In The Spotlight
Garden Reflections
Garden Tips
Plant Pathology
FAQ'S/Quiz
Laurels
Message board
Q: What are the best plants for shade?
A. Any spot in your garden that gets less than four hours of sun a day is considered a shady spot. The key to successful growing here is the soil condition. Use composted leaves and mulch to keep the soil moist and to provide humus. Among trees, shade-lovers include dogwoods and Japanese maples, although the red leaves like at least a few hours of sun a day. Wherever your shade is most dense, you can't go wrong with hostas or hydrangeas. And if you just can't live without some colour, there are plenty of options. Try impatiens, forget-me-nots, foxglove, primrose, begonias, astilbes, bleeding hearts or rhododendrons
Q: What's the best kind of soil?
A. If you cast your mind back to high school science, you may remember something called the pH level. Something with a low pH is highly acidic. Something with a high pH is highly alkaline. A lot of plants get the most nutrients from neutral soil. But not all of them. Highly alkaline soils are good for peonies and peas, while blueberries and azaleas love acidic soil. You can test your soil with a home test kit or send a sample away to a lab for testing. Altering the pH is not difficult. To neutralize, add organic matter. If you want to increase the acidity, the quickest way is to add garden sulphur, but peat, black tea leaves and coffee grounds will also do the trick. For a more alkaline soil, add limestone or crushed oyster shells.
Q: Can you supply me with the botanical or common names of those annual "poppies",
Papaver or not, that can be direct-seeded outdoors even under frost conditions.
A: The California poppy is called Eschscholzia californica. It is best to sow the seed in situ in the early spring or where winters are mild. They can be planted in autumn through early spring. They perform most successfully in the moderate temperatures of the Pacific Coast. They can be started indoors 2-3 weeks before the last frost but do best when planted directly outside.
Some annual varieties of the Papaver family include the P. rhoeas (corn poppy, field poppy, Flanders poppy, and the Shirley series). These can be sown indoors 6-8 weeks before the last frost, in peat pots. Best results come from seeds started in situ. In zones 3-7, sow in early spring, when soil is cool and a light frost is still possible or in late autumn. Where summers are cool, 3 spring plantings made 6 weeks apart will prolong the blooming season. In zones 8-10, sow only in autumn.
Q: I have brugmansia and datura that produced seeds after flowering. I would like to know if I need to do anything prior to planting those seeds or do I just plant them? When and how do I do this?
A: These plants are not hardy. Sow seeds at 61 degrees Fahrenheit in the Spring. All parts are highly toxic if ingested so be careful. Outdoors these plants grow in fertile, moist, but well-drained soil in full sun.
Q: I am looking for ideas for containers on a porch in full sun. I prefer mixed plantings of long-blooming annuals with foliage accents. I do have the AHS book on containers, but am still at a loss. Suggestions will be much appreciated.
A: There are endless possibilities of annuals that you can plant for container gardening. Marguerites are white, golden eyed daisies that continuously bloom all summer. Cockscomb (celosia) are feathery and bright colored, Diascia trail nicely, as do lobelia and nasturtiums. The gray wooly leaves of helichrysum petiolare love baking in the sun. Heliotropes have a wonderful fragrance and violet-blue flowers, and stock flowers too smell nice. Petunias , snapdragons, and geraniums, salvias, pansy, and verbena are wonderful too. For foliage accents you can plant canna, coleus and dusty miller.
Q: I like to grow impatiens in the annual parts of my flower beds, but the last few years some of the plants have wilted and died after they seem to be well established. It is not due to lack of moisture. The beds have been watered when they needed it.
A: Impatiens need partial shade meaning they like quite a bit of shade and require only a few hours of sunlight. They don’t like afternoon sun and prefer morning sun. They will get scorched if they are in direct sunlight even for an hour or two. However, the New Guinea hybrid impatiens (larger flowers and elongated green or variegated leaves) will tolerate full sun if the soil is kept moist. Impatiens also need average soil and water during droughts.
There is a possibility that they may have Verticillium wilt that is caused by a fungus. The solution for this is to use clean soil or treat infested soil with heat or chemical. The other possibility is that it may have bacterial wilt and the solution for this is to remove and destroy affected plants and before replanting you need to replace the soil in which diseased plants appeared. Before doing any of these you should contact your cooperative extension for advice.