THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, February 16, 1997 TAG: 9702150042
SECTION: HOME & GARDEN PAGE: G3 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: GARDENING
SOURCE: ROBERT STIFFLER
LENGTH: 118 lines
Whoever told me that a perennial garden would be less work because I wouldn't have to plant the same plants every year told me a lie. I spend much more time in the perennial garden than I do in any of my annual beds. Mostly, pulling great amounts of weeds and grass. I've been at this about five years now and the bed is still 50 percent crabgrass and weeds. I mulch but not heavily because I don't want to discourage new perennial shoots.
I have plenty of daisy, coreopsis and brown-eyed Susan in spring and early summer, but August is a bare month for blooms. What are your suggestions, other than giving up and covering the bed with grass?
Dorothy Jacobs, Chesapeake
Don't ever give up on a garden. I agree that perennials require just as much work as annuals. To solve your problem, when growth starts this spring, you need to spray every weed and grass with Roundup or Finale. Then put down one of the landscape nets like WeedBlock and cover it with pine straw or pine bark. If cutting around the perennials to fit a landscape net is too time consuming, you can just put down additional amounts of bark or pine straw. Any perennial sprouts that should get through the mulch will make it. Then spray every two weeks whenever you see weeds or grass.
In a year or two, you'll have the problem contained and there will be a lot less work.
As to color in August, you can have it by planting rebloooming daylilies, hardy chrysanthemums, salvias, verbenas such as Homestead and Taipen pink, Japanese anemones or Joe Pye weed. Those are just a few. Check your perennial catalogs or books and buy only those that bloom in late summer.
Having more time than money, I am interested in rooting crape myrtles. When is the best time to do that and how? How about rooting ornamental shrubs like dwarf Japanese holly? Can you recommend a good ``how-to'' book on the subject?
Also do you have or plan to get an e-mail address or fax number? I would have liked to fax this and many other questions to you.
Steve Reagan, Portsmouth
There are several ways to propagate crape myrtles, but Bonnie Appleton says the preferred method is to wait until new spring growth becomes semi-hard. This is usually mid-summer, around late June or July. (It's often the same time you take azalea cuttings.) Then take your cuttings and put them in a soilless rooting mix, after using Rootone on their tips. Cover with plastic and put in the shade and they should root. You can root hollies by the same method.
As to a book, Appleton recommends ``The Reference Manual of Wood Plant Propagation'' by Michael Dirr and Charles Heuser (Varsity Press). A bookstore can order it for you, or you can get more information from the University of Georgia in Athens, where Dirr teaches.
As to e-mail and fax, your letter to me was written in September, answered in October and is appearing in the paper in February. That gives an idea of the volume of reader mail I receive. I don't need or want more ways to communicate.
Enclosed are a flower and leaves from a bush. Can you tell me the name of the bush? It came up from a seed from a very old bush.
I would also like to know what to do with a maple tree that has suckers at the bottom of the trunk. What can I do to keep the suckers from coming back next spring?
Valeria Chamblee, Ahoskie
Your unidentified plant is Hibiscus syriacus, more commonly called Althea or Rose-of-Sharon. I'm surprised you don't have many of these seedlings. Rose-of-Sharon can be a pest because of the many seedlings that pop up from the seeds it drops.
As to your maple tree, keep pruning the suckers from around the trunk each spring. Holly trees do the same thing, which makes each a nuisance sometimes. There are products for commercial applicators to use to eliminate such sprouts, especially around crape myrtles, but none are available to homeowners.
You recently had a column on moles and voles. I don't know what we have, but it took me 10 years to finally get a decent lawn and for a year or two, we had no problems. Two years ago, I noticed their tell-tale burrows. I applied diazinon and waited for the next year to see what happened. Nothing happened, and I was relieved. This year was another story. It seems that not only has the culprit come back, but I think he brought his entire family with him.
In the past, you have mentioned Mole-Med. When I asked for it at Lowe's and Wal-Mart, I was told they had never heard of it. In Lowe's, the person in charge of the garden section asked me for the name and address of the manufacturer. Because I was unable to find the product, I was unable to tell her anything. Can you give me information I can pass on and hopefully some store will stock it? I think you know how bad it feels to watch a lawn be destroyed a little at a time.
Frank Cassell, Edenton, N.C.
Since the detailed article on moles and voles appeared, I am advising readers with mole or vole problems to call The Virginian-Pilot back issues department (446-2717) and ask for that issue, dated Sept. 8, 1996. The article also may be found on microfilm at public libraries. It gives complete up-to-date information on voles and moles from state universities and manufacturers.
I only add that universities say that moles have developed an appetite for earthworms and may eat as many worms as grubs. Products like diazinon rid your lawn of grubs, but that may not get rid of moles. Also, because of EPA restrictions, none of those products last more than six months and often less. Milky spore, a bacterial disease, has been the preferred method to control grubs. University specialists say they now suspect that grubs have developed an immunity to milky spore.
Michigan State University specialist Glen R. Dudderar says that Mole-Med works better than any other control, especially when mixed with liquid soap before application. I have found this to be true. Dudderar says it also repels rabbits, squirrels and raccoons, but I have not found that to happen. I can't explain why Mole-Med is not stocked by more outlets. Call Virginia Beach Feed and Seed at (757) 497-2151, and they will ship it to you. You can reach Mole-Med at (800) 255-2527, (812) 537-4464 or write to P.O. Box 333, Aurora, Ind. 47001. MEMO: No gardening questions will be taken over the phone. Write to
Robert Stiffler, The Virginian-Pilot, 150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk,
Va. 23510. Answers will be published on a space-available basis. For an
earlier reply, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope.