Murray Wood: Who's hot... and who's not
Every Friday, Murray Wood takes a look back at the week's news and decides who's hot... and who's not. This week's list ...
Jill and Rick Van Duyvendyk answer all your gardening questions in Garden Talk on 650 CKOM and 980 CJME every Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Here are some questions and answers from the April 12 show:
Read more:
These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: How can I deter slugs in my garden?
A: Watch for places that they’re hiding, under pieces of wood, etc. They’ll be hiding somewhere in the peripherals of your garden.
Bait them or trap them as soon as it’s warm for them to come out. In a vegetable garden, look at spacing your plants out to get more airflow. Also more sunshine is going to hit the ground and dry it out faster — slugs like damp places.
Make sure you’re watering water in the morning so that the extra water evaporates by evening because they’ll come out and they’ll find those damp places at night.
Some people say you can take crushed eggshells and slugs don’t like sliding on top of that or use diatomaceous earth.
You can also put little strips of plywood around the outside edge where they might be coming in from and then put some slug bait underneath. The bait’s safe for pets now.
Slugs go in cycles, so if you have a really bad year, it might be a little bit less the next year, and then it repeats itself every five to seven years.
You can go out there with a headlamp and pick them up at night or put out little dishes filled with beer — the yeast from the beer attracts them. Best way is a little cottage cheese container buried in the ground with beer in the bottom. Don’t use a good beer, use a cheap beer.
Q: My rose cherry tree buds have opened and look like pussy willow. What is that?
A: Normally, they don’t look like that at all. You just get new growth, and the flower bud that comes out of that. It should bloom unless it’s not named right.
Q: Voles have damaged the bark at the base of my double-flowering plum. Will it survive?
A: It will eventually die because there’s not enough energy without the bark to sustain the tree. If you want to experiment, you can do what’s called bridge grafting. It’s taking pieces of bark and bridging those gaps.
In the future, use a tree guard three feet up on the trunk. It’s like a plastic coil, — just start at the bottom and keep wrapping around and work your way up. Put it on in October, and take it off in May.
Q: How should I prune a golden elder?
A: Cut it down now to whatever height you want. It’ll grow. I cut mine right to the ground and it took about three years for it to come back to be a nice bush again. You can cut it down to half if you want
Q: When should I prune hydrangeas?
A: In the fall, take the flower heads off and then in spring, cut them back 30 to 50 per cent. You don’t need to cut them right down the ground because the stems will grow really long really fast and then the flower heads will be floppy. If the plant is just a couple or three years old, then only take the flower heads off.
Q: When and how do I trim rose bushes?
A: Right now. Trim them at least one third and up to a half, especially if there are old hips and buds on them. Cut them back because roses bloom on new wood. Unless you have Thérèse Bugnet or Persian yellow roses, they bloom on second-year wood, so you prune them after they finish blooming.
Q: The hydrangea I just bought at Costco is dropping petals and is droopy. How can I care for it until I get it into the ground?
A: When it gets to that point, it’s not going to just perk back up again. You have to trim those blossoms off and wait for the new blossoms to come. Start fertilizing and treat it like a house plant.
You can plant it in a larger pot, one at least two to four inches bigger in diameter. It’s going to hold more soil volume and you will be able to get more consistent watering. Put it in a bright indirect window in your home and if you left that foil on the bottom it might be sitting in water.
Q: Can I cut my 12-year-old ninebark down to the ground or should I leave it 12 inches high?
A: Whatever you want to do. Just remember, it’ll take a couple of years to get that ninebark to a nice size again. Fertilize it every three weeks from Mother’s Day until the middle of July.
Q: What type of mulch should I put on a large garden?
A: You can use any kind of mulch. You can use cedar mulch if you want because our soils are more alkaline or you can use straw. Just watch for mice.
Read more:
