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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 March 29 show:
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These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: What do I need to know about raising praying mantis?
A: They come as little egg. You can pick them up at garden centres now, but keep them in your fridge so they stay dormant.
When they hatch, you’re going to have hundreds of them. It is too early now to hatch them as they are quite hungry little guys so between now and June there’s not going to be enough bugs on your house plants to sustain them. They also need water.
Wait until nighttime temperatures are 10 C — the same temperature you would put your house plants outside. Around the first week of June you can start releasing them outside. Make sure you have a water source near where you’re doing it, like a bird bath or a dish of water they can get at. When insects hatch the first thing they look for is water.
Start them off one something like a ninebark or a dogwood, because those kind of plants usually have lots of aphids in spring so it gives them food right away as well. When you release them in the yard, they need to be near something that’ll keep them there.
Q: Why is my Chinese money tree turning yellow?
A: It could be a lack of nutrients, or too little light. Use a house plant fertilizer every time you water it. It’s one of the easier plants to take care of. They do well in bright indirect light and like a small pot. Make sure also that you don’t overwater it.
Q: Are there any companion plants for growing marijuana?
A: Growing marijuana is very similar to growing a tomato plant, so basil and those kind of things would be great for insects. They call it a weed for a reason, though.
Q: Deer have eaten all the needles off my dwarf Mugo pines. Will they come back?
A: They will come back. You need to fertilize them lots. You will have a bit of a topiary type of Mugo pines for a while with little green puffballs at the end of the branches, and then slowly you’ll get some branches coming out.
The deer will remember though so you’ll have to fence them for next year and looking at about five years to get them back.
Don’t prune them, they’ll push out new growth out the tips unless they’ve really chewed them down the tips. New growth usually happens around basically the first week of June or end of May. You can plant another smaller Mugo pine at the base and let it grow up to fill the bottom.
Q: When is it safe to take the burlap wrappings off a moonglow juniper?
A: Never take them off until the frost is out of the ground and the roots are taking up moisture. There’s still some fresh snow coming so now is the worst time for the sun reflecting off fresh snow. You’re not putting burlap on to keep them warm. It’s not like a jacket, it’s actually there for reflection of the sun for the spring.
You’re going to see the burning this time of the year because the sun is more intense and more warm now. Don’t take them off until you can poke a rod into the ground, then give them some water before taking the burlap off.
If you have cedars facing the south, this is the time you want to put on your burlap, not necessarily earlier. Often it’s a matter of getting it to stay on a because the ground’s frozen and you can’t stick in the ground.
If there’s snow banks in there, you can stick some bamboo stakes or similar into the snow to hold it up and give them a sunshade.
Q: Can I do a bud graft from a Battleford apple onto a 30-year-old ornamental crab?
A: It’s getting close to the time when you want to start collecting your buds and then put them in a plastic bag to keep them moist and put them in the fridge. Make sure there’s not too much moisture and make sure they don’t dry out. You just want to keep them dormant.
Towards the end of May or beginning of June take the buds out and attach them to your plant. It will work if you stick it onto a crab.
Q: How can I improve saline soil in my yard?
A: Use a sulfur-based fertilizer, elemental sulfur is good. If it’s really saline, use something like Tiger 90 or just aluminum sulfate to bring the pH of the soil down. Mix some compost in, especially things like a cedar mulch. Using biochar will help neutralize things around plants as well if you’ve got a lot of really saline areas.
Q: Can I grow plants from the seeds in a tomatillo?
A: Yes. Take the seeds out and rinse them off a little bit, and then let them ferment a little bit in there before you take them out and put them into the soil.
Cutting the fruit open you might get a couple that germinate, but you’re not going to get a good germination rate by doing that. Leave a little bit of the pulpy stuff on them, swirl them around with some water, let them sit for a couple days, dry them out and plant from there.
That fermenting basically is stratifying them, loosening up the outer skin of the seed so that they’ll start germinating.
Q: What are the benefits of gypsum for my garden and where can I buy it?
A: Gypsum is great for the garden, especially if you’ve got hard soil. You can get it at most garden centres, and it looks like a little rock with sharp edges that help break up clay soils. Also use some cedar mulch mixed into the top three inches of the soil to help keep it from going hard.
Q: How do I care for an Easter lily?
A: Don’t keep the soil wet, allow it to dry out slightly between waterings. The bulb is probably sitting closer to the bottom of your pot than the top, so if you stick your finger in the soil about an inch or two down, it should feel dry to the touch before you give it some water. Taking any decorative foil off will help avoid root rot, or just make sure you drain it after every time you water it.
Put it in a bright sunny window or slightly indirect light if you want the blooms to last a little bit longer. If you want them to open faster, put them in a brighter light.
After it finishes blooming, let it die back down into the bulb, then you can plant them again outside and have the leaves. Harvest the bulb in the fall, store it, and then plant it back up again. It will take about 8 to 10 weeks for it to start blooming again.
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