Ohio Gardening Blog and Weekly Garden Column for Ohio Gardeners and Northern Kentucky Gardeners

Asparagus is a perennial will grow larger and more productive each year and produce for many years with almost no maintenance, if you plant it properly. You can harvest handfuls of crisp, sweet stalks all during spring from an established patch. All you have to do is invest some time and effort to get your plants started, and patiently wait a few years for them to get established before you start to harvest. You can plant roots or pot-grown asparagus plants any time the soil temperature exceeds 50 degrees. Here are our recommended varieties for the Ohio valley:

Jersey Knight produces a bumper crop of larger, fatter spears, typically 5/8-inch in diameter, bright green with deep purple tips. One of the easiest varieties to grow, they have terrific vigor that makes these plants come back stronger every year. The yield from Jersey Knight is 2 to 4 times greater than older strains such as the Washington series, highly rust-resistant and tolerant of Fusarium, Crown and Rust Rot.

Millenium is new hybrid developed by the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada - after 19 years of research. A hardy, high quality asparagus ideal for the home garden and commercial growers. 'Guelph Millennium' surpassed 'Jersey Giant', to produce the best yield of good quality spears.

Purple Passion spears are larger and more tender than green asparagus, without any of the strings that can make green asparagus tough. The whole spear can be cooked without wasting the butt. It has so much more natural sugar it’s often snapped off and eaten raw (its color makes it a distinctive salad garnish) but when it’s cooked its sweetness gives it a mild, nutty flavor.

Start with one-year roots or two-year-old potted plants. You can expect a half-pound of fresh spears per year, per plant, once they mature. Dig a trench one foot deep and about one foot wide, 1-1/2 feet long for each plant. Make sure your planting trench drains well. Asparagus roots do not like waterlogged soils that will lead to root rot. Apply about 1 lb. of 0-21-0 (triple super-phosphate) fertilizer per 50 feet of row in the bottom of the trench before planting. Fill the trench half full with compost or aged manure, sprinkle on some 10-10-10 fertilizer or Espoma Plant-Tone, and plant the roots so that the base of the plant (root crown) is about four inches below ground level. Plant should be 1-1/2 feet apart, and if you are planting multiple rows the rows should be spaced five feet apart. Giving the plants lots of room helps prevent fungus diseases by letting air circulate to keep them dry. Carefully fill the trench, making sure the plant tips are showing above ground. If your plants don’t have stalks yet, wait for them to grow before refilling your trench around them.

Now you need to wait a year before you harvest. Let the plants grow all season, fertilizing occasionally and mulching to prevent weeds. After frost kills the tops cut them off. Repeat this the second year. Start harvesting next year, but only cut while spears are at least as thick as your finger. After harvest is over let the remaining stalks grow tall.

If Asparagus beetles are seen, spray the ferns with an approved insecticide. Asparagus beetles chew on the fern, causing the stem to turn brown and reducing the yield the next year. For disease prevention, spray with an approved fungicide on a 7 to 14 day schedule beginning when the ferns reach a 3 to 4 foot height and continuing until mid September.

The best weed control is mulching. You can use straw or composted leaves for this purpose. If you have a problem with weeds, after harvest is over you can cut all the plants to the ground and then spray the row with Roundup to kill the weeds, and then let the asparagus re-grow.

Asparagus is a rugged perennial that will reward your hard work for up to 15 years. Each year you will get a longer harvest, and spears will become fatter.

Start with one-year roots or two-year-old potted plants. You can expect a half-pound of fresh spears per year, per plant, once they mature. The best varieties are Jersey Knight and Jersey Giant. Dig a trench one foot deep and about one foot wide, 1-1/2 feet long for each plant. Make sure your planting trench drains well. Asparagus roots do not like waterlogged soils that will lead to root rot. The best planting time is early May, once the soil temperature reaches 50 degrees.

Apply about 1 lb. of 0-46-0 (triple super-phosphate) fertilizer per 50 feet of row in the bottom of the trench before planting. Fill the trench half full with compost or aged manure, sprinkle on some 10-10-10 fertilizer or Espoma Plant-Tone, and plant the roots so that the base of the plant (root crown) is about four inches below ground level. Plant should be 1-1/2 feet apart, and if you are planting multiple rows the rows should be spaced five feet apart. Giving the plants lots of room helps prevent fungus diseases by letting air circulate to keep them dry. Carefully fill the trench, making sure the plant tips are showing above ground. If your plants don’t have stalks yet, wait for them to grow before refilling your trench around them.

Asparagus is a rugged perennial that will reward your hard work for up to 15 years. Each year you will get a longer harvest, and spears will become fatter.

Blueberry bushes are attractive shrubs with abundant pink-tinged white blooms in spring, shiny foliage and stunning fall color. If you have a well-drained full-sun location for foundation shrubs or privacy hedge, consider using blueberry plants. They come in a variety of shapes and sizes. There’s even a “groundcover” blueberry ideal for sunny hillsides! As an added bonus, you can enjoy loads of luscious fruit.

Like any orchard plant, blueberry bushes need some care and present challenges, particularly keeping wild creatures from getting all that juicy fruit before you do. The most important step is well-drained soil, best accomplished in raised beds. The reward is an attractive landscape plant that also provides a plentiful food supply.

There are hundreds of blueberry varieties available. Here are our favorites at GoodSeed Farm:

Bluecrop: Hardier and more drought resistant than most blueberries, Bluecrop grows into a dense, multiple-branched upright bush 4-6 feet tall. It produces medium to large, light-blue fruit of good quality, the fruit is firm, resistant to cracking and has a good flavor.

Brigitta: Large, firm, light blue fruit has a crisp texture and a well-balanced sweet yet very tangy flavor. One of the highest-quality berries available with an amazing shelf life - can be stored up to one month! Bronze new leaves become deep green when mature, and burgundy in fall. A slightly spreading bush 5 to 6 ft. high and wide.

Jersey: Bakers love the medium-size, sweet-tasting fruit produced by Jersey. Its rich blue berries are a perfect choice for tarts, muffins and coffeecakes. One of the most widely grown varieties, this bush is very vigorous and productive. It has an upright and open growth habit 6-8' tall in a wide range of soil types, always producing heavy, reliable crops. It ripens in August and is a very reliable producer every year.

Northblue: This prolific bloomer produces attractive showy white flowers tinged pink, followed by a huge midseason crop of blueberries. Fall foliage colors range yellow through red. A moderate grower 2 to 3 ft. tall and just over 3 ft. wide, its smaller size makes a fine landscape plant for borders, as hedge or specimen.

Patriot: A "half-high" blueberry variety, (a hardy cross between highbush and lowbush-type blueberries), Patriot is a very productive blueberry that can produce 10-20 pounds of fruit per plant. The berries are large and firm, have a rich flavor and ripen in July. Patriot is adaptable to many soil types, shows good resistance to root rot, and can withstand wet soils better than other varieties. A mature plant grows 5-feet tall and wide, with a spreading rather than upright form.

Ruby Carpet: This lowbush blueberry variety creates a ruby red and blazing orange carpet in autumn, and bears tasty small fruit that is perfect for baking. Plants grow just 1-1/2 ft high. For the best effect, space plants 3 ft. apart, and they will spread up to 12 inches a year. Why settle for the ordinary groundcovers when you can be a trend setter by planting these beautiful native blueberries?

Spartan: Exceptionally attractive and tasty fruit is often larger than a quarter in size with a tangy sweet flavor. Large, glossy-green foliage becomes orange and yellow in fall. Small white, bell-shaped late spring flowers proceed the berries in mid-July. Moderate growing upright shrub 5 to 6 ft. tall, 4 to 5 ft. wide.

Here’s a radical approach to successfully growing blueberries: Rather than digging holes and planting them, set the plants on top of the ground and build a foot-deep raised bed around them. Then fill the bed completely with shredded Pine bark mulch and keep the mulch moist until the root systems grow out into the mulch. Pine bark has just the right acidity so it makes the perfect soil for them. Renewing the pine mulch every spring prevents weeds, making your bed maintenance free.

Espoma “Holly Tone” fertilizer is the perfect blueberry food, providing additional acid and trace minerals vital to healthy blossoms and fruit.

Here’s a radical approach to successfully growing blueberries and strawberries in your yard: Rather than digging holes and planting them, set the plants on top of the ground and build a raised bed around them. Then fill the bed completely with composted Pine bark mulch and keep the mulch moist until the root systems grow out into the mulch. This won’t take long, and you’ll have a bumper crop of blueberries or strawberries!

This technique is easy to do and it works for two reasons. The first is that blueberries and strawberries love well-drained acid soil, and the second is that blueberries and strawberries love well-drained acid soil. Let us explain.

We come from southern New Jersey where there is a huge blueberry industry. South Jersey has well-drained, sandy acid soil. You can pour a bucket of water on the soil in a Jersey blueberry field and it will immediately soak in and disappear. If your soil doesn’t drain this well, blueberries will sit and sulk. Raised beds allow excess water to simply drain off by gravity rather than being trapped in a hole around plant roots. Shredded Pine bark holds just the right moisture and the rest just drains away, allowing roots to breathe. The fluffy texture of the mulch encourages new feeder roots to quickly grow.

For Blueberries and Strawberries, acid soil is key for healthy plants and tasty fruit. Pine bark has just the right acidity so it makes the perfect food for them. We recommend mixing in some Espoma “Holly Tone” fertilizer for additional acid and trace minerals vital to healthy blossoms and fruit. Renewing the pine mulch every spring prevents weeds, making your bed maintenance free.

For even less maintenance, plant strawberry plants as groundcover and you’ll have absolutely no weeds, just delicious strawberries to eat. Strawberries and blueberries love the exact same habitat; good drainage, full sun and acid soil. You can try this easily by planting a few strawberry plants in a pot or hanging basket filled with pine bark. For a showier display get a traditional terra cotta strawberry jar and fill it with pine bark and young strawberry plants.

Making raised beds is easy. Pick a spot with full sun all day. First, apply Roundup to the area to kill any existing perennial weeds. Make sure there are no low spots that would trap water. Build a wall six inches high for strawberries, a foot high for blueberries. Railroad ties or concrete retaining wall blocks work well for this. Pressure treated wood also works but it won’t last as long. Any shape will do, so try to harmonize your raised planter with the rest of your landscaping. Blueberry bushes (particularly “Patriot”, our favorite!) are attractive upright shrubs with stunning fall color.

Does our method sound too radical? We’re suggesting planting blueberries and strawberries with NO SOIL and NO DIGGING, just pine bark in raised beds. Don’t believe it? Come to GoodSeed Farm and see our 2-year blueberry and strawberry plants. We got loads of juicy fruit the first year we planted them.

Birds can be a problem with berries. The walls of raised beds are great for securing netting to keep them out. A simple framework of metal tubing attached to the walls will support the netting. This way you’ll get to enjoy the fruits of your labor!

This is the best time of year to plant bulbs for early spring color. You can have a colorful garden very early next spring if you plant some bulbs right now. Early-blooming Daffodils, Hyacinths, Tulips and many other colorful bulbs will get the jump on spring and reward you with colorful gardens before the dogwoods bloom in spring. Bulbs need warm soil to build roots before winter, but it is late enough in the year that there’s no danger of bulbs sprouting too early.

An important point to remember about bulbs is THE BIGGER THE BULB THE BIGGER THE BLOOM. Bulbs are graded and priced by bulb size; bigger specimens cost a few cents more but have larger bloom and more blooms per plant. Mature daffodil bulbs are 14-16cm diameter. Tulip bulbs should be at least 12cm, and Hyacinth at least 16cm. With bulbs, pedigree is important and so is freshness and quality. Your biggest investment is your own time and effort, so don’t waste it on inferior bulbs.

Bulbs like fluffy, nutrient-rich soils best and will do much better if you dig a fair-sized hole for them. Think of bulbs as plant roots without plants. The wider the hole you dig, and the better the soil you plant them in, the healthier they’ll grow. Drop the soil into a wheelbarrow or bucket, crumble it and mix in a little bulb fertilizer. If your soil is hard clay, throw it away and use bagged potting soil instead, mixing bulb fertilizer with it first. Now add an inch or two of this mixture back into each hole. This puts the food where the bulb’s roots are. Set the bulbs into the holes with the tips pointing up . Now fill the holes with the rest of the soil mixture and press it down firmly.

Bulbs like bone meal, so mix some Espoma “Bulb Tone” with the soil. We recommend dipping tulip and hyacinth bulbs in a solution of Bulb Saver mixed with water. It helps prevent them from rotting and gives them a bitter taste, discouraging rodents. Remember they need water like any plant in order to grow, so the last step is to soak the area thoroughly.

We’ve planted thousands of bulbs here at GoodSeed Farm without ever digging a hole or using a bulb planter. In order to plant large “drifts” of bulbs, we first tilled bulb fertilizer into the existing garden soil and arranged the bulbs on top of the freshly tilled dirt. Then we covered them with garden topsoil, and a few inches of mulch. Small bulbs only need a few inches of topsoil/mulch over them. Larger bulbs like tulips and daffodils need four or five.

This sounds radical but it’s easy. When you buy your bulbs just get enough topsoil to cover them with, and add however many inches you need to get the proper depth. Instead of digging, you’re adding, which is much easier. Bulbs like mulch, to prevent weeds and keep the soil moist, so the top few inches can be mulch instead of soil.

Planting fall bulbs for spring color is the most timely gardening project for early November. You can have a colorful garden very early next spring if you plant some bulbs right now. We’ve discovered some really spectacular new varieties in the Biltmore Estate bulb collection. These flowers are unusual enough to get us charged up about bulb planting (not our favorite task).

Biltmore has several tulip varieties that look more like double Peonies. “Belicia” tulips are cream-colored with dark pink-purple edges on the petals, similar but more dramatic than the “Shirley Temple” and “Festiva Maxima” double white peonies. “Foxtrot” has multiple layers of rich pink petals similar to the popular peony “Sarah Bernhardt”. “DoubleDazzle” is a spectacular purple, also with multiple layers of petals instead of the typical cup-shaped tulip blossom.

Biltmore’s narcissus “Rosy Cloud” also resembles a Peony, with peach-pink outer petals and a peony-like “double bomb” center. Our favorite Biltmore daffodil is the “Double Poet” in pure white. Unlike tulips, daffodils form clumps that spread and expand over time so they’re an excellent investment.

Often overlooked are the more unusual bulbs like Fritillaria and Bluebells. These are easy to plant in the front of the border, needing only a few inches of soil cover. Biltmore’s Fritillaria “uva vulpis” has charming yellow drooping blooms tinged with purple. English Bluebells are intense blue with a more open and relaxed habit than the typical grape Hyacinth. Another Biltmore selection great for naturalizing is the yellow Dogtooth Violet “Pagoda”. Again, they can be planted very shallow and will gradually spread over the years.

Early-blooming Daffodils, Hyacinths, Tulips and many other colorful bulbs will get the jump on spring and reward you with colorful gardens before the dogwoods bloom in spring. Bulbs need warm soil to build roots before winter, but it is late enough in the year that there’s no danger of bulbs sprouting too early.

Those of you who crave the unusual will want to check out the Biltmore Collection bulbs, online or here at GoodSeed Farm.

The first step in planning a good landscape is to decide what shape and size plant will work best for each location. Foundation beds around your house require many shapes and sizes of plants because there are windowsills, narrow beds along walks and other special situations.

Traditional landscapers and home builders planted Taxus yews and other evergreen shrubs, depending on homeowners to constantly shear and clip the plants to contain them. Most Taxus and junipers grow much too large if left un-sheared. They will eventually outgrow foundation beds and need to be removed.

Still, most homeowners prefer evergreens around the house in order to mask foundation block and provide a backdrop for flowering plants. The best solution is to choose evergreens based on their final size. Narrow beds between the house and sidewalk require compact shrubs. Windowsills dictate shrubs that don’t grow too tall. House corners need upright growers that get taller, softening the corners and filling in blank spaces between windows.

Rather than controlling the size and shape of shrubs by shearing, you can select plants that grow to approximately the proportions you need. This makes maintenance a breeze. Our favorite foundation shrub by far is the Boxwood. An occasional shearing for shape is all that’s needed to keep these plants looking tidy and neat, and if you choose the right ones they’ll never outgrow the space. You can plant them close together so they’ll join in an informal hedge, or further apart so there is space between them.

Modern hybrid boxwoods are extremely hardy and free of natural pests. The best varieties stay glossy green all year round, thrive in full sun or part shade, tolerate drought, and grow very evenly into a nice mounding shape. Deer won’t touch them. Their dark color flatters flowering shrubs, perennials and annuals like the neutral background of floral pattern wallpaper.

Each boxwood variety has a certain size and shape it likes to grow to, and then stop growing. “Green Velvet” and “Green Gem” form compact, almost round mounds perfect for narrow beds and under windows. “Green Mountain” forms an upright oval or pyramid three feet wide and five feet high. “Faulkner” makes an oval three feet wide and only four feet high. “Chicagoland Green” (Glencoe), “Winter Gem” and “Green Beauty” all form bigger plants, easily shaped into mounds four to five feet tall and wide. For truly miniature hedges, borders or topiary, “Dwarf English” Boxwood (Buxus suffruticosa) is best.

Boxwoods aren’t very picky about soil and growing conditions, but well-drained soils are best. Mix peat moss and Holly-Tone fertilizer into the planting soil, and mulch to keep the soil moist. Water regularly until the plants are well rooted.

We’ve yet to find a more cooperative compact shrub for almost any style of landscaping. If you’re just pulling out some overgrown, out-of-control Taxus, or starting from scratch with nothing, Boxwoods are a great place to start. Just figure out the shapes and sizes that will flatter your house best, and pick the boxwood that naturally grows just that way.

Young cabbage plants will tolerate the occasional frosty night but tend to split or burst in extreme heat. This is a good reason to plant cabbage early, setting out young plants in early April. Hardened plants are tolerant of frosts and can be planted among the earliest of cool-season garden vegetables. We take our young plants outdoors to get them accustomed to cool nights before selling them to gardeners.

Cabbage is a hardy vegetable that grows especially well in fertile soils. There are various shades of green available, as well as red or purple types. Cabbage is easy to grow if you select the right varieties and practice proper culture and insect management. Hot sun can make well-watered cabbage heads split, and there are many techniques to prevent this including twisting the plant to sever the roots. Our favorite is to simply tear off some of the outer leaves and drape them over the heads like an umbrella.

Many varieties are available and two or three varieties with different maturities can provide harvest over a long period. Right now you should be thinking about summer cole slaw and planting some early cabbage. Follow up in summer with big-headed late cabbage for sauerkraut.

Golden Acre is so called because it is so early (65-70 days) that farmers can be the first to market. Small and round, its sweet three-pound heads rarely split and make delicious slaw.

Stonehead is another good early variety. This 55 day All-America Selections Winner is named for its extremely solid interior and tidy 3-4 pound size, perfect for cole slaw. It holds well in the garden.

Early Flat Dutch should be ready in 85 days. Known for its heat resistance, it is an excellent variety for sauerkraut and the best variety for storage. Early Flat Dutch heads are large and flat, weigh 6 to 10 lbs averaging 11 in. diameter with few outside leaves.

Instead of taking a fake Christmas tree out of a box and assembling it, treat your family to the magic of a fresh, live tree. Really fresh trees are clean, and aren’t a fire hazard. The most important thing is that the tree be truly fresh the day you bring it home.

In southern Ohio Scotch Pines are extremely popular for several reasons. They grow rapidly and are easily shaped, making them inexpensive to grow. We prefer Fraser Fir because the needles are soft and don’t prick your skin, plus they have lots of space between the branches. This makes your ornaments show up better. The best thing about them is how long they stay fresh: up to two months with very little needle drop. The needles are still soft when it’s time to take the tree down, which makes the job easier.

We recommend cutting off a bit of the bottom of the trunk and then “pencil-pointing” the bark with a kitchen knife to help the tree take up more water. This means trimming the bark around the cut end on a bevel, to open up the pink inner bark. This allows the tree to take up more water, since an old cut will be sealed with sap. If you’ll be away and can’t add water, add “Tree-Moist” granules to the water in your stand. This gels the water so it can’t evaporate, and has a tree preservative in it. Liquid tree preservative can easily be mixed with the water, extending tree life. We’ve found that a fresh tree will remain moist and fragrant well into January.

“Live” Christmas trees are evergreens meant to be planted after serving as Christmas decorations. These trees are sold “balled and burlapped”, meaning they are dug rather than cut. Live trees are more expensive than cut trees, and are more trouble, but the payoff is that they can give you pleasure for many years.

Evergreens popular for live Christmas trees include Colorado Blue Spruce, Norway Spruce and dwarf Alberta Spruce. These varieties all make attractive Christmas trees and are good landscape specimens as well. Norway Spruce is very well adapted for clay soil, and it’s easy to find many mature examples in landscapes all around southern Ohio. We recommend Norway Spruce above all other evergreens for windbreak and privacy plantings all year long.

Scotch Pines are popular as cut trees because they grow so fast, making them an ideal crop for Christmas tree growers. They make good Christmas trees but aren’t popular landscape trees, since older Scotch pines lack the graceful mature shape and appearance of Spruce. Fraser Firs are ideal cut Christmas trees but will not thrive when planted in this area for climate reasons. White Pine and Hemlock are nice for landscaping but don’t make good Christmas trees, because their branches won’t hold many decorations.

The best live tree is a smaller tree. A five-foot Spruce with a good-sized root ball can weigh well over 100 pounds, and is bulky and hard to handle. Larger trees weigh even more. If the root ball is too small, the tree may be cheaper and lighter but will probably die. Getting a good-sized evergreen in and out of the house, keeping it watered and planting it in the dead of winter can be a lot of work.

If you decide this is for you, here are some suggestions to help you succeed. First, keep the tree inside for two weeks or less. The transition into, and later out of a heated house should be gradual. When you take your tree home, keep it in a garage or screened porch until the week before Christmas. Spray it with “Wilt-Pruf” to reduce moisture loss, and keep the root ball moist.

Evergreens are dormant in December, and the heat in your home can fool the tree into thinking it’s spring. Once the sap starts to rise, putting the tree outside again will shock it. After the holiday, let it get used to the cold again in your garage or porch before putting it outdoors.

We suggest placing a few bags of mulch over the spot where you plan to plant your tree, to keep the ground from freezing. Make sure not to plant it too deep or cover the root ball with soil. This will smother it and could kill it. After planting, water the tree well and spread mulch around it to protect the roots. Good luck, and Merry Christmas!

It’s hard to find a better value than a live Christmas tree. Even if you already have a fake tree, planting a real evergreen on your property each year is a terrific tradition and a lasting legacy. Quality evergreens are like compound interest; you can start small and they just get bigger and better with each passing year.

Many of our customers have made a family ritual of planting a live tree each Christmas year after year, creating terrific windbreaks or landscape plantings that increase property value. Getting the children and grandchildren involved sets a terrific example for future generations.

Live Christmas trees are evergreens meant to be planted after serving as Christmas decorations. These trees are sold “balled and burlapped”, meaning they are dug rather than cut. Live trees cost a bit more than cut trees, but the payoff is that they can give you pleasure for many years. Some families take the trees indoors for a week or two, others just plant them right away.

You’ll probably want a live tree somewhat smaller than the size you’re used to, since a five-foot Spruce with a good-sized root ball can weigh well over 100 pounds, and is bulky and hard to handle. Larger trees weigh even more. If the root ball is too small, the tree may be cheaper and lighter but will probably die. The answer is a tree in the four to five foot range, from a reputable nursery.

Evergreens popular for live Christmas trees include Colorado Blue Spruce, Norway Spruce, Serbian Spruce and White Pine. These varieties all make attractive Christmas trees and are good landscape specimens as well.

If you want to take your tree inside for the holidays, here are some suggestions to help you succeed. First, keep the tree inside for two weeks or less. The heat in your home can fool the tree into thinking it’s spring. Once the sap starts to rise, putting the tree outside again can shock it. Keep it in a garage or screened porch until the week before Christmas. Spray it with “Wilt-Pruf” to reduce moisture loss, and keep the root ball moist. After the holiday, let it get used to the cold again in your garage or porch before planting it.

We suggest placing a few bags of mulch over the spot where you plan to plant your tree, to keep the ground from freezing. After planting, water the tree well and spread the mulch around it to protect the roots. Good luck, and Merry Christmas!

The fragrance of a fresh-cut Christmas tree really sets the mood for an old-fashioned family Christmas season. As convincing as some of today’s fake trees are, a real, live tree has another dimension that nothing man-made can replace. Live greens truly bring you closer to the spirit of the season.

We like Fraser Fir because the needles are soft and don’t prick your skin, plus they have lots of space between the branches. This makes your ornaments show up better. The best thing about them is how long they stay fresh: up to two months with very little needle drop. The needles are still soft when it’s time to take the tree down, which makes the job easier.

Scotch Pines are extremely popular. They have a nice full shape. Since they grow rapidly and are easily shaped, they are inexpensive to grow and very economical.

The most important thing is to get your tree where you know it’s really fresh cut. In Adams County, GoodSeed Farm and Miller’s Christmas Tree Farm both offer really fresh evergreens.

In today’s fast-paced, high-tech world, the ritual of a real Christmas tree captures the genuine spirit of the holidays. Decorating with live greens is an important way to connect with tradition, and pass the special feeling of Christmas along to another generation.

We’ve had numerous calls from gardeners alarmed about the invasion of 17-year Cicadas, looking for a way to protect their trees and shrubs. Adult cicadas aren’t hungry, so they can’t be controlled by the usual process of poisoning the plant leaves with insecticide sprays. Disposable plastic netting with ¼" hole size is the most effective way to protect valuable trees and shrubs from the Cicada bug infestation. Plastic netting can prevent the insects from laying their eggs in the twigs of small trees or shrubs.

We looked to the nursery industry for a source, and one of our growers referred us to a company in Minneapolis called Industrial Netting. They produce a huge variety of netting products for virtually any purpose. Industrial Netting offers two grades of ¼" “Cicada Control” netting in various sizes; a lighter weight, lower cost netting, and heavier gauge netting, by the roll or packaged in pre-cut pieces. They take credit card orders by phone or online, and ship in 24 hours. You can call 800-328-8456 or better yet order online. Here’s the link:

Cicadas live for 17 years, but they spend almost all of their lives underground eating roots. Cicada nymphs emerge from the ground in periodic cycles. They climb up trees and quickly shed their skins, emerging as adult, flying cicadas. Adult Cicadas do not eat. Their entire purpose in life is to mate and produce offspring. You can hear the males' mating "song" from early morning to nightfall. In heavily infested areas, the noise can be quite disturbing. Shortly after mating, the male Cicada dies.

About five to ten days later, the female Cicada lands on twigs of deciduous trees, cuts slits in small pencil sized (or smaller) branches and twigs, and lays her eggs in the slits. She then goes on to another twig and repeats the process, laying about 24 eggs each time. A female cicada can deposit up to 600 eggs. The eggs hatch, producing tiny nymphs that fall to the ground. These nymphs burrow into the soil and feast on underground roots. They remain there for years, slowly growing, until their periodic cycle calls them to emerge again as adults.

Where infestations are heavy, the egg laying process is repeated on a tremendous number of twigs. This causes the twigs (or ends of the tree) to die, and often break off. With a heavy infestation, it often destroys young trees and bushes. While the damage may look bad on large trees, a mature tree can usually survive the damage.

In order to enjoy the spectacular blooms of Clematis, you need to understand two key points. First, Clematis needs lots of sun but wants cool, moist soil to grow in. Second, Clematis vines want to climb, and are happiest when they can run as high as possible during their growing season.

The best location for most Clematis is against a high fence or wall in full sun, but some large-flowered hybrids fade badly if they get too much sun and these should be planted in where they’ll get morning sun only or partial shade. Clematis roots should be in cool, moist, rich soil, without competition from shrub or tree roots. Roots should be well protected from damage or disturbance.

Old-fashioned chicken wire makes the best support for Clematis vines, since they can’t grasp thick branches or heavy trellising. If you use a decorative trellis, attach chicken wire to the back. Established Clematis vines can easily climb ten to fifteen feet each season, so give them as tall a structure as you possibly can. Allow a few inches of ventilation space behind your trellis.

Clematis plants are often sold “bare root” or in tiny pots. It’s well worth it to get larger plants with a big root system; these will perform much better much sooner. Clematis has a very large root system, so dig a planting hole as large as possible (two feet deep and wide is ideal). Mix plenty of composted manure and peat moss with the planting soil, plus some Plant Tone or similar perennial fertilizer. Plant with the crown one to two inches below the soil surface.

Use groundcover plants or mulch to keep the sun off the root zone; shallow-rooted perennials like creeping phlox, hardy geranium, candytuft, or vinca vines cool the soil without competing. In dry seasons, water deeply once a week.

Early-flowering Clematis and large-flowered hybrids bloom in spring, from buds produced the previous season. Prune these back as soon as possible after bloom but don’t cut into the woody trunks. Prune again in February or March by removing dead and weak stems, then cut back remaining stems to the topmost pair of large, plump green buds.

Late-flowering Clematis bloom on the last two to three feet of the current season's growth. Some types begin blooming in mid-June and continue into the fall. This is the easiest group to prune since no old wood needs to be maintained. In February or March cut each stem to a height of about two to three feet, including some good stems and buds. Eventually the length of the bare stem at the base will increase as the vine matures.

One of our strongest impressions from travels in the South is the abundance of showy Crape Myrtle shrubs and trees everywhere. Southern cities like Charlotte and Atlanta are decorated with hundreds of varieties in colors ranging from pure white to purple, but mostly shades of pink. The Ohio valley is on the northern edge of hardiness for Crape Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica), but some Crape Myrtle varieties can be successful here if care is taken to protect them from the harsh winters we get occasionally.

Crape Myrtle is a woody shrub or small specimen tree that will behave like a perennial in northern climates, often dying back to the ground in winter only to reappear when the weather gets warm. Some varieties are hardier than others; it’s important to check the hardiness zone on the label before buying. We are in Zone 6, but a harsh winter can bring root temperatures below zero and most Crape Myrtle varieties will not survive.

You should only purchase this plant from a source you trust, willing to give you a meaningful warranty. At our nursery we carry only a few Crape Myrtle cultivars, ones that will withstand most Ohio valley winters, however we recommend planting them where they have protection from winter wind, in locations where the ground doesn’t stay frozen for long periods. Typically this would be the East or Southeast side of your home, in a sunny spot (Crape Myrtles prefer full sun all day).

Down South we see lots of Crape Myrtle trees over ten feet tall, most often multiple trunk clumps with the lower branches removed to show off the handsome bark and interesting branch structure of this distinctive tree. In Ohio it’s hard to get this effect, since the tree will often freeze back and have to re-grow from the ground up. This means that the size on the label is very hard to achieve this far north. A better approach for Ohio would be shrub-form Crape Myrtles.

Our favorites are the low-growing “Red Filli” (hardy to zone 4) and “Orchid Cascade”, an unusual “weeping” form. We also carry “Dynamite”, a tall shrub form with cherry red blooms hardy in zone 6. In summer they make a gorgeous display when most shrubs are looking a bit tired from the heat.

Crape Myrtles are often the last plants to re-emerge in spring. They can appear dead, and in fact may have lots of winter-kill, but eventually you’ll see fresh green shoots springing from the ground. These will grow rapidly in a single season and then flower on the new growth. Simply cut off the dead wood, fertilize and you’ll be rewarded with bloom by late summer.

How about trading your “necklace” for a new den? Sounds silly, and maybe you don’t even own a necklace. But we’ll bet you’ve gone to a lot of trouble adorning your house with a “necklace” of foundation shrubs so it’ll look good to the neighbors. We’d like to suggest using plants to expand your living area as well.

There’s a different way to think about landscaping that looks good from the street and compliments your house, but most of all makes your yard a nicer place to spend your time. We don’t mean time spent weeding and clipping to make it look pretty for everyone else. Well-designed, professionally installed landscapes actually reduce maintenance so you can really enjoy your plants instead of fighting them!

Are you willing to change the fundamental way you think about landscaping? There is a longstanding tradition of designing landscapes from the curb. The real estate term “curb appeal” describes the impression your home makes to passing strangers. Of course we all want our homes to make a good first impression, but what we’re suggesting is a landscaping “paradigm shift”.

We design landscapes from the place where you live. We look out the window from the kitchen sink, sit on the deck, see what you see when you look out the window or step out the door, or sit outside after a hard day’s work. The design objective is to improve and expand your living space, your “den”, and move it outdoors. Put screen plants between you and your neighbor’s windows, blot out unpleasant views, hide propane tanks, arrange attractive gardens and water features close to where you sit. Focus on protecting you from the afternoon sun, sheltering you from wind and traffic noise, and opening up vistas from your windows.

There’s a trend right now for people to spend more time at home, and it follows that you want to make your home a nicer place to live and entertain. Good landscaping helps create a relaxing, soothing environment where you can unwind, alone or with family and friends. A well-designed landscape is like a tailored suit. It’s comfortable, flattering and shows everyone your good taste. Once you’re well-dressed, the necklace is the finishing touch.

Dogwood trees are the most asked-for tree in our nursery, but they can be a challenge to grow successfully. They thrive in well-drained acid soil rich with humus, similar to the rich compost we see in established forests. You’ll rarely see a mature dogwood tree standing in the middle of a field, since they prefer some protection from wind and sun.

Dogwood seeds sprout in the semi-shade and rich loamy soil at the edge of woods, and usually become one-sided and crooked reaching for the sun. If you look closely at a mature dogwood in the woods you’ll see it’s in pretty rough shape and wouldn’t look very good in your front lawn. Often the original main trunk died and rotted years ago and only one side (the sunny side) is still surviving. There’s a lesson in this. Dogwoods do best in filtered sun or partial sun, with protection from drying winds.

The most common cause of dogwood death in landscapes is drowning from being planted too deep in heavy soil and then over-watered. Dogwoods really need to dry out between waterings. Bark borers and many types of fungus prey on dogwoods. Pests and diseases usually attack plants that are under stress and leave healthy plants alone. On older dogwoods in trouble we usually see damage to the lower bark, usually from lawn mower injuries that invite borers and girdle the tree.

Field-dug dogwood trees in our nursery live can for years above ground, with mulch heaped around the root balls to keep them moist. They like sitting above ground because they have good drainage. Often they die within weeks of being sold, because they are planted in clay ground where they can’t drain properly. They start to wilt (a symptom of drowning) and well-meaning homeowners make the mistake of watering still more. We’ve had wilted dogwoods returned to us and tossed them on the “dead pile” only to have them revive once they have a chance to dry out.

Most landscapes have less than ideal conditions for dogwoods, but with a little work you can compensate by preparing your soil to be more like the forest floor. Pick a location where there is some protection from the sun and from winter wind. Till a rich mixture of peat moss, Holly-Tone fertilizer and composted pine bark in a six-foot circle, and plant the tree a little high in the ground so it doesn’t drown. Mulch with pine bark each year so you won’t nick the bark with your lawnmower or trimmer.

Fertilizing each year in early spring and again in mid-summer with an acid-rich fertilizer like Holly-Tone will help your dogwood grow rapidly and resist disease. Maintaining the mulch circle around it eliminates competition from lawn grasses, the major cause of slow tree development. You’d be surprised how rapidly dogwood trees grow in commercial nurseries where they are pampered! Growth of two feet per year is common if there’s no competition from turf.

A strong suggestion is to be realistic about the growing conditions you have and consider different flowering trees that are more suitable. There are lots of small-to-medium sized ornamental trees to choose from. We like Hawthorn, serviceberry, white fringetree, crabapple, tree lilac, ornamental cherry and ornamental pear. All these trees are easier to grow than dogwood.

Now that we’ve had frost it’s time for some fall cleanup in our landscape. Once frost kills their foliage, plants are finished storing food and won’t need their leaves any more until spring. Whether or not (or how much) to cut back perennials for winter depends on the individual plant, and also on your feelings about “winter interest” and wildlife in your garden.

WHY TO CUT PERENNIALS BACK: The main reason is that having a lot of dead foliage can harbor diseases or insects, like mildew on Bee Balm, botrytis on Peonies, or borers on bearded Iris. We recommend raking large leaves like Maples or Sycamores because they can mat down and hold water, causing crown rot on perennials. This also discourages rodents from nesting and devouring your plants during the winter months. Clean perennial gardens also look neater.

WHY NOT TO CUT PERENNIALS BACK: Perennials in the winter landscape are important resources for birds and butterflies. Many butterflies and moths lay eggs or pupate in the shelter of dead foliage, and ground birds find shelter there. Birds such as finches, juncos, chickadees, cardinals, nuthatches, sparrows and red-breasted woodpeckers depend on seed heads for winter forage. Dead blooms of coneflower, black-eyed Susan and many other popular perennials attract winter birds.

Another reason not to cut down dormant perennials is that their foliage provides insulation from the cold, protecting them from winter kill. Research has shown that tender perennials such as Mums, Asters, Ferns, Lavender, Russian Sage, Armeria, and oriental Poppies will survive extreme cold much better if left unpruned. Perennials that remain green through the winter like creeping Phlox, Liriope, Christmas Fern and Hellebore are better left alone until spring.

ROSES: Most Roses are best left alone right now, since branch tips will die back during winter and will need trimming in spring anyway. Rose experts typically recommend pruning after new growth buds start to open, except for climbing roses which should only be pruned after they bloom. We do recommend cleaning leaf litter from around roses since it can harbor disease.

ORNAMENTAL GRASSES: Most grasses look good all winter and are best left alone until spring. There’s no harm in cutting them back now, but they will give you winter interest and privacy screening if left uncut. If they appear messy, or if they are brittle and make a mess during the winter, you can cut them down to about six inches any time now.

FALL FEEDING: This is a good time to apply slow-release fertilizers to the bare soil around plants. This gives time for the plant food to be absorbed into the soil, even though plants won’t start feeding until spring. We recommend balanced, multi-mineral fertilizers like Espoma Plant Tone® and Holly Tone®, which will not burn plants.

If you’ve been putting off some much-needed landscaping, consider spending a pleasant September weekend or two sprucing up your yard. Homeowners who landscape in the fall are in for a real treat when spring arrives!

Plants installed in early fall are very vigorous by spring. Fall weather tends to be cool and moist, an ideal climate for newly planted gardens. Landscaping tasks are a pleasure when the weather is cool and breezy, and regular rainfall can help with watering duties. Another plus is that weed competition is minimal in fall.

In late summer and early fall plants enter a “dormant” period. We like to say that they’re going to sleep. Woody plants and perennials tolerate transplanting best during this period. Even pot-grown plants tend to adjust better in the landscape after summer stress is over.

When a plant’s leaves and bloom are fading it can handle stress better and get by with less water. This is why the best time of the year to transplant woody plants is when they’re dormant. Their demand for water and nutrients drops dramatically but the root system continues to build as long as the soil is still warm.

Dormant plants can be dug and perennials divided with very little stress. Roots are often left behind during transplanting, and this can shock the plant during growth or bloom but doesn’t matter as much when it’s dormant. If roots are damaged a plant can replace them during the fall because it has a lot of stored energy. It has many months to adjust before it must produce new leaves, blooms and fruit.

Humans have a natural urge to plant in the spring, and spring is the best time to sow garden seeds and plant annual bedding plants. Since time began, man planted as soon as the days got longer and the soil warmed, aiming to harvest before the frosts killed his crop. You might say that spring is the best time to plant a garden, but fall is the best time to landscape.

In springtime plants need lots of energy to create leaves and bloom. They push stored energy up from the root system, building new foliage and adding thickness to roots and stems. The leaves gather energy from the sun, storing it in the fruit, trunk and roots. By early fall they have finished the growing cycle and replenished their stored energy. This is when plants are at peak strength. They harden off new growth and drop their leaves, protecting themselves from the moisture loss caused by winter winds.

This is why GoodSeed Farm carries a full inventory of perennials, trees and shrubs all year round. Our containers are full of roots, far ahead of next year’s spring crop (which may cost more even though it’s a year younger). Well-informed gardeners buy dormant plants even though they aren’t showy. Fall-planting gives plants a head start compared to planting in spring.

For hobby orchardists with busy lives, the simplest approach to growing healthy fruit remains the all-purpose orchard spray applied every 10 days from bud break until harvest. All-purpose orchard spray is a mixture of insecticides and fungicides. Applied every 10 days to two weeks, it will kill a number of insects and stop some fungus growth. The most important aspect of effective pest or disease control is proper timing. Even the most effective material will not work if applied at the wrong time.

Fruit trees have many natural insect enemies, however it’s unlikely that they will be bothered by more than a few of these in a given season. Early control of the first generation of insects reduces the amount of control needed later in the season. The same is true of disease control. Most spraying is directed at diseases, which threaten trees all season long but can be minimized by early control. In other words, get started right now and keep it up on a schedule.

Disease pressure can be minimized by selecting disease resistant varieties. Old favorites whose names you recognize may not be the best choices. We always recommend disease-resistant apples like Freedom, Honeycrisp and Zestar, which require much less spraying. Another important step is annual feeding with trace-mineral-rich tree fertilizers like Espoma Tree Tone. A healthy, well-fed tree is less vulnerable to pests and diseases.

Growing fruit organically requires you to thoroughly study the interrelated cycle of fruit growth, pests, diseases and beneficial insects. Tree fruits are one of the most difficult crops to grow under a strict organic definition. Organic growers may have to accept a high percentage of crop loss to insect damage.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a middle ground between chemical control and strict organic methods. It requires a high level of understanding and record-keeping, which sounds difficult but actually eliminates a lot of unnecessary work. Understanding the natural balance is a good thing and well worth the effort.

Professional orchard growers take the time to thoroughly research, understand and document all the factors of insect and disease control in their orchards. For the home orchardist this may be overwhelming. The tried-and-true approach of regular spraying, pruning and feeding will give you a satisfying fruit yield with the least time spent.

Modern gardeners are hungry for a return to traditional gardening methods, like building garden soil with organic compost and fertilizers. Petro-chemical based fertilizers are widely believed to deplete soils over time, fatiguing and defeating the natural process of renewal that makes good garden soils and healthy vegetables.

For one thing, petrochemicals don’t do anything to improve soil texture. This requires soil amendments like compost and peat moss. For another, well-rounded nutrition depends on living organisms and trace mineral elements, neither of which can be found in a bag of 12-12-12 or a bottle of Miracle-Gro.

Lots of people ask us for “Miracle GroÒ” and we carry it in our store. But when we sell it we always think of those I.V. drip bags in the hospital, “feeding” you through a tube into your arm. It will keep you alive but it’s NOT a balanced diet. For a real-life demonstration of this compare a hydroponically grown hothouse tomato with one from your own garden. Hydroponic tomatoes get a liquid diet similar to Miracle-Gro.

Liquid fertilizers are useful for fertilizing hanging baskets, window boxes and planters where potting soil is used and roots are confined in a small pot. Professional growers use a weak solution of fertilizer in their irrigation water to encourage rapid growth. Another good use of liquid formulas is force-feeding distressed plants, such as Azaleas that aren’t well established and can’t absorb enough food from the soil. We have Miracle GroÒ Azalea-Camellia (formerly Miracid) made just for this.

Think twice before you put your plants on a liquid diet. You probably wouldn’t like it for yourself! In our own gardens we use lots of Holly ToneÒ, Plant ToneÒ, Rose ToneÒ and Bulb ToneÒ by EspomaÒ. These are balanced meals containing lots of wholesome natural ingredients like gypsum, greensand and bone meal to help break up clay soil. They also contain Micorrizea, soil micro-orgaanisms that help your plants digest fertilizer and trace minerals. Espoma is a modern version of the old-fashioned fertilizer mill; a factory where ground-up ingredients like bone meal, cottonseed meal and other components are blended into powdered fertilizers that build and replenish tired soils.

The best way to fertilize is to mix the fertilizer with the soil when you plant. This has a “sustained release” effect because the roots “find” the food as the plant grows. It helps the roots spread quickly. For established plantings sprinkle liberally around plants before mulching. This way the fertilizer doesn’t have to find its way through the mulch to get to the roots.

As a kid I spent many, many weekends at my Oma’s house. “Oma” and “Opa” were my father’s parents, immigrants from Germany, solid working people who loved gardening and their grandchildren about equally. They lived in a cozy little house in the middle of an acre in the New Jersey suburbs, a park-like setting that seemed absolutely huge to my young eyes and was full of adventure.

My father had grown up and started his landscape business in this same setting, helping build the outbuildings and plant sapling trees that had become towering shade trees, under which we lingered over ritual “coffee” and home-baked cake every afternoon. Aside from mealtimes, there was little time for relaxation. Oma kept us occupied and out of trouble all weekend with household chores and gardening. While my sisters dusted, vacuumed, hung clothes on the line and washed dishes, I raked leaves, spaded the garden, weeded, cleaned out gutters and washed storm windows.

Each spring we set out young salvia plants along the porch (Oma called them Scarlet Sage) and set up chicken wire to fend off the rabbits. We spread last year’s leaf compost on the vegetable garden and turned it under, raked, furrowed and seeded. The sound of Opa’s baby grand piano wafted through the open windows as we worked, raking leaves out of the English Ivy and shearing the giant yews behind the house, trimming the vinca that was creeping into the driveway.

Later in the season we feasted on fresh-picked kohlrabi and string beans, tomatoes and parsley, peppers and onions, and later, potatoes dug and eaten the same afternoon. Our Sunday dinner of pot roast, sauerbraten and dumplings or “rouladen” (thinly sliced beef rolled around pickles and bacon, tied and slow-cooked) was always accompanied by vegetables fresh from the garden, followed by home made cheesecake topped with tart gooseberry jam.

My childhood memories are all tied up with food and plants. Hunting for pastel-colored Easter eggs behind pachysandra and daffodils. Gathering bouquets of showy Iris and fragrant Lilac to bring inside. Snapping green beans picked into Oma’s apron, or running out to the garden for a handful of fresh parsley to sprinkle on the dumplings.

Do you love plants? Perhaps it’s because some special person shared their love for gardening with you when you were young and impressible and innocent.

It can be frustrating to invest money and sweat into a home landscape and not get the “look” you dream about. It takes some imagination plus a dose of real-life experience to visualize landscaping that can transform your home to a showplace for the least possible cost. We all see well-landscaped homes and want the same finished appearance, but every landscape is different so you can’t simply copy someone else.

Landscaping should have specific goals and benefits, and if you prioritize them a design will suggest itself. Examples are privacy, dust and noise control, windbreaks, shade, attracting wildlife, increasing property value or “curb appeal”. Each objective can balance the rest. If you concentrate on the most important goals, they will dictate the “backbone” of your landscape. You also have to consider traffic patterns for people and vehicles, shapes and sizes of plants that will to flatter the house, and the actual growing conditions you have in your yard.

Most people start with small, easy-to-understand projects such as kitchen herb gardens, water features, container gardens, and smaller scale planting beds. The challenge is to have these “micro-landscapes” harmonize with the overall plan, sharing a common style. Having an overall plan helps these small projects work together and look more professional. A landscape plan also reduces mistakes; it’s no fun to have to remove something you already planted in order to get to the next step.

Another challenge is to design with plants that are well suited to the soil, sunlight, wind and drainage conditions you have. It’s very difficult to permanently change sweet soil to acid, or clay to topsoil, except in fairly small areas for a specific plant or two. If you’re in love with a particular plant and you know it’s not well suited to your yard, you can make a special effort to prepare the ideal conditions for it. But the majority of your plants should be picked for the existing conditions or your landscape won’t do very well and your money will be wasted.

We like to say “paint with the big brush first, then fill in around the edges”. This means stepping back and looking at the overall picture, and doing the things that will make the most difference first. “Big brush” projects can take longer and be more expensive, so it’s easy to put them off year after year if you’re not really sure what to do in the first place.

We suggest getting some help from your local nursery or garden center. Many nurseries will help you with design ideas in order to earn your business on plants and materials. A good nursery wants you to succeed and your plants to thrive, so they can have your repeat business and recommendation. Just ask!

Regular readers of this column are used to reading that “the best weed control is complete darkness”. In other words, weeds can only grow if the sun is hitting the ground. That’s why we use mulch, and that’s why we have more weed problems in sunny areas than in the shade.

Using groundcover plants is a great way to reduce weeding and mulching requirements. Groundcovers look terrific. Many are evergreen, most have nice flowers, and they are all easy to grow. Groundcovers form a “carpet” of low-growing clumps or vines that enhance your landscape and look very professional. When installing new beds, we like to add groundcover plants spaced one foot apart in all the open spaces. It takes about three years for the plants to completely cover, and once this happens you don’t need to mulch any more so the installation pays for itself!

Most groundcover plants are available in “peat pots”, usually in flats of 50 or so, for about a dollar each. To install, simply pull the mulch aside and press the plant into the ground firmly and then replace the mulch. Keep the plants moist for a few weeks until they get rooted in.

Which groundcover works best depends on the conditions in your landscape. Pick groundcovers carefully for best results. Here are some of our favorites:

Pachysandra (Japanese spurge) is great in shady areas. It has glossy green foliage and little spikes of white flowers. Pachysandra spreads in the mulch and leaf litter, so you never have to rake leaves or twigs out of an established patch. It is shallow-rooted so it doesn’t compete with your perennials, shrubs or bulbs.

Vinca minor (also called Myrtle or Periwinkle) is great in full sun and on slopes, and also does well in shade. Once established it is very tough and trouble-free. It has delightful blue-purple flowers and dark glossy green leaves.

Liriope (lilyturf or monkey grass) makes a carpet of strappy dark green leaves with showy purple flower spikes. It makes a great border along bed edges and a filler in open areas, in full or part sun. Variegated versions with white or yellow stripes along the leaf edges are also popular.

English Ivy is traditionally used as a groundcover, and is a great way to cover large areas and “civilize” under trees where nothing else will grow. Ivy will climb trees and buildings and creep across paving. So make sure this is O.K. with you before planting it.

Euonymus coloratus (wintercreeper) is another climbing plant that makes an attractive groundcover. It turns bright red in fall and drops its leaves for the winter. We like planting it next to bare brick walls, where it climbs aggressively and makes a very lush background for specimen trees and shrubs.

Sedums (stonecrop) and delosperma (ice plant) of various kinds make great groundcovers in sunny dry areas, thriving with very little water or maintenance. Some of them are bright yellow-green, others are variegated, most have very showy blooms. They look great on slopes and in rock gardens.

There are many other groundcovers like creeping thyme, wild strawberry, hens & chicks, deadnettle, veronica and creeping phlox). All have their uses, and in the right situation will help reduce maintenance while providing a colorful show. Get suggestions from your nursery about which ones would work best in your situation, and how to plant them successfully.

I think vegetable and fruit gardening is going to become quite fashionable over the upcoming years. It’s a classic case of trends coming full circle; growing our own food is a tradition here in Adams County so suddenly we find ourselves on the leading edge.

Concern over food safety, inflation pressure on food prices, and a trend to home improvement instead of vacation travel all are contributing to a surge in home gardening. So is the “slow food” movement, a growing awareness of how important it is to really savor and enjoy what we eat. For those of us already accustomed to eating fresh home-grown fruit and vegetables, this is not a new discovery. What’s next? I predict a resurgence of interest in home canning. Imagine that!

The general public is starting to realize how much we’ve lost in our pell-mell rush to embrace factory-made “convenience foods” and the “drive-up” fast-food industry. After all, eating is one of the most important and central aspects of life, so why rush it? Why eat mediocre, dumbed-down adulterated processed foods? Particularly when we know full well that a processed food diet is a major contributor to obesity, sickness and disease?

Our grandparents set an example for us by growing and serving fresh vegetables and fruits at home, preserving enough to last all winter. They did it because they had to in order to survive; buying food wasn’t always an option. Today, most of us can afford to buy food produced by strangers and shipped thousands of miles, but the quality of home-grown and home-canned food is now a luxury. Maybe it’s time to rediscover the pride and satisfaction that come from managing a home garden.

Is there a better legacy we can pass along to our own children and grandchildren?

Have you planted hardy mums that never came back the next year? The secret to success is to buy them before they bloom and plant them right away. The sooner you plant mums the happier they’ll be. If they stay in the pot too long they get root-bound and exhausted, and they won’t have enough energy left to adjust in their new home. Healthy mums also get quite large and overhang the pot, which makes planting more difficult.

Getting mums to thrive starts with giving them enough soil. The more soil they have to grow in the bigger the plants get. Even if you don’t plant them in your garden, “upshifting” to a larger pot early on is well worth the trouble. For one thing, the plant will survive longer between waterings if it has more soil to grow in. When buying mums check how much soil is in the pot; skimpy soil means skimpy plants that will dry out quickly.

How do you know which mums to buy if they aren’t in bloom? Look for quality, and then look at the picture tag to pick your colors. Pedigree is very important with mums. Mum breeders select for flower color, length of flowering, sturdiness, resistance to disease, and an attractive compact mounding shape. Like thoroughbred horses and AKC dogs, the best mums have a “family tree” and a catchy name. The best mums are patented and may cost a bit more, but they are clearly superior plants and perform better.

Our favorites are the “Prophets” series from Yoder Flower Fields. They have female names like “Brandi” (red), “Wilma” (white), “Harmony” (orange), “Bright Gretchen” (yellow) and “Beth” (purple). Over the years we’ve tried many others, but the Yoder patented mums have been consistently the best performers.

To plant hardy mums permanently, dig a hole 1 foot wide and 6 inches deep. Mix the dirt from the hole with a generous amount of humus, compost or peat moss, plus 1/2 cup of a good fertilizer. We recommend EspomaÔ Flower ToneÔ or Plant ToneÔ (available in our garden store). Cover with several inches of mulch and water thoroughly.

Newly-planted Mums need constant watering if they’re going to survive. When planting, make a shallow “bowl” with the soil to trap water around the roots. FOR TWO WEEKS YOU MUST WATER EVERY DAY, rain or no rain, about a half-gallon per plant.

Have you ever hiked the Appalachian Trail or one like it? One of the great pleasures is to enjoy a walk in the woods and fields without having to stumble through the brush or worry about what’s underfoot. You can move quietly through nature, enjoying the wildlife around you. Those of you with natural areas on your own property probably would enjoy it more if you had nice trails to walk on year round.

A good trail is wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side but not wide enough for ATV’s. There are no overhanging branches or stickers to grab you on the way past, and the footing drains quickly when it rains so there’s no mud. The slopes are gentle, not more than a 10% grade to climb. It’s well marked so you won’t lose your way. Trails like this take some planning and hard work to create but good trails are easy to maintain once they’re in place.

Adams County has a club of trail enthusiasts; a local chapter of the North Country Trail Association and the Buckeye Trail. The Buckeye Trail has existed in Ohio for many years, but much of the trail is on paved roads. North Country Trail is a regional project administered by the National Park Service, extending from upstate New York all the way to North Dakota, around the Great Lakes. North Country Trail and Buckeye Trail have partnered in Ohio, with the goal of taking Buckeye Trail off road and making it part of the National Trails System. Any section of the trail that meets North Country Trail specifications is “certified” and then maintained by volunteers.

The Adams County chapter of North Country Trail is creating a mile of certified trail here at GoodSeed Farm, the first “showcase project” of our local trail chapter. A demonstration “loop trail” off the main trail along old State Route 32, it will include a primitive campsite for hikers in a natural “bowl”. This will be an ideal spot to watch the night sky. Most of this trail is already in place, after many days of work by volunteers.

If you’re interested in learning how to plan and create trails on your property, or just enjoy hiking and working on trails, you can get acquainted with the North Country Trail volunteers on Saturday, January 24^th. We’ll meet at noon for a lunch meeting at the White Star Restaurant in Peebles, followed by a hike of the trail at GoodSeed Farm. Join us for your first experience of the “Appalachian Trail in Ohio”.

For a long-lived display of huge showy blooms, few plant families can top the diverse Hydrangea. We took a walk around our nursery looking for late summer color and realized that we had over a dozen Hydrangea varieties in bloom. From the spectacular new “Limelight” and “Lemon Daddy” to the dependable old-fashioned “Annabelle”, from the creamy pale pink “Endless Summer Blushing Bride” to the intense blue “Penny Mac”, hydrangea blooms dominate our nursery yard right now.

To make sense of the huge variety, we group the Hydrangeas in six families: macrophylla (large-leaf), paniculata (long-flowering), quercifolia (oak-leaf) and serrata (serrated-leaf), arborescens (smooth hydrangea) and anomala petiolaris (climbing hydrangea).

The largest and most popular group is the macrophylla. “Nikko Blue”, “Endless Summer”, “Blushing Bride” and “Lemon Daddy” have huge mop-shaped flower heads. Others are “lacecaps”, like “Blue Wave” with interesting compound blooms that look like old-fashioned lace doilies. Another lacecap, “Light O’Day”, has showy variegated foliage in green with white edges. The newer macrophylla types bloom on new wood, so you can depend on flowering every year even if plants are cut back or the tips freeze.

Paniculata Hydrangeas have cone-shaped flower heads that keep expanding, with the new blooms at the tip of the cluster. This extends their bloom, and the flower heads change color over the season. Our favorite is “Limelight”, with immense lime-green flower heads that turn pink and burgundy in fall. “Pinky Winky” is a new introduction that has particularly huge bloom heads. This group of Hydrangeas is less attractive to Japanese beetles than most shrubs.

Oak-leaf hydrangeas have eye-catching foliage with intense red-purple fall color and peeling bark similar to that of river birch. These versatile plants do well in shade, so they make a terrific informal hedge or foundation planting where sunlight is scarce. The new “PeeWee” variety fits in small spaces.

We like the Hydrangea family arborescens which includes “Snow Hill” and “Annabelle”, both classic old-fashioned “snowball” lawn shrubs with heavy white flower mops. “Annabelle” is one of the few hydrangeas that will thrive in full sun.

Most Hydrangeas do best in partial or filtered sun, particularly with protection from hot afternoon sun. Some, like Oak-leaf Hydrangea, are problem-solvers for shady areas.

We often get questions about managing Hydrangea bloom color with various soil amendments. In particular, the blue varieties need acid soil or they will bloom pink. We recommend lots of peat moss mixed with your planting soil, since all hydrangeas prefer well-drained acid soil. We use “Holly Tone” fertilizer when we plant Hydrangeas and continue to fertilize every year. Pine bark mulch is much more acid than hardwood or cypress, and helps maintain soil acidity over time. Adding garden sulfur, ammonium sulfate or Miracid when watering will help maintain color also.

Suddenly Japanese beetles are invading our gardens, stripping our favorite plants practically overnight. How do we combat this annual invasion? Here’s a long-term strategy to beat this devastating pest:

First, it’s important to understand one thing: most Japanese beetles don’t come from miles away or even from your neighbor’s yard. Unless you lure them with “Japanese Beetle Traps” (which release an irresistible fragrance to attract beetles from miles around into your yard), the beetles munching on your favorite plants probably live their entire lives within a few feet of their chosen meal.

Japanese beetle grubs hatch in the soil and mature just a few feet from your favorite roses or shrubs. At this time of year they mature into shiny flying beetles, emerge from the ground and attack the closest food source. As they feed, they also mate. After an orgy of feeding (and procreation) they drop back down and burrow back into the soil to lay eggs, after which they die. The eggs eventually hatch and become grubs, feeding on plant roots until it’s their turn to mature and continue the cycle.

In the process, Japanese beetle grubs attract moles to your garden. Moles feast on Japanese beetle and locust grubs as well as earthworms, burrowing under lawns and beds in search of juicy treats.

Hand collecting can be used to protect valuable plants when beetle activity is relatively low. The presence of beetles on a plant attracts more beetles. When you remove beetles daily by hand from a plant, only about half as many are attracted to that plant compared to those on which beetles are allowed to accumulate. One of the easiest ways to remove beetles from small plants is to shake the plants early in the morning (about 7 a.m.) when temperatures are low and the beetles sluggish. The beetles may be killed by shaking them into a bucket of soapy water.

The long-term solution is to break the life cycle of the Japanese beetle without attracting more beetles from elsewhere. To do this you must kill the grubs while they’re in the ground. There are chemicals you can apply to your lawn and gardens during the grub feeding cycle every year. These will kill beneficial insects and birds along with the grubs, and are poisonous to children and pets. A better way is to apply “Milky Spore” bacteria.

Milky Spore is a microorganism that gives grubs indigestion, after which they die from starvation. You can apply Milky Spore any time of year. The spores become colonies in the soil, harmful only to Japanese beetle grubs and nothing else. Their effectiveness increases over time, and they will continue in the soil for many years without reapplication. Milky Spore is expensive to apply, but one application can last for decades.

Milky spore won’t prevent this year’s Japanese Beetles from defoliating your roses. You can always pick the beetles off the plant by hand and drown them, and this certainly helps. The other way to kill mature beetles is to spray the foliage with carbaryl or permethrin-based insecticide, which poisons the beetles after they eat the treated foliage. Any beetles that escape will burrow down and lay eggs, so you’ll have to deal with them again next year.

Everyone loves the old-fashioned fragrant lilacs that grace so many old farmyards and your grandmother’s lawn. At this time of year their heavy perfume is distinctive and irresistible. Sentimentality helps us overlook their shortcomings in the modern landscape, but the fact remains that Syringa vulgaris (Old-fashioned purple lilac) is too large for most yards, suffers from powdery mildew, has an ungainly shape, and takes way too long to get established by today’s standards. The new generation of dwarf lilacs has made the old-fashioned common lilac a lovable dinosaur.

Modern landscapes present many more opportunities for the incredibly poplar “Meyeri” dwarf lilac varieties. These superior hybrids flower profusely at a much younger age, don’t attract pests or diseases (including powdery mildew), tolerate heat and drought especially well, and bombard you with exotic fragrances. They easily adapt to shearing into a large mounding shape in the five to six-foot range, making them perfect for filling corners in foundation plantings.

Dwarf Lilacs bloom profusely with small tubular flowers, a hummingbird magnet. The best ones are readily available in tree form, offering a lollipop-shaped compact specimen tree perfect for small spaces. Here are our favorite varieties:

Miss Kim Lilac - the most popular Lilac today, grows more tall than wide (approximately six feet tall and five feet wide) with large purplish-lavender fragrant blooms.

Dwarf Korean Lilac (Palibin) - This unique lilac grows more wide than tall, forming a spreading mound. Small light blue-pink, fragrant flowers are abundant along the stems.

Tinkerbelle Lilac - This new introduction is a hybrid selection grows six feet tall and wide. The pinkish buds open to deep wine-red flowers with a distinctive spicy-sweet fragrance.

All these varieties are easy to grow, preferring full sun all day for the best bloom. Annual feeding with Plant-Tone boosts the blooms nicely. They should be sheared annually just after blooming, cutting back to just above the fork created by the previous shearing.

GoodSeed Farm is offering a free Miss Kim Lilac plant to the first 1000 mothers who come to our annual Country garden Mother’s Day party, beginning Friday May 8^th through Sunday May 10^th. Mother’s Day hours are 8 AM-8PM Friday and Saturday, 10 AM to 6 PM Sunday.

Whoever said “hope springs eternal in the human breast” must have been talking about the mail order plant business. In the Farmer’s Almanac there is a full page ad for a tree called “The Royal Empress”, which “Zoooooooms to a flowering, scented, shade tree in just one season!!!” We’ve all seem ads for “The Tomato Tree” and the “Fruit Cocktail Tree”, but I have yet to see a mature, healthy example of these living miracles in anyone’s garden. Marjorie and I chuckle over the retouched catalog photos of luscious produce and oversize “flowers on steroids” in most mail order catalogs.

Once as a teenager I responded to an ad “How To Make a Fortune In Mail Order”. I received a small booklet, which I read from cover to cover in a half-hour. I don’t remember much of what it said, except for the following iron-clad rule: In selecting a product to sell by mail, always offer something that costs you no more than one-tenth your advertised selling price. I never forgot this maxim of mail order success, and I’m reminded of it every winter when the mail-order plant catalogs start filling our mailbox here at GoodSeed Farm.

Marjorie and I experimented with mail-order plants when we bought our first house. I remember the little baggie we received from Michigan Bulb, a handful of moldy roots bearing no resemblance to the color-enhanced photos we’d daydreamed about all winter. The opposite extreme was a fat Stargazer Lily bulb purchased with a Whiteflower Farm gift certificate we’d received as a housewarming present. We now know it cost twice as much as a real lily plant in a pot would have at our local garden center, not counting shipping.

We just love browsing through mail order plant and seed catalogs on dreary winter days. Being in the business of growing perennials and woody plants from seedlings and “plugs”, it always amazes us to see mail-order outfits selling the same bare-root plants in winter for almost as much as we charge for finished, healthy plants at their peak, in season. There’s something irresistible about the retouched photographs and hyperbolic descriptions of “fist-sized” strawberries and “enormous” blooms.

It takes quite a bit of willpower to postpone the “quick fix” of placing an order when faced with so much temptation. When we start to weaken, we remind each other of the “sticks in an envelope” we settled for a few times when we could have had the real thing by just waiting till spring.

At this time of year our mailbox is full of catalogs from seed companies. With their color-enhanced photos and hyperbolic descriptions, they are as tempting on a gray winter day as an ice cream stand is in summer. At this time of year your favorite garden center is closed for the season and there’s nothing better than a glossy color catalog to get your gardening juices flowing.

Hold onto your wallet. The tiny plugs, seed packets and “sticks in an envelope” that mail-order houses ship by the millions at this time of year are far from the lush plants and fat fruits shown in the pictures. Experienced gardeners and veteran greenhouse growers will confirm that bringing life to this handful of dreams takes skill, savvy and ideal conditions.

Some gardeners relish the challenge, some need busy work to while away the winter hours, but most people simply want beautiful plants and delicious food and are eager to get started. For you, let us suggest that you’ll be time and money ahead by waiting a month or two and visiting a family-owned garden center or greenhouse. The same plants can be found there, already growing in pots of soil, very often for less than the mail-order ingredients (plus shipping and “handling”) would have cost, and much more likely to succeed in your garden.

Here’s how to make use of the many plant catalogs you’ll receive this winter. Get yourself a highlight pen and some sticky notes and sit down in a comfortable chair with the stack of catalogs. Browse and daydream for hours. Any time you see a plant or seed you’d like to try, mark it with the highlighter and put a sticky note to mark the page.

GoodSeed Farm will be open for business in March, just weeks from now. Bring us your catalogs and show us your wish list. Chances are we can send you home with a happy, healthy example of the very same variety, or perhaps suggest something even better, with everything you need to make it grow and thrive. That’s how we, and thousands of other garden stores, earn our living and feed our families. We want you to succeed. We love plants, and we can offer better gardening tips than the FedEx driver or the UPS man.

If you’re looking for a showy flowering tree that’s not too large but grows fast, consider the Magnolia! There are some gorgeous Magnolia hybrids that work well in clay soil, making Magnolias a better choice for most landscapes than Dogwoods, which prefer well-drained soils.

Magnolias are known for their immense purple-pink and white tulip-shaped blooms. A few varieties have ivory or pale yellow blooms. Right now they are at their best, providing a real show in the early spring before their leaves form.

There is a family of compact hybrids with women’s names like Jane, Susan, Betty and Anne (we call them “the girls”) that make ideal lawn trees, big enough to walk under when they grow up. Many of them re-bloom lightly during the summer and fall.

The star Magnolia “Royal Star” is also a favorite, with gleaming ivory white waxy petals and a nice compact shape. This variety rarely exceeds ten feet tall and wide, and generally grows like a large shrub rather than a tree form.

Magnolias naturally grow multiple trunks and lots of spreading branches, hanging down to the ground like giant shrubs. They are very attractive in a “clump” form with multiple trunks, “limbed up” to show off their attractive silvery bark.

Stop in to GoodSeed Farm and we’ll show you one that’s been in our gardens about eight years. Her name is “Jane” and she’s a real show-stopper when she’s in bloom! If planted carefully and fed a steady diet of “Holly Tone”, magnolias can add several feet of growth in a single season. We like to use pine bark mulch around Magnolias because they are acid-loving. A bit of pruning can really enhance this tree; simply removing sucker growth gives them a simpler and more graceful shape.

This is a very good time to plant young trees, getting them established before the weather gets hot. If you shop for Magnolias right now you can compare blooms, and enjoy them for a few weeks after you plant.

There’s nothing like an economic downturn to remind us of what’s really important in life. A family that can grow its own food will always weather tough times and come out stronger, the same way a plant comes back after a hard winter.

Some of us are old enough to remember when country families provided most of their own food. Not so long ago, the “womanly arts” included home canning, scratch cooking, sewing, and tending the family vegetable patch. Farm boys learned animal husbandry, how to raise crops, and the many trades required to maintain farm buildings and equipment. Our Adams County neighbors have a long tradition of stubborn independence and self-sufficiency.

When this country was founded, the majority of Americans lived on small farms, growing most of what we needed ourselves and selling the surplus for cash to buy hardware and dry goods. The boom-bust cycles in big-city financial markets didn’t have much impact on family farms. Times could get hard, but there was always enough to eat.

2009 is a good year to dedicate ourselves to teaching traditional life skills to our children and grandchildren. What better gift can we offer to future generations than the gift of life, the confidence and capability to “shift for ourselves”? Plants and nature offer us a timeless solution to the challenge of survival. Modern technology can help us understand and harness natural forces, but it can never replace them.

At GoodSeed Farm we are focused more than ever on edible plants. We’ve seen people turn to the Internet for plants and information on how to garden, but there’s a better way. We offer locally grown, earth-friendly, Ohio-hardy fruit and vegetable plants and seeds you can see and touch and smell, plus the personal experience to help you succeed. We’ve noticed that young people really like coming here and hate to leave. This year, let us help you pass on your love of plants and gardening to a new generation.

Local residents and visitors to Adams County in autumn are well aware of the spectacular fall foliage display we have here in our county. While New England states like Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire are well known for showy fall color with their mix of sugar maple, red maple and birch, this region of Ohio can be equally colorful.

True Red Maples (Acer rubrum) are magnificent shade trees with green foliage that generally grow 50 feet tall and wide, although some get much larger. The species gets its name from its flower color, though most Red Maples have red seeds and red fall foliage as well. There are hundreds of cultivars, varying quite a bit in shape, growth habit, leaf color, hardiness and other traits. Our favorite is “October Glory”, because it gets spectacular red fall color and keeps its leaves for many weeks after they turn red.

Fall color is caused by chemical reactions within plant leaves. October Glory red maple uses red pigments (anthocyanins) to protect the leaves under certain conditions. Red maples can vary quite a bit from year to year in both timing and intensity, but we’ve found October Glory to be very consistent deep red from one autumn to the next.

A medium-sized, fairly slow-growing shade tree, October Glory is ideal for locations where larger shade trees would overhang buildings or interfere with walks and driveways. Larger than popular ornamental pears like Bradford and Aristocrat, October Glory makes a better shade tree because it can be “limbed up” high enough to walk or drive under. It is a hard maple, less likely to be damaged by wind or ice than ornamental pears and much longer lived. Soft maples like silver maple provide shade faster but can grow much too large and require expensive “trimming”, not a problem with red maples.

October Glory was introduced in 1961 by Princeton Nursery in New Jersey. It has become one of the most widely planted red maples. Tolerant of most soils, October Glory typically grows to 35 feet wide and 40 feet tall, a perfect size for lawn shade tree planting, with a nice rounded crown and dense, evenly spaced branching. It tolerates heat and drought very well. We have yet to find a better maple variety.

For the fattest onions at harvest time, onion plants should be set out 4 weeks prior to the date of the last possible spring frost. That means right now. The earlier the onion is planted, the more time the onion has to grow a bigger top and therefore larger onions.

Onion plants come in bunches of about 60-70 plants, each the size of a pencil. Place the plant on your index finger and press the onion into the soil about two inches, then pull up slightly (so the roots will point downwards) and firm the soil around the plant. Starting with onion transplants gives you a “head start”, insuring you’ll get the biggest, fattest onions within the growing season.

Onion bulbs start growing when a specific combination of daylight, darkness, and temperature is reached, bulb formation starts. Each variety needs a particular combination. This is why Vidalia (Granax) onions do so much better in Georgia than they do here. Hybrid Candy or Hybrid Superstar are better sweet white onions for the Ohio Valley, every bit as sweet and tasty as Vidalia. Red Candy is a terrific sweet red onion for this area, and Walla Walla is our favorite sweet yellow onion.

Live onion plants should be planted as soon as possible. If you can’t plant right away, spread the plants out in a cool, dry area. If they begin to dry out don’t be alarmed, the onion is a member of the lily family and will live for approximately three weeks off the bulb. The plants will sprout new roots as soon as you get them into the soil.

Temperature fluctuation may cause onions to send up flower stalks. Onions are biennials, which means they normally take 2 years to go from seed to seed. If an onion plant is exposed to alternating cold and warm temperatures, the onion bulbs prematurely flower or bolt. The onion thinks it has completed two growth cycles or years of growth in its biennial life cycle so it finalizes the cycle by blooming. Flowering can be controlled by planting the right variety at the right time. Use only transplants that are pencil-sized or smaller in diameter when planting in early spring.

Onions need fertilizer three or four times before harvest. Use 10-10-10, sprinkling the fertilizer around the base of the plants (fertilizer dust can scorch the foliage). Super-phosphate and bone meal are good for onions too. Fertilize when plants reach 6 inches, and again 3 or 4 weeks later.

It seems too early to be vegetable gardening, but experienced gardeners have their onions in the ground by St. Patrick’s Day. In order to get fat onion bulbs, you need to grow big healthy tops before the days get long. That’s when the plants switch from growing foliage to storing food in the bulbs, so planting too late means puny bulbs at harvest time.

The easiest way to grow onions in the home garden is by planting onion “sets”, tiny onions that grow into big onions. We sell these by the pound in yellow, sweet white and sweet red. All you need to do is loosen up a patch or row with a cultivator, mixing in some 10-10-10 fertilizer, and then press the little onions into the loose soil two inches deep and two inches apart. We recommend “wide row” planting; instead of a single line plant six or eight rows two to three inches apart. Onions don’t mind being crowded, and later you can thin the weaker plants and have plenty of fresh scallions. Make sure to tamp the soil over your onion sets.

If you get a late start or want bigger onions, splurge on young onion transplants. These come in bunches of about 60-70 plants, each the size of a pencil. Place the plant on your index finger and press the onion into the soil about two inches, then pull up slightly (so the roots will point downwards) and firm the soil around the plant. Starting with onion transplants gives you a “head start”, insuring you’ll get the biggest, fattest onions within the growing season. Favorite varieties are “Walla-Walla” and “Red Mars”, huge sweet globes.

Thin every other plant, harvesting the weaker ones. Big, healthy tops mean big fat onions. Pinch off any seedpods, because if the plants set seed they won’t grow big bulbs. Once the days are long enough, healthy vigorous onion plants “shift gears” and energy from the big tops is transported down to make a bulb. Bulbs continue to grow until the tops wither and turn brown.

They key to storing onions is drying them thoroughly after harvest. Uproot them and lay them out, protected from the sun, until you can brush the roots off easily. Turn them a few times as they dry. Store them in mesh bags so they can breathe.

The easiest way to grow onions in the home garden is by planting onion “sets”, tiny onions that grow into big onions. We sell these by the pound in yellow, sweet white and sweet red. All you need to do is loosen up a patch or row with a cultivator, mixing in some 10-10-10 fertilizer, and then press the little onions into the loose soil two inches deep and two inches apart. We recommend “wide row” planting; instead of a single line plant six or eight rows a few inches apart. Onions don’t mind being crowded, and later you can thin the weaker plants and have plenty of fresh scallions. Make sure to tamp the soil over your onion sets.

