1 July 2002

WEED ON! Strange spring weather promoted a wealth of weeds. If knees & backs are complaining, you may want to consider waging the weed wars with Roundup. Detroit News' garden writer Nancy Szerlag devoted an entire column last Saturday to the fine art of label reading & chemical application. One point worth mentioning: If weed patches are dry, water the area before applying poison. This aids weeds' absorption.

WATERING beforehand also applies to fertilizers. If a container or bed is dry, fertilizer may burn plants, or in the case of hanging baskets, simply run through the dried out soil. Water first. Saw the power of Miracle Grow on a recent garden tour. Three pots of Petunia 'Purple Wave' on a west-facing front porch were not just large, they were HUGE. The home owner said she'd formerly fertilized with MG THREE TIMES PER WEEK, but this year had "cut down" to twice a week. Makes one wonder how much fertilizer does it take to kill a plant & in what amount of time. Not advised. If you fertilized weekly, use half the recommended amount. Geez.

PLANTING & transplanting generally are not recommended during July. (This is what some gardeners may mean when they tell a garden writer that after spring planting, they then just kick back & "watch things grow." Who are these people!) Anyway, if plant a tree you must, make sure it is balled & burlapped (B&B), remove as much of that bulky burlap around the top as possible, remove ALL plastic wrap, loosen or cut any wrap-around, girdling roots, & sink it in a water-filled hole. Also in last Saturday's News, Janet Macunovich mentions a "leaky water pillow" called "Treegator." Just fill it every few days, plop it down on those young tree roots, & watch her grow.

HYDRANGEAS are gluttons for water. H. 'Annabelle,' in our driveway side bank for at least 15 years, never bloomed but once, & then only with one or two flowers. It is healthy. Leaves are always green & untouched by any beasts. The rabbits & I pruned it every February. It produced a "child." I consulted Janet. She suggested lack of water. Spring rains were only a start. We bought unwieldy, but workable, hose reels that permit limitless lengthening of hoses. I am drenching those shrubs. The results: Myriad blooms on both mother & child. The same holds true for climbing hydrangeas, especially when planted against a house with roof overhangs which prevent rain reaching roots. When planting in such a situation, place roots about 2.5 feet away from side of house.

CUT BACK sprawling perennials, such as Tradescantia to the ground. Prune crowded perennials to keep them in line, experiment with shearing half a plant to see if sheared portion reblooms, stake plants that may fall over.

DEEPLY colored daylilies may scorch in full sun & high temps. After bloom, when temperatures cool down, replant them in an area where hot afternoon sun is filtered at most, eliminated if the area gets good doses of morning sun.

DO NOT BUY, adopt or rescue this plant: A few autumns ago, I picked up a chocolate-colored perennial at Bordine's. Nobody there knew anything about it. It was "new." Being in a dark plant mode, I bought three. Two survived the winter in a mostly shaded, north-facing bed by the deck. However, there were miniature versions that spring, about five, 10 feet away from where the vanished plant had been. Bad sign.

This summer, it's second here, it is poppinup up thru hostas, up thru

connifers, running wild. And I've decided that rich, chocolate color now looks like rancid, raw liver. It's name is not lovely either: Cryptutaenia atropurpurea.

There is no common name on the label. It gets about 12-16 inches high, spreads 18-24 inches, requires part shade & supposedly bears small lavender fleurs for four to six weeks starting in June. This example has been munched by a young woodchuck that waddles over periodically for a drink out of our pool. So, no fleurs. Anybody that has space where it can gallop without woodchuck predation is welcome to it.

SCOUR BIRDBATHS with a Baking Soda paste weekly. Change hummingbird feeders frequently in hot weather. Use smaller portions to avoid waste. Hummer syrup is one part regular sugar boiled in four parts water about two minutes. Cool, then refrigerate.

PLACE low containers, i.e., pot saucers preferably with glazed interiors, on ground for thirsty little creatures who then might not sample flowers for moisture. A water hose stored in our shed over the winter was totally gnawed, not for "nesting rubber" but for the water that was still in the hose roll when I hauled it out this spring. Chris' experience with the drowned chipmunk in the watering can is common. Do not store water in open-topped containers. Even empty, an upright watering can can become a convection oven death chamber for small animals. Store those containers on their sides. It won't inspire "Fine Gardening" photos, but it may save a little life.

GOOD PLANT worth growing, especially with blue hosta: Dicentra eximia. In her fine book, "The Well-Tended Perennial Garden," Tracy DiSabato-Aust claims this may be a cultivar of Dicentra formosa 'Luxuriant' or a hybrid of D. formosa & D. eximia. It's an April-September bloomer, lovely pink over gray-green ferny foliage. Can be tempermental, but I have good luck growing it in same conditions as hosta -- rich soil, part shade, no special watering, tho' this spring jumped started it.

The love of gardening is a seed that once sown never dies. -- Gertrude Jekyll

Onward & Up,

Linda Meadors, Horticulture Chairman