Questions abound - from red lily beetles, to dealing with weeds. The article on planting advice is to get it done now.

Links to 28 articles on growing roses plus a bunch on vegetables.

You can visit Doug’s Blog to see the plant pictures and other garden pics at http://feeds.feedburner.com/DougGreensGardening

You can have the blog and all the pictures I upload to it (a good one this week on Brunnera 'Jack Frost') emailed to you if you don’t have an rss reader.

New Articles for You

Wow! Hard to know where to start. I’ve put a ton of articles up on the sites this week.

http://www.beginner-gardening.com/vegetable-gardening-guide.html is the main reference page for vegetables. I put 5 new articles up about growing tomatoes that you can access there plus some other general articles.

If you grow roses
http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com/rose-plants.html is the main rose growing link page and I’ve put approximately 28 articles up about growing roses. There’s that many more this coming week so stay tuned.

If you just need the basics of rose growing – try
http://www.simplegiftsfarm.com/rose-gardening.html as there are 4 articles there as well

If you’ve wanted to grow Nerine – here’s an article
http://www.flower-garden-bulbs.com/nerine.html

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

Your Questions Answered

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Need some good water garden construction pictures?

I am sure that the first year I started my water garden, I put some spearmint in it at the waterfall but I can not find it now. No one seems to have heard of mint in a water garden. Am I wrong or can it be any kind of mint?

A: There is a water mint – named Mentha aquatica – that water garden shops sell. I’ve grown it in my own water gardens but it is tender in the north and should be treated as a tropical annual. It smells and tastes quite minty. I don’t know how spearmint would do if planted in water – might be the only way to kill it. :-)

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doug,can i grow green beans and tomatoes together?

A: I don’t know – can you? (insert grin). There’s absolutely no reason why you shouldn’t grow these two plants together. I have seen a great many stories about companion planting and I’ve even written a few myself but I’ve never seen a single scientific study on it that supports the practice. If any of you can refer me to studies (not articles) then I’d be pleased to read the article/url.

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I wanted to put the porous plastic and rock down in my garden to stop the weeds. I have perennials in this garden including some that reseed. Will that be a problems.

A: Yes. There are two problems here. The first is the landscape fabric (the plastic) that will not allow the perennials to grow and expand. Once you lay this down – your plants are essentially trapped in whatever hole you give them. This is fine for shrubs but not for perennials.

The second problem is your choice of mulch. Rocks do not and should not be used in perennial gardens (unless it is a specialty garden such as an alpine bed).

In the general perennial garden, you get in there and dig up plants regularly (think dividing old plants to get them to bloom more) or planting new ones (think replacing short-lived plants such as columbine). Then there’s the self-seeding plants that will establish themselves in your rocks. How are you going to divide or handle those? Any perennial gardener will tell you that it is impossible to avoid burying some of the mulch when you are working around your perennials. If you use rock – you simply bury rock in your garden (at least wood chips degrade and enrich the soil) and then you’ll hate yourself every time you want to work in there (think shovels clanging off lots of small buried rocks.)

Go with woodchips and lots of them – forget the landscape fabric.

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Hi! You have a fantastic website. I was reading up on virginia creeper; trying to decide if I want to use it as cheep ground cover for a shady landscape challenged property that I rent and do not want to invest much money into. I wondered, will this vine root from clippings? If no, is there an easy way to propagate the species without having to buy new from a nursery? Thanks for your help!

A: Ah, the old cheap groundcover trick. For sure the vine will root from cuttings. Take tender shoots – approximately three-four inches long and they’ll root up quite quickly (do a search for cuttings on any of my websites to get the info).

Folks – almost any tender shoot from a plant (not usually trees or evergreens) will root up at this early time of year. Some take longer to root than others but in general, you can root almost anything – particularly perennials, annual plants and many shrubs.

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I don’t normally have time to answer multiple questions from readers – one at a time does the trick for the most part but these are representative of many that are rolling in now.

1)Pink Lady Flowering Quince. It only blossoms on the lower branches (6-8" above ground). What can I do to make it bloom all over.

A: Move it south. If any shrub is flowering at the bottom – be it quince or forsythia – it usually means the buds are being killed at the top by winter cold or winds. Either protect those buds from the wind or temperatures or get a tougher plant.

2)Have a dead climbing rose in a flower bed, difficult to dig out. Will it eventually disintegrate

A: It’s the season to dig out dead stuff - or not. Sure. If you cut back the tops – the bottoms will eventually die out and rot away. I often don’t bother to dig out the roots of big old shrubs – way too tough. Cut ‘em to the ground – cover the stumps with mulch and plant as close as you can to the roots. Takes several years – less if you use lots of manure or dirt around the stalks.

And if you have trees taken down – drill some holes in the remaining stump and pack them with compost or dirt from your garden. Keep the soil slightly damp. The bacteria and fungi in there will help eat your plant up. You don’t have to purchase expensive products to do this.

3)New climbing Hydrangea. Is it like other ones, cut back hard in spring?