This is the time of year to protect young fruit trees from deer damage. Rubbing or uprooting by bucks in the fall is a common problem. Deer like to nibble the new growth during the winter. Both problems can be prevented by spraying trees with a good deer repellent like “Liquid Fence” once a month starting in September and continuing through the winter. Spray deer repellent on trees when planting, since deer are attracted to newly turned soil and will investigate right away.

The only other spraying necessary in fall or winter is “dormant oil”, which helps control certain insects and diseases from getting started in your young orchard. Many new tree varieties are bred for low maintenance (resistance to disease) so very little spraying is necessary even in season.

Fall planting gets you one year closer to bearing fruit than if you wait until spring. September is the perfect time to start or expand your home orchard. Fall weather is ideal for low-stress planting. The soil is still warm, encouraging rapid root development, while the tree itself is going dormant and doesn’t need much watering. Cooler temperatures and increased rainfall help as well. Planting container grown trees in fall is better than buying bare root trees for spring planting through mail order catalogs.

We have been growing our fruit trees in five-gallon fiber pots with great success, and these pots allow you to “plant the pot” making planting easier. Fiber pots encourage a robust root system, so we’ve had fruit on many of our apple and peach trees right in the nursery! There’s no need to disturb the roots; simply place the entire pot in the ground and water it now and then. The fiber pot will become soil and the roots will spread quickly into the surrounding soil.

The most common mistake when planting fruit trees is digging the hole too deep and smothering the roots. The pot soil should be level with the area around the tree, and should be left exposed so the roots can breathe. When planting, mix a multi-mineral, low nitrogen fertilizer with the soil around the tree. Espoma Tree Tone, a specialized fertilizer containing trace minerals like Boron and Zinc, is perfect for this. Trace minerals help prevent problems like blossom end rot and premature fruit drop. Fertilizers with high nitrogen content are not good for fruit trees.

We see many young orchards with crooked trees. We recommend sturdy tree stakes for the first few years to prevent this. We also recommend killing weeds and grass in the root zone with Roundup to eliminate competition for water and nutrients. Roundup will not poison the soil, but be careful not to spray any on the bark of the trees. We use plastic tree guards to protect young bark from Roundup damage and rodents.

Many people dream of having a home orchard but keep putting it off. One reason is that there can be such a long time (and a lot of work) between planting and your first harvest of delicious fruit. Another reason is that so many things can go wrong in the meantime. Fear of the unknown discourages many homeowners from planting fruit trees.

It’s true that raising fruit at home takes effort, but probably not as much as you think. The key is doing things the easy way instead of wasting time and effort. It’s possible to have edible fruit the same year you plant, or the following year. The key is starting with real, living pot-grown fruit trees instead of ordering “bare root” from mail order catalogs. Planting bare root trees, particularly in spring and summer, is very unlikely to succeed for many reasons. For best results, start with the biggest, healthiest fruit trees you can find. They’ll cost more initially, but they are more likely to thrive and you’ll have fruit years sooner.

We’ve had great success raising our fruit trees in bio-degradable, earth-friendly fiber pots. This makes it possible to “plant the pot” at any time of year without disturbing the root system, a breakthrough for successful planting. As a bonus, fruit trees grown in fiber pots thrive while they’re in the nursery. Many of our pot-grown fruit trees are already loaded with fruit!

Choosing newer, disease-resistant varieties is another key to success with less effort. Modern hybrids reduce the amount of maintenance required to produce healthy, delicious fruit. The best apples for home orchards probably have names you never heard of. Look for “Certified Virus Indexed” (CVI) fruit trees, grafted from certified virus free mother trees. They need less spraying to produce healthy fruit.

“Semi-dwarf” fruit trees, which grow 12 to 15 feet wide and perhaps 10 feet tall, make harvesting easier. Tree size, hardiness, and clay soil tolerance are determined by the rootstock, not the variety. Most apple trees we sell are grafted to semi-dwarf rootstocks ideal for this area according to the OSU agricultural extension.

Most importantly, don’t waste time and effort by trying to start an orchard “on the cheap”. It will ultimately cost you more in time and effort, and probably in dollars also. Each tree should be securely staked, fertilized, mulched, and protected from deer. If you budget about $40-50 per tree, you’ll have enough for all the materials needed to make your orchard a success, plus start with good-sized quality plants. In the long run you’ll be money ahead.

ORNAMENTAL GRASSES MAKE A DIFFERENCE FAST

Ornamental grasses make excellent screen plants to hide unsightly propane tanks and air conditioners, or for privacy around patios and decks. They develop faster than shrubs. Professional designers mix a variety of grasses with perennial flowers and woody plants, sometimes massing them for showy effects. Grasses range in size from tiny pillows less than a foot tall to huge clumps over ten feet tall. They come in a range of colors from dusty blue to pink and purple.

A good way to compare grasses is by looking at the size they will be when they are fully grown. This way you’ll be sure to space them properly and allow enough space for them to develop to their fullest. Most grasses do best in full sun with plenty of moisture, but the most popular grasses are quite adaptable and will do well almost anywhere. Hardy grasses are perennials and will return each year larger. The only maintenance they need is to be cut to the ground in late winter each year and fertilized during spring and summer.

Here’s a rundown on some of our favorites:

Miscanthus, commonly called “maiden grass”, have a very graceful habit, softly drooping and waving gently with the slightest breeze. Some have “zebra stripes’, others have stripes along the leaves. Miscanthus are great for privacy or screen plantings, and come in many sizes.

Pennisetum, or “fountain grass” are another popular grass family. Most have showy upright seed heads. Pennisetums work well in perennial borders or foundation plantings, mixed with flowering plants and shrubs. Our favorites are “Hameln”, “Little Bunny”. “Karley Rose” and “Moudry”. Pennisetums have distinctive pink seed heads.

Some grasses have an upright form that works well in tight spaces. The popular “Karl Foerster” feather reed grass has attractive wheat-like seed stalks that stand straight up, great for mixing with foundation shrubs and hiding unsightly utility meters. Panicum “Shenandoah” gradually turns purple during the season, and grows in a tidy upright clump that looks great in foundation plantings.

Fluffy dusty-blue clumps of ornamental fescue grass are terrific mixed with low perennials in the front of the border. They are very drought-tolerant once they’re established, and stay nice and compact for years. Our favorites are “Elijah Blue” and “Boulder Blue”.

Pay attention to the hardiness zone when buying ornamental grasses, or you could buy varieties that aren’t hardy perennials in this area. People often ask us for “pink pampas grass”, shown often in mail order catalogs but not hardy in Ohio winters. Red Pennisetum is popular for planters. We think of both of these as annuals and pay less for them than perennial grasses.

It’s easy to enjoy cheerful March-April color without worrying about frost damage. All you need is a flat or two of cold-hardy pansies. They come in a huge selection of colors from the subtle “Antique Shades” to traditional “Bingo” and “Red Blotch”, and these can be planted right now regardless of the weather. It’s hard to resist their velvety friendly faces. Pansies shrug off the cold, frost and snow.

A little-known fact is that most pansy varieties are perennial and will come back every year. Pansies like cool weather, so plants you install this spring will bloom again in fall and again next year if you protect them from summer heat. Pansies bloom vigorously from April until June, and when it starts to get really hot we just pull a little mulch over them to protect them from the sun. Another approach is to plant annual flowers around the pansies. These plants will shield the pansies from the sun all summer, and when the frost kills them the pansies will burst into bloom for the late fall.

A popular variation on the pansy is the Viola, or “Johnny-jump-up”. We sell more of these every year and their dainty, pastel colored blooms are charming. Once established they will self-seed in cool, moist areas of your garden and you’ll have more every year. Like pansies, violas like cool weather or a shady location. They’ll fizzle out in early summer, by which time your annual bedding plants can take over. You’ll be surprised how they pop up next spring when you’ve forgotten all about them!

Pansies and violas are very easy to grow and easy to transplant. Work your soil with some peat moss before you plant, mix in a little Flower-Tone or other dry fertilizer with the soil, and lightly mulch the plants once they’re in the ground. Like most plants they will grow better in fluffy, well-drained soil than they will in hard clay.

A good way to rotate your planter pots and window boxes is to fill them with pansies at this time of year and then refill them with pansies once danger of frost is past. The pansies can be transplanted from your containers into a shady spot in your garden; they’ll give you an “encore” of cheerful fall color.

Many people are confused by the words “annual” and “perennial”. A good way to remember the difference is that perennial starts with “P” just like the word “permanent”.

A perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. Perennials, especially small flowering plants, grow and bloom over the spring and summer and then die back every autumn and winter, then return in the spring from their root stock rather than seeding themselves as an annual plant does. These are known as herbaceous perennials. Which plants are perennial depends on the climate or “hardiness zone” where they are planted; some plants will be “annual” (lasting only one season) in a cold climate but perennial further south.

Perennial plants can be short-lived or long-lived, and they can vary in size from only a few millimeters to over 100 meters tall. They include a wide assortment of plant groups from ferns and sedums to orchids and ornamental grasses.

Unlike annuals, which produce seeds to create each new generation, perennials typically grow structures that allow them to adapt to living from one year to the next. These structures include bulbs, tubers, rhizomes and woody crowns. They have specialized to survive under extreme environmental conditions: some have adapted to survive hot and dry conditions, or to survive under cold temperatures. Most perennials flower and fruit over many seasons in their lifetime. Annuals tend to produce many more seeds per plant since they will die at the end of the growing season, while perennials may produce less seeds but can produce them over many years.

In warmer and more favorable climates, perennials grow continuously. In seasonal climates, their growth is limited to the growing season. These plants are deciduous perennials. Re-growth is from existing stem tissue. Some perennials are evergreen, retaining their foliage all year round.

Perennial plants are usually better competitors than annual plants, especially under stable, resource-poor conditions. This is due to the development of larger root systems which can access water and soil nutrients deeper in the soil, and to earlier emergence in the spring.

A big advantage of perennials for the home landscape is that they typically grow bigger and stronger each year, rather than having to be re-planted each spring. A variety of perennials in the landscape will prove all-season color by overlapping different bloom times in succession. Mixing perennials with shrubs gives the landscape more winter interest, since most perennials die back to the ground after frost. This mixture of shrubs and perennial flowers can have tremendous variety of color and texture.

Plant breeders never sleep. In our lifetime we’ve seen a revolution in genetically engineered plants, giving us such innovations as “Roundup-Ready” soybeans. When a variety is introduced that is clearly superior it becomes well known and other plants are forgotten. A good example of this is Silver Queen corn.

We’re now seeing an explosion of genetically engineered landscape plants. Plant breeders invest millions to develop and promote new varieties and make them household words almost overnight. These plants sometimes turn out to be fads and fade away, but the best ones make gardening easier and are embraced by home landscapers. We call these varieties “plants on steroids”. Here are some of our favorites; if you haven’t tried them you should:

“Purple Wave®” Petunia: We just love these vigorous petunias because they grow so fast, bloom so profusely and look so good. One “Wave” plant takes the place of three or four regular petunias, spreading as much as three feet. Fresh blooms of stunning purple with blue centers never stop coming. They don’t need pinching back or deadheading to look good. This is somewhat less true of the subsequent “Lilac Wave”, “Blue Wave”, “Red Wave” etc. etc., but the Wave series is extremely popular with good reason.

“Stella D’Oro®” Daylily: This is the easiest perennial of all to grow, forming a showy clump and re-blooming all summer from May until frost with golden yellow trumpet-shaped blooms. “Stellas” can be divided every two or three years to rapidly fill in sunny hillsides and hard-to-mow culverts. Brand extensions like the “Mini Stella” and “Black-Eyed Stella” are more like regular daylilies. The key to re-blooming daylilies is to keep the clump growing; re-blooming comes from the new roots formed by an expanding plant.

“Knock-Out®” Shrub Rose: Forget about the typical rose problems of leaf spot, yellowing and funguses. “Knock-Outs” perform and perform without spraying or deadheading, survive through hard winters with only minor damage, and are covered with blooms constantly all season. They are truly low-maintenance. The original red and pink single Knock-out roses perform the best, followed by the double versions. “Blushing Knock-out” and “Rainbow Knock-out” are relative wash-outs, and the new “Sunny Knock-out” has yet to prove itself but our first impression is that it needs regular deadheading to look good.

“Endless Summer®” Hydrangea: The ultimate shrub for shade. These sturdy plants are covered with stunning blue or pink flowers all season long. Growing about four feet, “Endless Summer” is the perfect compact size for foundation plantings, will thrive in part sun or shade, and flowers on new growth each year for dependable bloom. “Endless Summer Blushing Bride” is a pale pink version, and the new “Twist ‘n Shout” hydrangea is a lace-cap version with deep pink centers and showy red fall foliage.

Brace yourself for a tidal wave of new plant introductions with catchy names. With any luck, one out of five will actually prove to be superior to the tried and true plants we already have in our gardens. This is where a knowledgeable nursery can be a helpful reality check. For all the hype, a heavily promoted brand can turn out to be no better than many lesser-known or traditional varieties.

It is easy to get frustrated with poinsettias. If they aren’t handled right by the shipper and the seller, they can look great when you buy them yet turn yellow and lose their leaves in a few days. It’s important to buy them from a place that knows plants. Quality Poinsettias are a result of careful and expensive hybridizing. Good ones have a “pedigree”. Our favorite is “Freedom Red” developed by Paul Ecke Ranch, a huge Poinsettia breeder. “Freedom Red” has unusually large flower bracts of a deep, velvety red color, and is amazingly tolerant of drafts and cool temperatures. These are superior traits much sought after by Poinsettia breeders, and not found on mass market poinsettias in the “big box” stores.

First, avoid cold or drafts. Have the store wrap them in a plastic sleeve so they won’t get a chill on the way to your car. Even a short exposure to a cold draft will shock them and they will start losing leaves. A good rule of thumb is that if you feel a draft yourself, the plant feels it too. Poinsettias will hold their blooms longer at 60 degrees than at 75 or 80, but a draft will finish them off quickly. That’s why it’s so harmful to ship and store them like groceries or hardware, the way big-box retailers do.

Poinsettias need lots of light but don’t like much direct sun. An East or North-facing bright room is best. If they are in direct sun they will dry out quickly, so we suggest re-potting them soon in a larger pot with rich potting soil. Lack of sufficient sunlight will cause the plants to become spindly, with fading color and yellowing, small leaves. We keep our Poinsettias in a greenhouse with 50% shade cloth to filter the sunlight.

Greenhouse-grown Poinsettias are used to getting a little liquid fertilizer right along with their watering every day. The best way to feed them is to mix a little Miracle-Gro in their water.

Poinsettias like moist, well-drained soil. Their roots need to breathe, so it’s best to let the soil dry out between watering. Over-watering will make them wilt and drop their leaves, however if they get a bit dry they’ll bounce right back when you water.

Poinsettias are a tropical plant native to places like Florida and Mexico. They like mild, sunny weather and can’t stand cold. Keeping Poinsettias year after year requires a ritual of letting them go dormant and then come back, like a perennial. Unless you have a home greenhouse you can’t duplicate their native growing conditions so when the plants come back they won’t be nearly as showy as they are right now. The good news is if you follow our suggestions, Poinsettias can look good for months or even longer.

Afraid of poinsettias? Think they’re a waste of money? Well let’s reconsider. Here’s a plant that, during the drab winter months, dazzles you with velvety red brilliance that makes any room come alive. It’s the essence of luxury.

We’re not talking about scrawny, pale, big-box commodity Poinsettias. We mean big, bold, crimson-covered florist-quality plants like “Freedom Red”. “Freedom” refers to the way this special Poinsettia shrugs off drafts, the bane of lesser Poinsettia varieties, and lasts and lasts and lasts. It’s the showiest yet hardiest Poinsettia we’ve found.

The main thing to understand about enjoying Poinsettias is that they need lots of light and they can’t stand drafts. To make them last all season and beyond, start by getting them from someone who handles them properly, or they can drop all their leaves the minute you get them home. Our Poinsettias come directly from the grower in a heated trailer, individually sleeved for protection, and we won’t let them out the door without re-sleeving them for the trip to your house. In between, we display them in a 50% shade greenhouse at 60 degrees. This way they’re in peak condition and they’ll look good for much longer.

Big-box Poinsettias are forced into bloom under perfect growing conditions, most often in the Southwest, and then shipped great distances. Poinsettias actually do better in your house if they have been “hardened off” by varying the temperature (more like the conditions you have at home) so they’re not so tender. This takes more time and trouble. We’ve found an Ohio grower with three generations of experience growing perfect Poinsettias, and we order our plants a year in advance since they sell out early. The quality never varies.

It is easy to get frustrated with poinsettias. If they aren’t handled right by the shipper and the seller, they can look great when you buy them yet turn yellow and lose their leaves in a few days. Quality Poinsettias are a result of careful and expensive hybridizing. Good ones have a “pedigree”. Once you buy them, here’s how to make Poinsettias last for months and months:

First, avoid cold or drafts. A good rule of thumb is that if you feel a draft yourself, the plant feels it too. Poinsettias will hold their blooms longer at 60 degrees than at 75 or 80, but a draft will finish them off quickly. That’s why it’s so harmful to ship and store them like groceries or hardware, the way big-box retailers do.

Poinsettias need lots of light but don’t like much direct sun. An East or North-facing bright room is best. Lack of sufficient sunlight will cause the plants to become spindly, with fading color and yellowing, small leaves. The best way to feed them is to mix a little Miracle-Gro in their water. Their roots need to breathe, so it’s best to let the soil dry out between watering. Over-watering will make them wilt and drop their leaves, however if they get a bit dry they’ll bounce right back when you water.

Keeping Poinsettias year after year requires a ritual of letting them go dormant and then come back, like a perennial. Unless you have a home greenhouse you can’t duplicate their native growing conditions. But who cares? Treat yourself to a dazzling show and enjoy it while it lasts. Think of it as a Christmas bouquet. If you follow our suggestions, Poinsettias can look good for months or even longer, something no cut flower arrangement could ever do.

Summer is the most challenging time of year for pond and water feature enthusiasts. Keeping pond water clear and clean in 90 degree heat with sixteen hours of sunlight takes some advance preparation. This is because water temperature is the key to controlling pond algae.

Experienced water gardeners visit our store early in the year to stock up on annual pond plants, “floaters” like water lettuce and water hyacinth. These plants multiply rapidly on the pond surface, forming a living “umbrella” that casts shade on the water. Perennial water lilies are also very helpful in keeping sun from warming pond water. By August, vegetation should cover most of your pond’s surface.

Keeping water rapidly moving is another important aspect to controlling “green water” in your pond. Waterfalls and fountains mix in fresh oxygen to keep water from becoming stagnant. Pond water should circulate at least twice per hour to prevent “hot spots”, mixing cool subsurface water constantly. This means that a 100-gallon pond should have a 200 gallon-per-hour pump. To prevent “hot spots”, water should circulate completely from one end of the pond to the other, twice each hour.

Well-designed water features are lined completely with rock. Black plastic pond liners have only one-third the surface area necessary for algae-eating bacteria to colonize. Black liners soak up the sun’s rays, acting as solar water heaters. Rocks and pebbles equalize the night and day temperatures, cooling the water by day and warming it at night. Gaps between stones give fish a place to hide from predators, and act as natural filters.

