A while ago, somebody asked me if putting sugar onto the garden was a good idea. I wrote that notion likely started with another garden communicator who does a lot of funny things. However, there is a new class of insecticides that are based on sugar *esters* that are under development, still classed as research and are not available for use.

The important thing to understand though is that these sugar esters and household sugar are NOT THE SAME THING. And putting sugar on the garden is still a good way to attract ants and insects – while not doing anything positive.

You heard it here first.

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A reader unsubscribed from the newsletter and told me the reason she did that was because when I answered her question, it sounded like I was grumpy with her for asking.

Let me make it clear – I’m not grumpy for anybody asking a question. Email is such a brutal thing and I tend to write as short an answer as possible. So there’s no flowery “hi’s” and “howareya’s” It’s a good day if I sign off with “all the best” or :-) - - most of the time I do manage to sign as Doug rather than D. When you spend much of the day keystroking, every little word counts.

So – take it from me – if I sound grumpy it is because the answer is short – not because I’m annoyed at you for asking.

Now, my kids will tell you what I sound like when I’m grumpy. :-)

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New Articles for You

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

*An article about snowdrop bulbs (with picture) can be seen here http://www.flower-garden-bulbs.com/snowdrops.html

*An article about perennial Thalictrum or Meadow Rue is here

*An article about Powdery Mildew on Roses

*Here’s an article about mushrooms on the lawn

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

Your Questions Answered

I planted a new sandcherry in our east facing front yard about 6 weeks ago. It was doing fine, but I now notice many(most)leaves are dropping. The leaves are faded, a little green, yellowy, light pink. There is some sign of new growth, but it is not the bright pink that we have on another young sandcherry we have elsewhere. It gets sun until mid day, and has been watered regularly.

Any ideas?

A: Sure I have ideas - - but you probably meant ideas about what’s wrong with your plant.

The key here is yellowing leaves on the plant. When you see yellowing leaves on any plant, we’re talking stress.

Transplant it and don’t take enough roots, the leaves turn yellow and drop off.

If I had to make a blanket shotgun evaluation of almost any case of yellow leaves on a plant – I’d say it is because of watering problems. It is either an overwatering situation or an underwatering problem.

“BUT, I water” I can hear the wailing from the gardener with a dying plant.

The point is that you’re watering WRONG. Wrong for your plant and wrong for your soil.

Possibly you’re watering too much and giving the plant some water every day. The lack of oxygen in the soil will cause the roots to drown (water fills up the air spaces in the soil). Leaves turn yellow as a result.

Possibly you’re not watering enough and the leaves are turning yellow from water stress as the plant sheds leaves in an attempt to restrict its own water loss (if it can’t absorb enough from the ground, it has to reduce its surface area to balance its losses with what it can obtain.)

There are other reasons for plants turning yellow leaves (fungal problems with roses and black spot are an example) but in new transplants of any plant – we’re likely talking water problems.

Also remember that with new plants (particularly shrubs) the soil in the pot tends to dry out very quickly and while the surrounding soil might be damp, the soil where the roots are is dry. It is only when the roots get out past the nursery container soil that the plant can be assured of survival. And this puts us into planting tips. And I’ve written about them on the Net.

Soak that plant! Then walk away. Do a search for the finger test (I’ve written about it way too many times to repeat again) and follow that advice re watering.

Put your watering system on a timer so you don’t overwater. Put your watering on a sprinkler so it is applied evenly and measure it (use margarine tubs).

In the nursery industry, there’s an old saying that goes “he who holds the hose – holds the profits”. Watering is one of the major keys to success in the home garden as well as the commercial nursery. (but it’s a boring subject!) :-)

Ideas? Sure. My idea is you’ve got a watering problem but its only my best guess. :-)

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I have a dwarf lilac tree also in my garden. It was a gift 4 years ago when I moved into my new house. This year it started to bloom, and then the blooms turned brown and died. The only difference is that I have a new dog who is male and likes to "do his business" on the tree. Can urine kill my tree??

A: Absolutely. If you allow fresh urine – high in nitrogen – to be applied to the root ball of a newly planted tree, it can shock the tree and “burn” the tender roots. Train the dog! Or get a female and let her ruin your husband’s grass.

Brown buds or browning flowers is also possibly a case of botrytis – a fungal disease easily controlled with lime sulfur and other organic materials. There’s an article in the works on this fungus.

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re hibiscus I planted one in 2003. It survived, uncovered over the winter and bloomed with such a vengeance in 2004 that we purchased 2 more for the front garden. They bloomed until late Oct. Since I did not cover the first plant, we did not cover the new ones from last year. It is almost june and none of these plants have any leaves growing or even sprouting. When do they typically start blooming? I can't remember from last year. Did I kill them? Also the same for my tree rose however it was covered with two layers of burlap.... Please help!