If you want it to bloom – do not. This is a vine and will grow very tall and wide. If you cut it back – it will stay short and stubby and will never bloom.

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I had an infestation of red lily beetles that destroyed everything last year and I'm seeing sign of them this year. We have a pool and use diatomaceous earth in the filter. Do I just apply the earth around the bottom of lilies and how much do I use?

A: Yup – it’s about that time. Dust the plant and around the plant as soon as you see the first red fiend. Don’t do it beforehand or you’ll be wiping out beneficials as well (diatomaceous earth is non-selective). You’ll wind up handpicking too.

I’m told that beneficial nematodes will eat red lily beetle larvae – if you have massive numbers of lilies – you may want to invest in this product. If only a few – then handpicking, diatomaceous earth and a few prayers to the good Saint Fiacre (patron saint of gardening) should do the trick.

From My Garden To Yours

The rain has stopped and the daffodils have survived both the deer and the mud. They’re looking spectacular now in the various clumps around the property. A few clumps will require division after the leaves have turned yellow, as they are not blooming very heavily. I suspect if I dig them up, divide them and put them into fresh, rich soil that I’ll see a great many more flowers in a year or two as they bulk up into flowering sizes. I note that there is a ton of daffodils around here because that is the only bulb that deer won’t eat and rightly so given they are quite poisonous.

And with all this rain, I’m going to have to start cutting the grass. I note one of the neighbours has already been at it so mine won’t be far behind. One thing I’ll be doing to the old mower deck is removing the blades and giving them a good sharpening. I think I can get another year or two off this set of blades assuming I don’t try mowing too many more rocks; so sharpening is a good idea. I’ll save money on fuel (approximately 10% according to some figures I saw) as a sharp blade is easier on the engine and uses less fuel to drive it. I’ll also save wear and tear on the engine. I figure an hour sharpening the three blades will be money well spent this spring. The old mower deck is just about whipped after turning all those hay fields into lawns so it will be quite thrilled to see that all it has to deal with here is grass. That is until I start cleaning up the raspberry canes at the end of the lawn.

Tomato Growing Secrets

I’ve discovered the high winds in this new garden bring down a lot of twigs and branches from the willows and ash trees on the property. This is a major cleanup in the spring every year and although the dog likes to help by carrying around as many sticks as she can get into her mouth, there’s still some good cleanup of fire starter material to do to get that lawn clear. If I was in the city with a good lawn, I’d be raking it thoroughly but because the lawn isn’t a priority this year (talk to me next spring when I’m raking it and improving it) I’m simply going to start cutting it. I’ll likely overseed next fall with grass seed because I can already see thin spots. But if I were concerned about the lawn, now (when the forsythia is in bloom) is a good time to apply corn gluten products to stop weed seed such as crab grass from germinating and feed the lawn at the same time. Why anybody would use a chemical when there is an organic alternative that is just as effective is beyond me? Corn gluten is now available at the big box stores and when you apply it at recommended rates, it not only stops weed germination of crab grass it also feeds your lawn with all the food the lawn requires until the early summer feeding.

I don’t have to worry about letting the tulip leaves yellow down this year before I plant anything in that area. The deer got all the tulip leaves along with the buds and flowers so all I’m hoping is that the bulb throws some more leaves so it will grow again next year. Otherwise, it is “goodbye tulips”. If the leaves do come back, I’ll be leaving them to yellow down all by themselves.

I note that all my geraniums are growing well on their windowsill and I’ve just pinched the growing tips to force them to bush out. Instead of producing one or two branches, I want each plant to produce 5 or 6 branches. That way, I’ll get a shorter, well-branched plant that can support a ton of flowers instead of a taller plant with fewer flowers. I note there’s still time for you to take a cutting off geraniums and get flowers by mid-summer from these cuttings. Tender tip cuttings will root quite quickly at this time of year if you keep them warm. If you do have geraniums overwintering, do take the time to pinch back those growing tips to promote extra bushiness and summer flowers. I hope I’ve also told you in the past that geranium flowers make excellent cut flowers for summer bouquets. They last quite a long time so even if you have a small apartment balcony garden, you can cut your own bouquets from your garden.

Do You Want to Grow Vegetables?

Sow those peas and early lettuce crops now. Get those early plants into the soil but hold off on things such as tomatoes and peppers and any warmth loving starter plants. If a late frost doesn’t pick you off, all you’ll do is stunt the growth of the plant in the cold ground. So let those starter plants sit comfortably on the windowsill or greenhouse bench waiting for warmer weather and warmer soil. Feel free to ignore this advice if you can’t wait. Just be prepared to listen to a “I told you so” when those later planted starter plants pass you by.

Finally, any dormant plant be it a shrub, rose, tree, evergreen or perennial can be planted now with impunity. Get those into the ground. If the plant has leafed out, I’d still be nervous about putting it into the garden unless it has been outside and never seen the inside of a cold frame or greenhouse at the garden centre. If protected and shooting new leaves, it is tender and will suffer from the cold weather yet to come.

Have a great week planting and getting ready for the main rush of gardening that is just around the corner.