Plantings along pond banks, particularly on the southwest side, shade the water during the hottest part of the day. Overhanging shrubs and ornamental grasses work well, and so do trees. Ponds in direct sun all day are the hardest to manage. There are lots of perennials that thrive along pond banks or in shallow water. These plants are called “aquatic marginals”. In addition to making a natural appearance, they help create a balanced environment around ponds that helps control algae.

A healthy living pond environment provides enough food for goldfish and snails, who help keep the pond clean. Fish wastes, in turn, help feed pond plants. Overfeeding of fish is a major cause of algae bloom in water features. We stock our pond with bait goldfish, and never add fish food of any kind. The fish thrive by eating mosquito and frog eggs, tadpoles, algae and insects, scrubbing the pond naturally.

Every water feature has “issues” with string algae, particularly during the summer months. We recommend several fish-safe, plant-safe algae control products that work very well, and use them in our own pond, but they are only one ingredient in a successful “recipe” for clean, clear water. The key to clear water is a healthy balance of good design, water circulation, plants and fish. These elements create a healthy environment similar to natural stream beds, where plants, insects and animals live in harmony in clean, clear water.

Experienced gardeners plant two crops of potatoes, first in March and again after last frost. Potato plants can survive late frost if they get a little protection, so it’s time to get ready for that first planting now. Potato plants will begin to grow as soon as the soil temperature has reached 45 degrees F. The soil should be evenly moist, but not wet or soggy.

Start with certified seed potatoes from a garden center or farm supply store. Grocery store spuds are chemically treated to prevent them from sprouting so they won’t work. Using old potatoes from your root cellar is chancy because they can be carrying disease organisms.

If you pre-sprout potatoes before planting, it will decrease the likelihood of rot. Put them in a warm sunny place until sprouts form, then quarter them into pieces with 3-5 eyes apiece. Small potatoes can be planted whole. To protect them from rotting, shake the pieces in a bag with an ounce or two of powdered garden sulfur, then let them dry out for a day or two before planting.

Potatoes like acid soil. Manure and lime invite scab by raising the soil PH, so pick an area where you haven’t added lime or manure for at least a year. Till deeply to make trenching easier, and then dig a trench 6-8 inches deep. Sprinkle 5-10-5 fertilizer along the bottom, and then cover the fertilizer with 2-3 inches of soil before placing the potato in the trench. If fertilizer touches the potato it can burn it and cause it to rot. Plant your potato chunks (eyes facing up) one foot apart. Now cover the potato with 4 more inches of soil and tamp it down.

Once the plants have sprouted 3 to 5 inches tall, it’s time to “hill” around them with loose soil. If you cover them a little bit they’ll pop right through in a day or two. Hilling is also the way to protect the young plants from frost, so keep an eye on the weather; hill your plants when you have a late frost warning.

Potato plants form new their new tubers above the original seed piece. To get a good crop you must continue to add soil, making sure they aren’t exposed to the sun. Repeated hilling also discourages weeds. Each time, cover most of the potato vine to encourage additional roots to form.

If you have clay soil it’s tempting to grow your potatoes above ground in mulch hills. To do this it’s best to prepare your mulch hills in the fall, along with a supply of compost, leaves or straw to mulch the plants with once they start growing. The advantage to this method is better drainage and less work; the disadvantage is that you’ll usually get much smaller potatoes. Another concern is rodents in the mulch around your plants. Mice can attack your crop and also attract snakes into your garden.

Here’s a shopping list for successful potato gardening: For each 100 feet of row you’ll need about five pounds of seed potatoes, three pounds of 5-10-5 fertilizer and an ounce of garden sulfur. Here are our favorite potato varieties:

Yukon Gold: The best yellow-fleshed early potato, Yukon Gold has beautiful golden color and a rich, creamy potato flavor. It’s excellent baked, boiled, or mashed, and also stores well.

Red Pontiac: A large round red-skinned potato with thin, dark-red skin, deep eyes, and high yields. Red Pontiac is easy to grow and store.

Kennebec: This short oval potato has smooth pale yellow skin, shallow eyes, and white flesh. Kennebec is an excellent producer, great for baking or frying, and stores well.

Red LaSoda: With smooth red skin, deep eyes, and white flesh, Red LaSoda is excellent for boiling and making potato salads. Possibly the best-storing red, it tolerates high temperatures and is disease-resistant.

Deer pressure is an increasing concern for gardeners. Many new landscapes become all-you-can-eat deer buffets, frustrating homeowners into giving up on attractive landscaping. Another problem is ‘buck rubs” during the fall rut season. Bucks can’t resist sapling trees and will shred them as part of their mating ritual.

There are two solutions. Good landscape design and plant selection should include deer resistance along with other design considerations. There are many beautiful plants that are not attractive to deer, and some that actually keep them away. We’ll have details about this in next week’s column.

For now, let’s talk about how to discourage deer from destroying the landscape you already have. Deer are creatures of habit. Preventing deer damage before it starts is much easier than changing existing behavior. Deer control should begin whenever you add a new plant to your yard; deer will investigate newly turned dirt and you want to send an unfriendly message right away, before they get comfortable.

We’ve all heard about folk remedies for deer control. Bars of soap, human hair, rotten eggs, garlic, fabric softener strips, dried blood etc. all have some value because they either “jam” the deer’s sense of smell or create a sense of danger. These methods often work in the beginning and lose effectiveness over time. One reason is that they are difficult or messy to manage over time. They can also attract other pests, such as rodents or dogs.

Deer are also neophobic (afraid of anything new). Their five physical senses suggest five different ways to make them feel insecure. Changes in your yard put them on alert, and you can keep them off-base by rotating deer-deterrence tactics. Devices that move or make noise can work for a while. Physical barriers like electric fences can discourage them. Substances that taste bad will discourage deer browsing. For a thorough understanding of how to balance all these techniques, we recommend “Deer Proofing Your Yard & Garden”, a book by Rhonda Massingham Hart.

The bottom line is that there are many ways to discourage deer, most of which will help as long as you spend the time, effort and money to use them consistently over time.

The easiest deterrent to manage over time is commercial deer-deterrent spray. We have had great success using “Liquid Fence”, a mixture of smells deer cannot tolerate, in an easy-to-use pump sprayer. We start by spraying liquid fence on any new planting, and reapply about once per month. Once it dries, “Liquid Fence” resists washing away and will continue to work for up to six weeks. During the growing season we apply it more often so tender new leaves are treated before the deer feast on them. We spray the trunks of all our young trees once per month during fall to prevent buck damage.

Our experience has been that “Liquid Fence” works very well year after year, as long as we reapply it on schedule. We’ve never found any other solution that is as effective and easy to use.

Rural and suburban landscapes attract deer because they offer a neat little “buffet” of food deer love to eat. Rather than forage over a wide area, deer can “one-stop-shop” for a delicious meal all in one location. Good landscape design and plant selection should include deer resistance along with other design considerations. There are many beautiful plants that are not attractive to deer, and some that actually keep them away. These plants should be mixed in to any landscape if deer are a problem.

Deer instinctively know which plants are poisonous, but there are many plants they simply don’t care for. They are less picky in winter, when their native food supply is dormant or snow-covered. Plants with course, fuzzy, bristly or spiny textures, or intense aromas, discourage deer.

A good first step is to avoid plants that deer particularly like, such as Hostas, daylilies, tulips and Taxus (yews). Unfortunately deer are attracted to some of our favorite ornamental plants, but substitutes can usually be found for landscaping. For example, the following perennials look good in landscapes but are relatively unattractive to deer:

Deer also ignore most types of ornamental grasses. The following trees and shrubs are landscape favorites and don’t appeal to deer:

A challenge to home gardeners and orchardists is that deer particularly crave virtually all fruit and vegetable plants. If you like apples, strawberries and sweet corn, or peas and lettuce, you need to take steps to protect your crop. Certain plants mixed in with your garden can actually deter deer, however. Surrounding and inter-planting susceptible plants with unpalatable or repellant plants makes them harder for deer to find. Here are some deer-deterrent plants:

Deer tastes vary from place to place, season to season and deer to deer. It may take some trial and error to find the ideal mix for your landscape. For a thorough understanding, read “Deer Proofing Your Yard & Garden”, by Rhonda Massingham Hart. Remember that newly installed plants are the most vulnerable, so using a deer deterrent is a good idea. The best one we’ve found is “Liquid Fence”, a mixture of smells deer cannot tolerate, in an easy-to-use pump sprayer. We recommend it for any landscape installation if deer are likely to be a problem.

Can you imagine raising delicious vegetables without bending over? We know some master gardeners who have this luxury, and they rave about how healthy their crops are and how little work is involved. They have created raised planting beds, filled them with topsoil and compost, and harvested bumper crops year after year. Retaining walls are an ideal environment for ornamental beds also.

For homeowners with clay soil or drainage problems, raised beds and retaining walls can be a lifesaver because they allow you to garden with well-drained soil. This is much better for plants and easier for the gardener. You can create giant “planters” filled with nice fluffy topsoil, and there’s no danger of your lawn eventually taking the beds over because there’s a wall between the lawn and the garden. The wall even gives you a place to sit while you work, and set things down so you don’t have to bend over!

Whether you’re a vegetable gardener or you’re trying to grow healthy landscape plants, poor drainage is your worst enemy. Even if you till peat moss and compost into your soil, your plants will suffer unless there’s a way for excess water to drain away. Plants breathe through their roots, and excess water drowns them. The nicest garden soil is unworkable if it’s saturated with water. Raised beds allow extra moisture to drain away by gravity all year long, so soil is workable earlier in the spring. Another benefit is that your soil will stay nice and fluffy if you don’t walk on it, and gardening in raised beds keeps foot traffic away from plants.

Making raised beds is easy. Railroad ties or concrete retaining wall blocks work well for this. Pressure treated wood also works but it won’t last as long. Pick a spot with the right amount of sun for your plants (full sun for vegetable gardens, part sun for plants like Hydrangeas and Azaleas). First, apply Roundup to the area to kill any existing perennial weeds. Make sure there are no low spots that would trap water. You don’t need level ground; just start your wall at the lowest point and build until the top of the wall is level. Any shape will do, so try to harmonize your raised planter with the rest of your landscaping.

The best soil for most plants has plenty of compost or peat moss. These materials allow plenty of air to reach the plant roots, and excess water drains away quickly. Organic peat retains just the right moisture for most plants. Soil with lots of humus, peat or compost is easy to dig and weeds pull right out, so gardening is a pleasure. Make sure you add fresh compost each year to keep the soil fertile. Mulching your beds with well-rotted leaves or composted mulch keeps away weeds, and adds fertility to the soil.

You’ll find that raised beds produce better than conventional tilled gardens, in a smaller space. Once you’ve built them they will save you a lot of work.

The first step for many home landscape projects is to build a retaining wall, creating a raised bed. This is easy to do with interlocking retaining wall blocks available in many colors to compliment your home. Retaining walls give your landscape a neat, professional appearance, keep lawn grass out of landscape beds, and allow drainage. They can be filled with topsoil and mulch so that shrubs and perennials can be planted without digging down into the native heavy clay soil. This is very good for plants and easy for you. Retaining walls can also be used to prevent washouts and contain backfill next to your home.

The most popular wall block is 12 inches long and four inches high, and weighs only 25 pounds. It is easy to calculate how much you’ll need by measuring along the outside edge of your wall project. For each foot of wall you will need one block for every four inches tall. If you’re building on a slope, figure the average height of the wall. One-foot blocks are recommended for walls no higher than two feet.

For taller walls, and places where vehicles might touch your wall, we prefer “oversize” blocks like Allan Block Classic, Pavestone Highland Stone or Reading Rock Aultwall Oversize. Measuring eighteen inches long by six or eight inches tall, these can be used for walls up to four feet tall. Taller walls require “geogrid” reinforcement or other techniques. Allan Block has an excellent website with wall ideas and installation tips.

Good quality blocks are molded with crisp, clean edges making them easy to stack straight, with a “split face”. Find a block supplier close to home (blocks are heavy) that stocks the same colors year after year, from a quality manufacturer that is careful about matching pigments. This makes it easy to blocks to your project or build matching walls in future years. A good supplier will let you return extra blocks if you over-estimate.

The most important step in wall building is making a level footer or base. If your first course is level your wall will be level. Dig down a few inches deep and add crushed stone, tamping it thoroughly so your wall won’t settle. Make your footer trench wide enough so you can rake the stone smooth and level. Make sure there is a way for water to drain from behind hour wall.

As you place each block, use a level to make sure it’s even with the rest. Place a block of wood on it and tamp with a sledgehammer or spud bar, checking with the level. When you lay the second course, give each block a thump to keep it from rocking. Make sure the wall is level from front to back as well as side to side. The more careful you are the better your wall will look.

Once you get the knack of retaining wall building, you can make professional-looking walls quickly and easily. You’ll be proud of your work and you’ll soon see more places where the right wall would improve your landscape.

In our neighborhood this is the perfect time to cut back shrub roses, including the popular “Knock-Out” series. Roses are just starting to sprout new growth, the weather is warming and we’re headed for another season of gorgeous color from May until frost.

“Knock-Out” shrub roses have proven themselves worthy of all the hype. They are rugged, easy to grow, perform well all season and are incredibly free of the typical problems that plague Hybrid Tea roses. The early spring “haircut” we’re about to describe is just about all the care they need to perform their best all year.

Put on a pair of stout leather gloves for this job. Start by raking some of the dead leaves from around the plant so you can see all the branches. Now take a good sharp bypass pruner and cut the main canes down to about half. Make your cuts just above a good, healthy, out-facing shoot, cutting on an angle just above the shoot. This directs the growth outward and doesn’t leave a stub that will rot.

Make sure you cut well below anything dead or rotten. The cut end should be green and healthy-looking. A good rule is to cut more and further rather than less. You can’t harm the plant by cutting too much; the remaining canes can be a foot or shorter and that’s fine. We call this “tough love”. You’ll be amazed how quickly the plant replaces all the little “busy branches” you are removing with healthy new canes.

Once you’ve trimmed off all the extra, look for stubs from last year that have died back and rotted, and cut them off at the base. Cut any canes that are lying along the ground. Now you can clean out all the dead leaves and weeds from underneath. This rotten stuff harbors disease and insects and will make your work harder if you don’t remove it.

Now you should fertilize with a good dry fertilizer. We like Espoma “Rose Tone” best. About a pound is enough for one feeding. Just scatter it around under the plant. Next you should spread a little mulch to keep weeds from getting a head start before the rose gets bushy and shades the ground. We prefer pine bark nuggets for roses because they dry out quickly; moisture encourages fungus problems with roses.

A good haircut right now will make your shrub roses bloom their best. Shrub roses bloom on new growth and a good pruning encourages new growth. Now you can enjoy a spectacular show for the rest of the year!

We’ve been able to plant successfully even when gardens are soggy and saturated the way they are now, from all the rain we’ve had. Our secret is adding two or three inches of peat moss on top and deep-tilling. Peat moss is bone dry and absorbs many times its weight in water, so tilling into wet soil dries things out immediately. It also mixes in lots of air, which is beneficial to plants.

Planting isn’t just about “digging a hole” and putting the plant into it. “Green thumbs” know they have to make the soil they’re planting in as close as possible to the rich, well-drained soil in the pot the plant was grown in. Plants breathe through their roots. This is one of the big gardening secrets that separates “green thumbs” from average gardeners. Compacted soil is the biggest reason plants fail to thrive, and there’s nothing you can pour on top of the soil that will help plants breathe.

Whenever we plant gardens or trees we always till in plenty of peat moss to break up the clay soil. Peat moss isn’t food, it simply adds organic matter to the soil to keep it from sticking together and permit air the reach the plant roots. We usually till in a mineral-rich bone-meal based fertilizer as well. We call this “making fluffy dirt”, and when we do it plants build healthy root systems quickly. It’s magic.

Soil compaction is the enemy of healthy plants (including lawns). Plants in compacted soil can’t breathe, and also water can’t soak in and simply runs off. Organic materials such as compost, peat moss and manure help open up air passages into the soil, and earthworm activity helps keep it loose. Mulch on the top helps also.

Try this method the next time you plant: scatter some Espoma “Tone” fertilizer on the ground, spread two or three inches of peat moss over it, and then till the whole area until you have fluffy topsoil six to eight inches deep. Pull some of it aside, set the plant in the middle and pull the soil around it, tamping it gently. Mulch and water, and then try not to walk on the soil close to the plant ever again. You are now a “green thumb”.

One of the first signs of spring is freshly mulched landscape beds. April is the month to get your landscape cleaned up and groomed, looking good before the weather gets hot and weeds take over. Yard work is much easier and more pleasant when the weather is still cool!

The first step is to cut a nice clean edge along all your landscape beds where the lawn has been creeping in. Bed edges should be out around the “drip line” of foundation shrubs. Lawn grass shouldn’t be allowed to invade your perennials. Take up a strip of sod along the bed edges and use it to fill erosion gullies and washouts, or pile it somewhere to rot so you’ll have a stash of rich topsoil later in the year.

If you see Japanese Beetle grubs as you dig, it’s a sign you need to treat to prevent an infestation later in the year, and for mole control. You can kill grubs with chemical insecticide, or a long-lasting organic biological control like Milky Spore.

Next, cut all the dead foliage off perennials. Most kinds can be cut to the ground. Ornamental grasses should be cut short before they start to green up; six inches is a good height for their spring “haircut”. Shrub roses should be cut at least halfway back. Cut stems off just above healthy buds that are facing outward, and cut of any dead stems even further, back to green healthy wood.

Shrubs should either be carefully pruned or have the scraggly tips sheared off nice and neat. There’s still time to “limb up” your trees, cutting low-hanging branches back to the trunk. Once all this is finished, rake up the whole mess along with any leaves and trash that have piled up during the winter.

Now it’s time to feed everything. Scatter dry fertilizer on the ground under shrubs, around trees, and over the root zone of perennials. Each plant has a preferred diet; we like to use “Holly Tone” on evergreens and acid-loving plants like hydrangeas, and “Plant Tone” on perennials and flowering shrubs. “Bulb Tone” has just the right nutrients for Daylilies, Peonies, Daffodils and Tulips. Spring rains will dissolve the powder so it soaks in gradually. Plants will start to feed as the soil warms up.

The last step is a applying a generous layer of mulch. The best weed control is complete darkness! This is why we mulch generously before weeds start to grow, in spring while the ground is still cool. Mulch prevents the sun from penetrating to the weed seeds, so they won’t germinate.

Weeding our landscape beds is the number one maintenance headache we face, so getting the jump on weeds is a priority for experienced gardeners. A spoonful of dirt can contain thousands of weed seeds. Bury them under three inches of mulch, and then take special care to avoid introducing soil on top of your mulch.

As cold as it’s been, we’ve had many requests for plant food from veteran gardeners who are itching to get out and plant. We love to see this and we suggest it to those of you who are wondering what your landscape needs to get off to a good start.