A: I don’t know about helping, but I can tell you what I think. :-) Hibiscus are one of the last plants to appear in the garden after winter. You’ll swear the darn things are dead and then the next day you’ll see a tiny leaf – the second day the plant is three feet tall and shooting. As I write this on Tuesday before sending out on Thursday, I still have plants appearing in my garden in the middle of June. This is the latest season I’ve ever seen in over 25 years of serious gardening.

If you’re not convinced – do gently scrape away at the soil around the root. If the crown is still solid and not mushy –you’re fine. If the crown is mushy – buy a new plant.

Tree rose – if that baby isn’t blooming by now – its dead. Get a new one. Mind you, Overwintering those in cool climates means taking them to Florida or a cold cellar. Leaving the outside is a recipe for disaster in Canada (except in BC where they don’t understand what “winter” means) :-)

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I have a pink magnolia "jane". It was planted this past spring. The leaves have all fallen off and it looks like a bunch of twigs sticking out of the ground. Is it dead?

A: Sure sounds like it. Is my plant dead? Here’s a great trick to find out if your plant is dead – scrape the bark gently with your thumbnail. Right under the bark is a green layer – if it is bright green, the trunk is still working. If it is brown right under the bark – the branch is dead. If pale green, it is dying. You can use this with any woody plant – from shrubs, roses, trees and woody perennials such as lavender to tell if your plant is alive.

So – go scratch a healthy plant to see what it looks like – then you’ll know what a sick/dead one looks like (the colour is remarkably the same in all healthy woody plants - a nice bright green.)

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While trying to rake up creeping charlie, I am also raking up the fabric that holds the sod together (along with the grass that I want there) in big sheets. My sister says that seeded lawns are better than sod in the long term because that sod fabric keeps the grass from getting deep roots. Is this true? When will this fabric finally decay? It has already been 4 years.

A: Interesting question. I had to do some basic research into what you were talking about. I had heard of these rootless systems before but never really ran into one.

Normal sod production does not involve the use of fabrics.

Alternate systems essentially use the nylon fabric to separate the soil layers and allows the grower to grow on any kind of soil – they tend to use a heavy clay soil not useful for anything else – then level it. Then lay this fabric and sandy soils over top. Sow grass seed into the sandier soil. Then they can harvest mechanically and not dig up any of the subsoil. The sod is then washed to remove all soil (soil is recycled) and bareroot grass sod on nylon fabric is sold. (some growers wash roots – others do not) The roots are supposed to be able to penetrate the fabric used in most systems to allow the grass to grow.

So – to answer the question. There are several fabric brands used and unless they come into contact with sunlight, you can expect them to stay there indefinitely. They do not rot.

Is sod better than seeding. Depends what you’re doing. Sod is faster and more expensive. Once down and watered, it is instant lawn.

Seed is slower and cheaper.

**Both give the same quality lawn once the turf is established.** It is simply a question of time and economics. There are different techniques for establishing seed versus sod but the final product will be the same.

Except if you have nylon underneath the grass.

I have no idea what to tell you. All solutions are a pain in the anatomy. I guess this is a heads up to other readers not to use this kind of product as it may be attractive in the short run but the long run is a problem.

I’d go with regular organic care – topdressing of seed in the fall – weed control with gluten etc – all detailed in the beginner-gardening.com website and the Successful Organic Lawn Care book. You’ll have to get the grass to outcompete the creeping Charlie. Good luck.

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This years petunias which are growing better than last year by far have developed white round spots on all the flower petals. what is this and can i get rid of it fast

A: We’re probably looking at thrips. A tiny fly that is a major pest and that is quite attracted to petunias. (so much so that petunias are used as a trap crop for some greenhouse plants – the thrips prefer them) Thrip damage in petunia will look like small white spots that will eventually turn brownish/grey as mold sets in.

Thrip contol is fairly straightforward on this crop.

You can dust with rotenone taking all do-not-breathe precautions and following the recommendations on the label. This will get them when they land.

You can coat a baby blue plastic card with horticultural glue. This will get them when they jump or fly. Hang the cards throughout the area approximately 12 inches over the plants. The thrips are attracted to the blue colour and will fly to it, getting stuck on the glue. Whiteflies love yellow – thrips love blue. Horticultural glue is something like tanglefoot (there are other brands) a really sticky axle grease consistency that doesn’t dry out over the gardening season. You can skim the surface on it and get two years sometimes but your card is going to fill up and be pretty gross so you might not want to do that.

Leave the cards up for a few weeks until the damage stops.

White spots on the petals can also be spray damage or burn from fertilizer if you’ve been liquid feeding or spraying. It is also possible that it is water evaporation and calcium deposits on the petals (rare unless you’ve been watering with a fine nozzle)

It is NOT the result of overhead watering and the sun “burning” through the drops onto the petals. This is an old wive’s tale. The refractory angles of water droplets are not the right ones to concentrate the sun into burning zones.

