already planted and tulips don’t fit the ground plan (which is why they were potted).

I have no excuse for my forgetfulness and my killing of my crowning spring bulb show. Perhaps it is simply the garden gods reminding me that the rules of horticulture apply to garden writers as much as they apply to aspiring gardeners. If so, the lesson has been learned (again) and I feel another big sigh coming along. So many lessons, so little time. So many plants, so little space.