It’s easy to ignore plants you already have when there are so many tempting new things to try in your garden. People tend to “set it and forget it” when it comes to perennials, shrubs and trees; in fact, one reason perennials are so popular is that you don’t need to re-plant every year. They just get bigger and better.

That’s true up to a point, however your existing plants will perform much, much better if you simply feed them early each year with a good multi-vitamin, multi-mineral formula time-release fertilizer. We particularly like the Espoma Organic “Tones”, like Plant-Tone, Holly-Tone, Bulb-Tone, Tree-Tone and so on. These are old-fashioned, fertilizer mill, powdered plant foods, specially blended with the “right stuff” for each category of plants. They can be applied right now, simply scattered on the ground around the base of each plant. The spring rains will soak them into the ground and your plants will start to feed as the soil warms up.

The best way to feed plants is gently and gradually, so they won’t burn. This is one reason why we recommend time-release granules instead of liquids like “Miracle-Gro”. Another reason is that plants won’t feed unless the soil is warm. Liquids will wash away unless they are absorbed by the plant, whereas time-release granules stay in the soil until the plant needs them.

Liquid fertilizers also tend to be very high in Nitrogen but low in trace minerals. Your soil is very likely lacking key trace minerals like Boron and Zinc, which are very important for healthy fruiting and bloom. Fertilizer blends like Espoma Tones will restore depleted soils, which is magic for any kind of plant. Complaints like “blossom end rot” and premature fruit drop are often caused by malnutrition. Simply adding nitrogen doesn’t really help, because the plant needs the trace minerals in order to absorb nitrogen properly.

Healthy root systems are the key to survival in the long run. We always mix powdered fertilizer into the soil when planting, but yearly feeding will help plants build strong roots and stems that will see it through drought and cold winters. Now is the time, as you clean out your garden and before mulching, to sprinkle a quality plant food on the bare soil around your perennials, shrubs and trees. They’ll thank you later.

Is there anything more delicious than a plate of baked sweet potatoes with fresh cracked pepper, salt and melted butter? Yes. The same dish made with fresh-dug sweet potatoes from your own garden! Or for something really extra special, Marjorie’s delicious creamy sweet potato pie!

Sweet potatoes are easy to grow. The key to success in Ohio is an early start, since sweet potatoes need a long season of sunny days to mature. Sweet Potatoes are in the same plant family as morning glories. They need warm soil, so now is the time to prepare your garden for these delicious tubers. You’ll need to make a raised ridge in a place with full sun all day, working the soil and perhaps covering it with some black plastic for a week or two to warm the soil.

Sweet potato plants are rooted cuttings; stems with a few leaves and well-developed roots sold in bunches. You can keep them in a jar of water until you’re ready to plant. After planting, water them regularly to keep the soil moist while they develop. Control the weeds in your row until the plants spread out enough to shade the ground.

Which sweet potatoes should you grow? Here’s a rundown of the most popular varieties:

Georgia Jets are the sweetest of sweet potatoes. They grow extremely fast, producing #1 size potatoes in only 90 days, and extra-high yields. Five years of testing in the state of New York shows that Georgia Jets produce 2 1/2 times the yield of standard sweet potato plants. Yields in other sections of the country are even more exceptional. Jets have deep orange inside color with moist flesh and a marvelous flavor. The outside skin is so red it is almost purple.

Vardaman is the next sweetest type we sell at GoodSeed Farm. A bush variety with the deepest, brightest inside color of all sweet potatoes, Vardaman has golden yellow outside skin that darkens after digging.

Beauregard has been accepted by farmers everywhere. Chances are this is the sweet potato that is available at your local market. The outside color is red-orange and the inside color is orange. The Beauregard is a quick maturing potato and has a good shape.

Centennial has carrot color inside with copper to orange outside skin, and produces "Baby Bakers" in about 90 days. Perhaps the most widely recognized sweet potato, the Centennial has been used in many bake-off contests.

O’Henry is a white-skinned, cream-fleshed sweet potato that cooks up drier than other sweet potato varieties. It has a different look from the other darker-skin varieties.

White Yams are one of America's oldest varieties. Known also as Triumph, Southern Queen, Poplar Root, "Choker" and White Bunch, are white as cotton inside and out, and sweet as sugar. White yams are the driest sweet potato.

Set sweet potato plants 12 to 18 inches apart, preferably on a wide, raised ridge about 8 inches high. A ridge not only dries better in the spring but also warms earlier. Covering the ridge with black plastic can speed early season growth by capturing and storing more of the sun’s heat in the soil under the plastic cover. The vines of spreading varieties need a great deal of space, so allow at least 3 to 4 feet between rows.

After early cultivation (which is not necessary with black plastic), sweet potatoes need minimal care to keep down weeds. Once the vines spread to cover the ground, little weeding is required. Irrigate if an extended drought occurs.

Do not water during the last 3 to 4 weeks before harvest to protect the developing roots. Sweet potatoes will be ruined by frost, so make sure you harvest them as soon as they are ready. If an early frost takes you by surprise, harvest them immediately before the decay from the dead vines travels into the potatoes and rots them.

Marjorie’s Sweet Potato Pie

Bake 4 medium-size sweet potatoes (1-1/4 lbs) a 400 degree oven for about an hour. Baking them with the skins on gives you better flavor and texture; prick the skin and place them in a pie pan or shallow pan. Cool, halve lengthwise and scrape the flesh from the skins and force it through a sieve.

Make a 9-1/2 inch pie shell and bake it most of the way, just until it starts to color but not all the way through.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

With an electric mixer (or a whisk) combine the following:

2 cups sieved sweet potatoes

4 large eggs

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

Juice of 1 orange

Juice of ½ lemon

1 cup heavy cream

¼ cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon fresh-grated nutmeg

Beat at medium speed until very smooth, pour into the warm, partially baked pie shell. Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 350 degrees. Continue to bake until the pie is set but the center is still slightly wobbly (20 to 30 more minutes). Set on a wire rack to cool.

Serve at room temperature, garnish with whipped heavy cream flavored with a bit of white sugar and vanilla extract.

Is there anything more delicious than a plate of baked sweet potatoes with fresh cracked pepper, salt and melted butter? Yes. The same dish made with fresh-dug sweet potatoes from your own garden! Sweet potatoes are easy to grow. The key to success in Ohio is an early start, since sweet potatoes need a long season of sunny days to mature.

Sweet Potatoes are in the same plant family as morning glories. They need warm soil, so now is the time to prepare your garden for these delicious tubers. You’ll need to make a raised ridge in a place with full sun all day, working the soil and perhaps covering it with some black plastic for a week or two to warm the soil.

Sweet potatoes will be ruined by frost, so make sure you harvest them as soon as they are ready. If an early frost takes you by surprise, harvest them immediately before the decay from the dead vines travels into the potatoes and rots them.

Which sweet potatoes should you choose? Here’s a rundown of the most popular varieties:

Centennial Perhaps the most widely recognized sweet potato, the Centennial has been used in many bake-off contests. It has carrot color inside with copper to orange outside skin, and produces "Baby Bakers" in about 90 days.

Georgia Jets provide extremely fast growth, producing #1 size potatoes in only 90 days, and extra-high yields. Five years of testing in the state of New York shows that Georgia Jets produce 2 1/2 times the yield of standard sweet potato plants. Yields in other sections of the country are even more exceptional. Jets have deep orange inside color with moist flesh and a marvelous flavor. The outside skin is so red it is almost purple.

O’Henry O' Henry is a white-skinned, cream-fleshed sweet potato that cooks up drier than other sweet potato varieties. Has a different look from the other darker-skin varieties.

"Bunch" Porto Rico is a favorite of gardeners with limited space Also called "Bush" and "Vineless," the Porto Rico sweet potato has a copper-colored outside skin and light red flesh. With delicious "old-fashioned" flavor, it is an excellent baking potato producing "Baby Bakers" in 100 days.

Vardaman is another bush variety sweet potato. It has golden yellow outside skin that darkens after digging, and the deepest, brightest inside color of all sweet potatoes.

White Yams

, sometimes called Triumph, Southern Queen, Poplar Root, "Choker" and White Bunch, are white as cotton inside and out, and sweet as sugar. One of America's oldest varieties, white yams are the driest sweet potato.

Set sweet potato plants 12 to 18 inches apart, preferably on a wide, raised ridge about 8 inches high. A ridge not only dries better in the spring but also warms earlier. Covering the ridge with lack plastic can speed early season growth by capturing and storing more of the sun’s heat in the soil under the plastic cover. The vines of spreading varieties need a great deal of space, so allow at least 3 to 4 feet between rows.

We often get calls from people who are shopping for nursery trees over the telephone, and after asking the price they ask “how tall is it?” It’s an obvious question, but the answer can be very misleading. That’s because most types of trees are not bought, sold or priced by their height. Nurseries classify tree size by trunk diameter (caliper) and pot size as well as height, and which standard applies will depend on the type of tree.

Counting sheep to relax yourself isn’t nearly as effective as plowing your way through the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) American Standard for Nursery Stock, a 129-page book that explains in detail how woody plants should be priced and graded. As dull as this book may be, it’s full of charts and diagrams detailing exactly how to classify each type of woody plant and then grade it. Understanding these standards is essential for nurserymen who buy and sell trees sight-unseen.

For you, the best way to compare trees is to physically see them. There are so many variables that affect price, it’s impossible for the average consumer to shop for trees over the telephone.

For example, let’s look at the popular ornamental pear tree “Cleveland Select”. This tree is often sold “pot-grown”, in which case it would be priced by pot size. However, a five-gallon pot-grown pear could range from a ½” caliper to over one inch (twice the size). It could be a “whip” with no branches at all and still be eight feet tall, or a nicely branched “lollipop” shape only six feet tall. A field-dug “balled & burlapped” pear could have a nice thick trunk and well-branched crown, but too small a root ball to survive its first year.

The complex ANLA standards allow nurseries to classify trees by a uniform and industry-wide grading system, so long as nurseries are honest about judging their own product. Over the years we’ve learned that it’s best for us to physically see and select each tree we buy, rather than depend on someone’s description. We literally “skim the cream” from large nurseries by selecting the best trees from rows of hundreds or even thousands, picking only the best examples. We would never try to do this by phone.

Organizations like the ANLA are very helpful in setting industry standards. Written bids and specifications depend on well-respected guidelines to establish a “level; playing field” for competitive bidding. For the homeowner this is way too much detail, but it’s important to understand that simply comparing the height or container size won’t tell you much about tree quality. No two trees are alike, and getting expert advice in person from a trusted nurseryman is the best way to get your money’s worth.

The American Heritage College Dictionary defines “Dwarf” as “an atypically small animal or plant”. We get many requests for “dwarf” trees, particularly “dwarf” Japanese maples and “dwarf” weeping cherries (or other weeping trees). Typically the desired size is five or six feet tall and wide, small enough for a foundation planting.

Customers become frustrated when we tell them that these trees will continue to grow, sometimes reaching 20 feet wide and tall, unless they are constantly cut back. Our customers recount having seen perfectly-sized “dwarf” trees in their neighbor’s gardens. The question is, how do you tell a naturally “dwarf” tree from a tree that’s small simply because it’s still young and hasn’t finished growing?

The search for “dwarf” trees often leads to big-box stores and mail-order catalogs, where there aren’t pesky nurserymen asking silly questions like “how big do you want this tree to be when it grows up?” Years later when the tree outgrows the space, the source where it was purchased is usually forgotten. A phrase we hear often is “well, they told me it was a dwarf” (but then it later grew much too large). In other words, someone who wasn’t knowledgeable or perhaps even misled the customer sold them the wrong plant.

Many plants are labeled with their typical height and spread. This can be very misleading if these plants are typically sheared or cut back in landscapes, and the label assumes you’re going to do the same. Left alone, Taxus yews grow to twelve feet; “miniature” pussywillows can get twenty feet tall, and a single Forsythia can colonize your entire yard. You’d never see that on the label.

Certain species of trees do grow more slowly and to a smaller mature size than others. If we were to plant a three-foot weeping Japanese maple “Garnet” or “Crimson Queen” today we’d probably be dead by the time it grew to 20 feet across, or perhaps where we planted it the growing conditions might be so poor that it would be naturally stunted. If we neglect to water or fertilize it or protect its delicate new branches from the late frost, it might die back or stop growing just from stress.

By planting a small tree and constantly replacing it each time it got uncomfortably large, we could enjoy the dwarf tree of our desires indefinitely. In reality this is why there are so many tiny Japanese weeping maples to be found in landscapes and so few large ones. The same goes for weeping cherries: when the trunk reaches six inches in diameter and it’s blocking the sidewalk the homeowner simply cuts it down and starts over.

There is hope. There are in fact many species of trees that are “atypically small” in the landscape, and many of them are maples. Still more are tree cultivars you’ve probably never heard of, but if you saw a mature example in the right setting you’d probably want one for yourself. The very first step in choosing one is to figure out how wide and how high you want the tree to be, years from now when it’s full grown. Armed with that information and an open mind, you can go to a good nursery and choose from many interesting and beautiful trees.

We get lots of calls after wind and ice storms about broken trees. Wind and ice loads can snap limbs and break trees in half. It’s tragic to lose a mature tree that you depend on for shade, and falling limbs can damage your property. Often this damage is preventable. There are two ways to minimize dangerous and destructive splitting. First let’s understand what makes trees vulnerable to limb breakage.

Most cases of tree splitting are caused by defects called “bark-included crotches”. This defect occurs when, instead of a healthy limb attached to the trunk, a tree forms a close crotch (see photo). As the tree grows, bark is “included” between the limb and trunk, or the tree forms competing trunks with bark between them. The limb and trunk are not really attached, since the bark forms a seam down inside the tree. As the tree grows and the limb or second trunk gets heavier, this hidden weakness becomes more dangerous. The tree may simply split in half by gravity, but usually it’s an ice storm or heavy wind that finally sends the limb crashing down.

One way to prevent this is careful tree selection. Certain trees are very prone to weak crotches and should be avoided. The worst offenders are Silver Maple and Bradford Pear. When buying shade trees, try to find superior cultivars without the tendency to form weak crotches. Ornamental Pears like “Cleveland Select” (sometimes called “Chanticleer”) and “Aristocrat” are a better choice. Rather than Silver Maple, plant Red Maple or Sugar Maple, or other species such as London Plane and Willow Oak for quick shade. A good nursery can help you choose.

The other way to minimize risk is to carefully prune young trees, eliminating close crotches. If a tree develops two trunks, cut one of them off as soon as possible to allow the main trunk to dominate. The first few years of a tree’s life are the most important for training; quality nurseries routinely “limb up” young trees and correct defects. That’s one reason to buy larger trees to begin with. Older trees are harder and more expensive to fix. Tree surgeons can “cable” forked trees or bolt crotches together, but generally large close-crotched trees should be removed.

We often see defective trees that began life as “volunteers”, simply sprouting and growing on their own. Volunteer trees need to be managed carefully and trained, or they can become dangerous. The weakest softwood species tend to be the most eager “volunteers”, and they may not be desirable in your situation. Pedigree is important with plants. When buying shade trees, deal with a professional who can help you steer clear of trees with bad habits.

Windy days remind us how useful windbreak trees are. Effective windbreak plantings save energy dollars, paying for themselves many times over the years. They also make our lives easier and our homes more comfortable.

Traditional windbreaks are single rows of trees, closely spaced along property lines. Over the years research has shown that row planting can be ineffective, or even increase wind turbulence in the areas you are attempting to shelter. If you decide to plant a windbreak, take some time to plan it for maximum benefit.

An important formula to remember is that the distance between the windbreak and the area getting the most protection should be from two to five times the mature height for the windbreak. For example, Norway Spruce typically grow 60 feet tall, so they should ideally be 120 to 300 feet away from the sheltered area. If they are closer there can be unintended effects such as deep snowdrifts. Greater distances reduce the amount of protection.

An ideal windbreak has several “layers” of protection. Dense evergreens that are winter-hardy make the best perimeter, with a row of sturdy shade trees downwind. The shelter these big plants provide is an ideal place for cold-sensitive fruit trees and flowering shrubs. Trees planted in groups protect each other from buffeting windstorms.

The fastest-growing species are not always the best selections long term. For example, White Pines can furnish windbreak and privacy rapidly, but they are vulnerable to wind and ice breakage and deer browsing so they may not work out long term. Hybrid Poplars are often sold as windbreaks, however they are short-lived and can be messy.

A better choice for windbreaks is Norway Spruce or Colorado Blue Spruce. These trees make a dense screen planting that gives privacy as well as wind protection. To get a faster result, two rows of trees can be staggered so that the gaps close in quickly, and dense shrubs such as Viburnum planted inside the windbreak will offer quick screening. Understory plants located between rows of larger trees provide additional windbreak as well as shelter for wildlife such as birds.

Good windbreak plants are hardy, low-maintenance plants that will survive drought and poor soil, since windbreaks are on the perimeter of your property whare maintenance is dillicult. Often overlooked for windbreak plantings are rugged trees like Hawthorn, Serviceberry, Amur Maple and Sweet Gum. We like Pyracantha because the berries attract many kinds of birds. Most Viburnum varieties make excellent windbreak and privacy hedges, and some keep their leaves all winter.

This week we start a four-week series of columns showing how to succeed with trees. This column will talk about selecting the right kind of tree for your location. Next week’s column will be about how to get your money’s worth when shopping for trees. Next we’ll talk about successful planting. The fourth column will answer frequently-asked questions about tree planting.

It can be frustrating to plant young trees because so many of us have had trees die after taking time, trouble and expense to plant them. There are many reasons why this happens, some very technical but most quite simple. It all starts with picking the right tree for the location you have.

The first question to ask yourself is “what is this tree for? Why am I planting it?” Trees can be for shade, privacy, windbreak, or simply for decoration because they’re attractive. The right tree can serve many of these purposes, but there are trade-offs between trees so you have to know which purpose is most important to you.

Next, figure out how tall and wide the tree can be when it’s fully grown. Do you have enough space for a big tree without overhanging your house, interfering with electric wires, or overcrowding other plants you already have? Imagine a big circle in your yard where you have room, with the tree at the center of the circle. Now measure how far across the circle can be. Now you have important information and can limit your choices to trees that will fit the space. Never plan on “trimming” or keeping trees smaller than God intended them to grow! There are plenty of trees that will fit the space you have when they are full grown.

Once you know what size tree you can fit, look at the growing conditions where it will be living. Your tree can’t move once it’s installed, if it doesn’t like the location. It’s stuck wherever you plant it. You need to know whether the site is wet or dry, sheltered or exposed, and how good a soil you have. Trees vary in how forgiving they are about drainage and soil conditions. The more you know, the better a choice you’ll make.

Once you know the size tree and what the growing conditions are, you can make the fun choices such as leaf and bloom color, shape, fall foliage color and so forth. There may be trees you’ve always liked that will work, or perhaps you might choose something you never thought of because it would be such a good fit for your particular spot. A good way to think about it is that you are a “foster parent” and you will learn to love any tree you select, but you want to know that you can provide a good home.