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Doug, I have about a half acre zone 5 garden that i don't always get completely planted each year. My garden sits on a slight hill so each spring with the rains I get some garden erosion on the exposed soil. I read somewhere that planting grass as green manure in the fall can be a good idea for the soil and to help control weeds in the spring. So first do you think this is a good idea? Second what type of grass would you recommend planting? I've already thought of other ideas like terracing but i don't really have access to earth moving equipment and yes I do use that big of a garden I have a big family and put up lots of corn, tomatoes, potatoes, squash, berries, etc.

A: Whoa! Do NOT plant grass for erosion control in a garden. You’ll have to weed the darn stuff in the spring and you’re only making work for yourself. Grass survives the winter!

Use oats or barley – they’ll hold the soil and die off over the winter (most of them anyway) giving you green manure and some weed resistance. You could also use something like buckwheat for the same purpose.

Put your rows across the hill and not up and down to fight erosion.

And who said you needed earth moving equipment. I’ve terraced gardens like that, one step at a time.

There’s a whole bunch of terraced gardens all over the world that earth moving equipment has never seen. You’ve got a shovel – you’ve got a ton of kids – put ‘em to work. (my kids reading this will cringe but say “oh yeah!” as they got to weed the terraced nursery I built.)

From My Garden To Yours

Ah, ‘tis the season to stop some problems right in their tracks. Here are a few things you want to consider for your garden right now.

Get out the hoses. Remember that problems in July start now in some plants. For example, if you can see the first set of flowers on your tomato plants (I can) then you know you have to establish a watering routine that ensures the plants never are water-stressed. Water stress will lead to Blossom End Rot where the bottoms of the fruit go black and rotting. Water stress leads to cracking of the fruit. This is mostly an inconsistent watering where the plants don’t get water one week and then get adequate amounts the following week. The plants respond to the water by sucking up more than the fruits can handle and bingo, the skins crack under the pressure of too fast a growth. We often see this in gardens where the gardener runs the hoses. The easiest thing to do is set up a sprinkler system and time it so you’re putting an equal amount of water onto the plants every few days. The first time you do this, figure out how long your sprinkler has to run to put a half inch of water onto the garden. Use an old margarine tub or something set in the sprinkler pattern as your measuring guide. When there’s a half inch in the tub, you’re done in that area. Give your garden approximately an inch to inch and a half of water every week split into two equal applications. This will keep those tomato problems at bay.

The second thing you want to be aware of right now is how you’re feeding your plants. Remember that you only have to feed those plants if you want flowers, leaves or fruit. I use an organic liquid fish emulsion all summer (every week to ten days) that keeps the plants growing strongly and doesn’t kill off the beneficial soil bacteria. This stuff is particularly good for my container plants and as I have a ‘Knockout” rose in full bud at the moment, you can bet it is getting its weekly dose of plant food. I want those roses! Feed those containers weekly if you want to see flowers on them.

The other thing you might consider doing is a bit of a pruning job on the containers even now when they are looking good. Pinch out the growing tips of all the vigorous vines or growth areas. Pinching out the strong growing plants now forces them to do two things. The first is to stop getting long and leggy themselves. The second is to encourage them to develop side shoots. Pinching off the growing tip (only take a half inch of the very end of these shoots) will also encourage new flowers because annual flowers produce new flowers on new growth. The more new growth you have, the more flowers you have. The easiest way to get new growth is to water, feed weekly and prune right now. You’ll get a bumper crop of blooms in July and August when you most want them and when your neighbours are crying because their containers are starting to look shabby.

I don’t have any grass but if I did, I’d be raising the mower deck right to the top limits right about now. The spring flush of growth is just about done and the heat of summer is around the corner. When that heat hits, you really want to mow tall so the grass blades can feed the roots. This will keep the grass healthy and growing strongly. This in turn will help keep weed seeds from germinating. So mow tall for the rest of the summer.

If I had a great garden, I’d put seats in it. I do and I did. In fact, this week I even put some seats out the front so I can sit there in the morning sun or late afternoon shade and enjoy my front garden. So, while the chairs will never win garden awards (can you say cheap plastic – the only plastic in my garden) they are perfectly functional for the moment and I now enjoy my morning coffee and note taking for the day outdoors watching my gardens. Let me jump on my soapbox here. If you have a garden, now’s the time to enjoy it and having seats in the garden is a must. Without the seats, you’re just going out there to work. Sit. Enjoy what you’ve created. Even if they’re cheap and plastic like mine you need to take the time to smell those roses. And if you don’t have roses, you had better wander right down to your local garden store, because there are some fine deals to be had now on fragrant roses.

Water, feed and prune. I’m starting to sound like a broken record. So I’m going to quit, get off my soapbox and go back to the garden. I have to decide which of the goldenrods is the expensive ornamental one and which the weedy one. Given the tag has disappeared, I have a major problem and I might wind up growing both. I’ll likely wind up feeding and watering the two of them all summer until they bloom and I can yank one well-fed weed out of the garden.