You’ll be surprised how many choices there are if you talk to a knowledgeable nurseryman or arborist. Whether you wind up choosing the same tree your neighbors have or find something new and different, taking advantage of a nurseryman’s experience with real-life situations will save you money, time and sweat. There are always exceptions, but it makes sense to follow time-tested rules when deciding on plants. You can avoid the pitfalls, save time and money, and enjoy a healthy tree for years to come.

Look for this column next week for practical tips on selecting quality trees in the nursery and getting them home.

We talked last week about successful tree planting and how important it is to pick the right kind of tree for your location. The next step is to actually shop for and select a healthy tree. A good place to start is a quality local nursery.

Things to look for are the overall condition of nursery trees and the way they are stored. Trees are dug in late winter before they have leaves and must be protected carefully to avoid transplant shock. Good nurseries “heel in” their trees under mulch and have watering systems to keep them moist. Trees that seem stressed in the nursery are more of a challenge to plant successfully. Trees displayed on hot parking lots or stacked too close together quickly attract pests or simply wilt in the hot sun.

Good nurseries stock shapely, well matching specimens that appear healthy. They also control weeds, pests and diseases in their inventory. You don’t need to be an expert to see the quality at a good nursery. Avoid merchants that try to sell you off-grade or “row run” material based on the cheapest price. Another risky proposition is buying trees at end-of-season auctions; generally the tree offered are the picked-over leftovers that no one else would buy.

“Row run” means trees bought and sold by the row, rather than selecting only good quality or matching trees. It’s much faster to start digging at one end of the row and harvest every tree instead of picking out individual trees to harvest. Since the row includes substandard and defective trees the cost per tree is averaged, lowering the unit price. Then it is up to the consumer to pick through and find the good trees in the batch. This is how discount stores can advertise nursery stock cheap.

There are ways to tell a good tree from a bad tree, and techniques to correct minor defects before they become major ones. Examples include bark-included crotches, girdling roots, improper pruning, insects or diseases, double leaders, truncated leaders, bad grafts and a host of other problems. The best growers routinely fix or cull problem trees. If you aren’t experienced in pruning and arboriculture, it’s best to invest in a larger tree that is already pruned and trained professionally by the nursery.

In the nursery industry there is actually a written quality standard or specification used to grade trees for certain qualities. Professional arborists and tree managers use these standards to compare trees in the nursery. Homeowners usually don’t know how to judge trees so they often spend their money on inferior quality plants. Retailers focused on price often sell “row run” trees. Unless you’re an expert, dealing with a professional is the most likely way to get your money’s worth.

Once you’ve actually purchased a tree, the first step to success is getting it home safely. This means protecting it from drying wind or sun. Professionals use a special mesh tarp. At highway speeds any part of the tree that is hit by wind will quickly dry out and get “wind burn”, which shocks the tree and can kill it. If the nursery offers delivery it is well worth the cost, particularly for big trees.

If you can’t plant your tree immediately, store it in a shady spot. Root balls of “balled and burlapped” trees should be protected with wet straw or mulch piled around the roots. Use a sprinkler to keep the roots wet, or set a hose to trickle water on the root ball. In next week’s column we’ll talk about step-by-step suggestions for successful planting.

When digging a hole to plant your tree, remember that it’s not how deep but how wide your hole is that matters. Plants breathe through their roots, so it’s very important to make sure there is no soil or mulch covering the original pot soil or the top of the root ball. The area where the trunk meets the soil is called the “root collar”, and covering this with dirt or mulch often causes problems. Measure the height of the root ball or pot from the ground to the root collar (or top of the pot soil). That’s how deep your hole should be.

Tree planting holes should be at least twice the diameter of the root ball. We like enough room to walk around the tree once it’s placed in the hole. The wider the area of loosened soil around the tree, the faster the roots can quickly spread. This helps the tree take up food and water and anchors the tree against the wind. If you hit gummy clay, discard it. Mix the rest of the soil with plenty of peat moss.

Adding fertilizer to the soil around the tree is very important, but not just any fertilizer will do. Dousing newly-planted trees with Miracle-Gro is a mistake, and so is high-nitrogen agricultural fertilizer. We use Espoma Tree Tone, which is low in nitrogen but high in trace minerals, potassium and phosphorus. This helps the tree build a strong root system before it grows more leaves, making it more likely to survive stress. Fertilizer should be thoroughly mixed with the planting soil so the roots will find it gradually as they grow.

Fill in around the tree a few inches at a time, tamping carefully to prevent settling or air pockets that will dry out the tree. Our soil here in Adams County tends to be heavy clay, so the planting hole often collects water and drowns the tree. An occasional deep root watering is better than every day. We make a small dike around the tree to hold water long enough to soak in around the roots, so in case there’s dry weather you can add five or ten gallons once or twice a week.

Daily watering of trees usually does more harm than good. In fact, over-watering is the most common cause of death for newly planted trees. The next most common cause of death is planting trees too deep or covering the roots with soil so they can’t breathe. Trees prefer to dry our somewhat between waterings. On the other hand, rainfall is rarely enough to provide a deep-root soaking for newly planted trees. Keep a schedule of weekly watering regardless of rain.

Making a big mulch circle around the tree keeps grass from competing with the tree for water and food. It also prevents damage from lawn mowing, a cause of many tree problems, and helps keep the root zone cool and moist. The mulch should be at least three inches thick except right over the root ball. Pine bark mulch is best for most trees.

Stop in at GoodSeed Farm for a free copy of our illustrated tree planting guide, “12 Steps to Successful Tree Planting”. In next week’s column we’ll answer the most frequently asked tree planting questions.

A: Most nurseries use bio-degradable burlap so there’s no need to remove it unless it’s unsightly. We like to cut the burlap off the top once the tree is planted, but trying to remove it from the entire root ball can do more harm than good. Burlap holds the root ball together, preventing root damage during handling and planting.

Make sure you cut any string, rope, wire or labels that are around the tree trunk. These can cut into the bark and even kill the tree if left on.

A: We suggest leaving the basket on until the planting hole is half filled with well-tamped dirt, once the tree is straight and solid. Take a bolt cutter and snip off the rest of the basket so it won’t girdle the surface roots or trunk as the tree grows. The wire basket holds the root ball together during handling and planting, so taking it off before the tree is planted can lead to trouble.

A: We recommend staking for several reasons. Newly planted trees are in soft ground so the wind can easily push them crooked, or even uproot them. Stakes also discourage deer from damaging young trees. The best tree stakes are pencil-pointed hardwood, long enough to hammer several feet into solid ground and still have three or four feet showing. Three stakes work best. Use strong rope or wire, covering it with cushioning so it won’t cut into the tree bark. We use “poly chain lock”, an adjustable tree tie popular with nursery growers because it’s so easy to adjust.

A: Hardwood stakes will eventually rot, which is why we prefer them to metal. One year is good, two years is better. Check your tie material now and then to make sure it’s not chafing the tree. Adjust the tension of the tree ties to make sure the tree is still straight.

A: We sometimes protect trees with tree wrap, a special tape wound around the trunk like an ace bandage. This prevents wind and sun from drying out the bark, prevents sucker growth, wards off bark borers, and protects the bark from chafing by tree ties. As the tree grows, the wrap stretches and eventually rots. Older trees with rough bark don’t need tree wrap, but young, smooth-barked trees need the protection.

A: Deep root soaking once or twice a week is best. How much water to use depends on the size of the tree. We like to make a “bowl” around newly-planted trees to hold at least five gallons of water, more for large trees. Watch the tree closely. Over-watering can be worse than under-watering. Wilting late in the day indicates dryness, but the tree should be perky in the morning. Yellowing leaves and wilting in the morning often means drowning. Poke your finger in the soil and check. Disregard rain, because it takes several inches of rain the penetrate deep enough to help a newly planted tree.

A: Trees absorb fertilizer when the soil is warm, during the summer and early fall. We recommend mixing tree fertilizer with the soil when planting, and if you do this you won’t need to fertilize for at least a year. After that, fertilize in spring and then again in late summer. Use a balanced, low-nitrogen dry fertilizer that includes trace minerals, not “Miracle-Gro” or agricultural fertilizers.

Those of us with long driveways often fantasize about having a stately planting of driveway trees. We’ve all seen them; perfect matching colonnades of mature trees marching along the lane leading to the house of our dreams. My favorites are down in Bourbon County, Kentucky, mature pin oaks planted more than a hundred years ago.

Choosing and planting heirloom trees like this takes some planning. Not only must the trees match, but they should be planted at the same time in roughly the same way, and carefully trained so that they continue to match as they mature. Here are a few simple rules:

Start out with quality, matching trees, and “limb up” the lower branches so that the bottom limbs on all the trees are at the same height. Driveway trees should be spaced so that when they are fully mature they will touch but not crowd each other. Spacing should be the same as the mature tree spread. If you want the trees to form an archway over the drive, they should be the same distance across from each other as the mature spread.

Trees that overhang driveways and streets must be “limbed up” high enough to provide clearance for vehicles. This may be done in stages over several years, particularly if you start with fairly young trees. Spreading trees like Bradford Pear should be avoided because they will eventually block traffic. Upright growers like Cleveland Select Pear, Gingko, or thornless Honeylocust work much better. A wider pear such as Aristocrat, or shade trees like Patmore Ash or Red Maple work well too, but should be spaced further apart and further from the roadway.

Our most popular driveway tree is the Cleveland Select pear. It has the same showy blooms, dark glossy leaves and crimson fall foliage as Bradford, but is narrow and upright. It is easy to limb up to a high crown when young, doesn’t drop fruit or sap, and has an alternating branch structure so it won’t split under ice load like Bradford pear. Cleveland Pears are fast growing, very adaptable to poor soils, drought tolerant and disease resistant. They hold their leaves longer than most trees, have showy red fall color and white blooms in spring. They can make driveway tree dreams come true very easily.

Proper watering is the most important part of gardening. Many people simply depend on the rain for watering. This can be a big mistake for the first few weeks after planting. Until they grow new roots most newly-installed plants need regular watering. Bedding plants have a root mass the size of an ice cube and lots of foliage, so they dry out quickly. Container grown shrubs are in a very fast-draining pot soil and they can dry out quickly until they expand their root system into your soil. Ball-and-burlapped plants survive longer, but need deep watering at least once a week in summer.

Mulch helps keep the soil moist by keeping the sun off the soil but it can soak up gallons of water by itself. An inch of rain just wets the mulch and still the roots can be bone dry.

When you plant new plants always shape the soil around the plant into a sort of bowl or well to hold water close to the plant. The bigger the plant the larger the well should be. This keeps the water from running off before it has a chance to soak into the roots. Then you simply fill the bowl once or twice a week.

The right tool is important. Pistol grip sprayers are for washing cars, not watering plants. They hold back the water and make watering take much longer. We recommend the professional model Dramm water breaker with a commercial duty brass shutoff. What makes this tool superior is the wide opening that doesn’t restrict water flow, and the precise gentle soaking action of the water breaker nozzle. It’s designed for greenhouses where people get paid by the hour to water! With this tool you can water each plant deeply but gently in a few seconds.

The symptoms of over watering and under watering can look very similar. We see as much loss from over-watering as from dryness. The way to tell the difference is that dry plants wilt in the hot sun and usually freshen up overnight. Drowning plants are more likely to be wilted in the morning. This is very harmful. Poke your finger in the ground to test the moisture. If your plants are drowning, stop watering for at least a week until you can feel the roots are dry.

Gardening is much easier if you take steps early in the season to control weeds in your garden or landscape beds. This is a hot topic with us since we all hate to pull weeds, particularly in the summer when we’d rather relax in the shade. It helps to understand a few things about weeds.

There are basically three kinds of weeds: Annual weeds that sprout from seed each year, and biennial and perennial weeds that are growing already. Crabgrass is a good example of an annual weed. Since weed seeds won’t sprout in complete darkness, mulching your garden early in the season (or anytime the ground is disturbed) will prevent most annual weeds by preventing the sunlight from reaching the weed seeds in your soil. More and thicker mulch does this better, skimpy mulching helps but not as much. Once mulch is down, avoid sweeping or blowing dirt or clippings onto it.

Annual and biennial weeds may already have roots established, and they can fight their way through mulch and come up anyway. Thistle and ironweed are good examples of perennial weeds. Wild onion and dandelion are biennial weeds. Mulching helps prevent them from sprouting from seed, but existing weed plants must be dug out or killed.

Before making new beds we like to apply Roundup to kill the existing grasses and weeds. This saves a lot of work later, because tilling perennial weeds just spreads them around. Putting down weed barrier fabric under your mulch helps prevent perennial weeds from taking over your beds, but makes it harder to till and plant them later.

Chemical weed control has two steps: Pre-emergent control (preventing weed seeds from sprouting) and post-emergent control (killing weed plants that are already growing). Most pre-emergent weed products (like Preen) are based on the same active ingredient: Treflan. Treflan forms an invisible barrier that kills annual weeds just after they sprout from seed. OSU studies show that Treflan works best when it’s mixed into the top ¼ inch of soil or mulch.

This is why the best way to apply Treflan is in liquid form, soaking it into the mulch right after you spread it. If the mulch is disturbed later you’ll need to reapply. Our favorite pre-emergent is Monterey “Weed Impede Hose-Em” in hose-end sprayer packaging. This works far better than powdered Preen and is easier to use (and cheaper since there’s no “filler”). Just screw the bottle of concentrate to the end of a hose and spray.

Killing established weeds in garden beds with a chemical like Roundup is usually more effective than trying to pull them. It’s hard to get all the roots, and when you do you’ll scatter soil on top of your mulch, leading to more weeds. The active ingredient in Roundup is Glyphosate, which kills by being absorbed into leaves and traveling down to the root system. It takes about a week, and the weed needs to be actively growing for it to work. Glyphosate doesn’t linger in the soil and won’t kill anything unless it’s applied to the leaves or stems. Using a pump sprayer works well for applying Glyphosate products as long as there’s no wind to cause spray drift onto other plants.

When buying Roundup or other Glyphosate products, pay attention to the label where it says “active ingredients”. Often the product is mostly water, with as little as 2% Glyphosate. The stronger the concentration the more effective it will be. We like Remuda concentrate (41% Glyphosate) because we can dilute it to whatever strength we need; stronger for brush or woody plants like Poison Ivy or weak for annual weeds in the vegetable garden. Painting Remuda full-strength on the cut-off stumps will kill locust, mulberry or other nuisance woody plants.

Here’s a trick for killing weeds among other plants without harming them: we call it the “Roundup Glove”. Wear a cotton glove over a rubber glove. Mix up Roundup (or Remuda) in a small bucket or pail. Dip your gloved fingers in the solution and then wet the weeds with the soaked glove. Everything you touch will die, and the plants around it will be fine. No spray drift to worry about.

Most roses need some sort of winter protection. We’ve been getting quite a few calls about this and the most important advice we can offer is “not yet”. The time to cover roses is after the first hard freeze shocks them into dormancy. Right now most roses are still active, and covering them too soon will do more harm than good. Let the last blooms of the season stay on the plant to form hips, slowing growth and encouraging dormancy. Roses should “harden off” in the cold for a few weeks.

Right now is the time to clean up the dead fallen leaves around rose plants and spray them with dormant oil or fungicide spray. This will help prevent diseases from taking hold during the winter or early spring. It’s best to wait until spring to fertilize and prune except for removing dead, damaged or diseased canes, which can be done any time. Additional pruning at this time of year is not harmful, however freshly cut canes will die back from the cut during winter so you’ll need to cut them again if you do it now. Another thing to do right now is make sure roses have enough water.

Once we’ve had a good hard freeze (the ground frozen for a few days) it’s time to cover your roses to protect from winter winds. Simply piling mulch around the base of plants will help protect roots. Any mulch will do, but we prefer composted pine bark rather than dyed mulches or fine-ground hardwood.

You can protect plants better by building a wire cage around them with chicken wire or fencing. Fill the cage with clean straw or oak leaves. Oak leaves won’t mat down or get slimy, encouraging diseases and blocking air circulation like other kinds of leaves. Fungus diseases are roses worst enemy, so “clean and dry” is what you’re looking for in a mulch material. We have shredded pine bark in bags, and also bales of bright, clean straw, both of which work very well. Ideally spray the plants with all-season spray oil before covering them.

Roses located in protected spots like east-facing walls need less protection than plants growing in the open, where winter winds will dry them out quickly. Remember to remove the covering gradually next year as the weather warms, giving the new buds a chance to “harden off”. Beware of a late freeze, which can kill tender new growth that’s been protected all winter.

Watch this column early next year for some detailed guidance on pruning your roses. In most cases, late winter or early spring is the best time for pruning. As you add to your rose garden next year, look for “own root” (rather than grafted) rose varieties. These are hardier and require less coddling.

Long winter evenings offer some time to relax with a good book. While your garden is sleeping, why not enjoy some good reading about plants and gardening? You can approach the spring season with a fresh perspective on garden design, plant selection or plant care.

Thousands of new gardening titles are published each year. Over the years we’ve come across a few that really stand out; some that profoundly influence our way of thinking and others that we return to again and again for easy explanations and reference. Here are our favorites:

Nature’s Guide to Successful Gardening and Landscaping by William Flemer III (Crowell) This excellent book explains how design should be guided by an understanding of plant habitat, and has sections on the various types of gardens and how to install them.

Armitage’s Garden Perennials - A Color Encyclopedia by Allan A. Armitage (Timber Press) This alphabetical reference guide includes over 1500 color photographs, plus plant selection lists, by a world-renowned perennial authority.

Dirr’s Hardy Trees and Shrubs – An Illustrated Encyclopedia by Michael A Dirr (Timber Press) This comprehensive reference book on woody plants has listings of over 500 species with more than 1600 color photos, and includes helpful plant selection charts. This is a gorgeous “cocktail table” book that’s also a serious reference work.

Right Plant, Right Place – The Indispensable Guide to the Successful Garden by Nicola Ferguson (Fireside/Summit Books) This is the book we look at to see what plants to use in problem areas, because perennials, shrubs and trees are grouped together by preferred habitat and specific use.

Trees for Urban and Suburban Landscapes by Edward F. Gilman (Delmar) is for professional arborists, but its “one page per tree” format is very easy to understand. It’s our favorite reference for tree selection, planting and maintenance, with complete descriptions and evaluation of most tree species, plus helpful charts and illustrations.

The Color Encyclopedia of Ornamental Grasses by Rick Darke (Timber Press) is the best reference we’ve found for selecting grasses, winner of the American Horticultural Society Book Award. It has over 500 color photos, and a good discussion of how to design with grasses, along with alphabetized listings.

The Well-Tended Perennial Garden by Tracy DiSabato-Aust (Timber Press) is a complete guide to perennial garden design, installation and maintenance, along with a perennial encyclopedia that includes specific maintenance by species. The author lives in Ohio so the book is about plants that grow here.

The Backyard Orchardist by Stella Otto (OttoGraphics) Thorough but non-technical, this easy-to-read and well illustrated handbook covers all aspects of home orchard selection, planting and maintenance. A Benjamin Franklin Award winner, this book is so helpful to beginner orchardists that we sell it at our nursery. All of the above books are available through the library, independent booksellers or online.