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We have a huge maple tree that sends down it's glory every fall! My husband rakes them into piles, then uses the lawnmower to run over them several times. They break down to little bits and you have a third of the amount to get rid of. They are great for mulch or to put into your soil and take less time to decompose. You can put them, bit of water and some dirt into plastic garbage bags and it will turn into nice soil by spring.
Here is the picture of my hubby mulching the leaves. He's done it about 3 times already. Our maple is so huge, an old timer. We measured it as 75' across so you can see why we get lots of leaves!
Don't throw away that old tea, put it in your house plants. They like to have be watered with tea every once in a while. (old tea leaves make good mulch, too).
I have searched the Q&A for answers on lilacs. I have done all that is suggested, no cutting after July, right amount of nutrients. All day light and still no blooms. It suckers like crazy, new sprouts all around the parent bush, but no blooms. What to do?
Hardiness Zone: 6b
Jenny from Nashville, TN
Answer:
Jenny,
Don't despair; you're not the only one out there with cranky lilacs. Here are a couple of suggestions. Try driving a spade into the soil around the base of the plants to cut off some of the roots (but not all). This may be enough to shock your lilacs into flowering next season. Is that your lilacs are planted too deep? Pull back some of the soil so the tops of the roots are slightly exposed. Lilacs really don't need any additional fertilizer other than nutrients taken from the soil. If you fertilize the lawn near your bush, your lilacs could be getting too much nitrogen, which will cause them to throw energy into producing leaves rather than flowers. I would also suggest going at least one full season without doing any pruning at all just in case you are inadvertently cutting off the flower buds. (June or July may already be too late to prune for you).
I hate throwing anything away that has a good use, but I may have outdone myself this time. We had some really good plums for the first time from a new tree this year. I juiced a lot of them and then cut some up to dry. They dried beautifully! We're looking forward to some plum bread.
But I looked at all those pretty little pits and wondered what could be done with them. After all, each one is a living seed. I found a large flower pot that had once held petunias, and spread the pits from one side to another. Then I covered them with rich compost and watered them well. I left them outside so they could get the benefit of winter freezing (seed specialists call this scarifying).
In the spring, they will sprout, and I will transplant each into a large styrofoam cup. I'm saving them now. My husband, the gardener, says they should be two years old before I try to sell them. That gives me plenty of time to prepare for one super yard sale.
A year from August, there will be jams and jellies, pies, crafts and aloe vera plants to go with my little plum trees. I should be able to ask $1.50 or $2.00 for each tree, depending on how they look. I'm so excited!
I live in an apartment, and would like to have sunflowers on my balcony. Do they do well in planters and if so, what's the best care for them?
Thank you,
Hardiness Zone: 7a
Joanne from Whitestone, NY
Answer:
Joanne,
Sunflowers do great in containers. In fact, container gardening has gotten so popular in the past few years that there are now literally dozens of varieties of sunflowers available that have been developed specifically for growing in containers (e.g. Big Smile', Italian White', Music Box', Elite Sun', etc.). Almost any variety can be grown successfully in containers, as long as you meet its growing conditions and provide it with a big enough pot. The really tall or mammoth varieties will likely need staking to remain upright in pots.
Plant seeds in full sun, using a light potting soil or soil-less mix. Plant the seeds to a depth of 1 inch (6 inches apart) and expect to see them germinate quickly. Days to maturity will vary according to each variety. Seedlings of regular varieties will need to be thinned to 12 to 18 inches and given plenty of room to grow and spread out. Dwarf varieties can be packed in a little more closely together, but still need to be spaced at least 4 to 5 inches apart. Sunflower roots are quite large and like to spread out. Mammoth varieties grow best in half barrels or containers that are at least 66 to 18 inches deep and 12 inches wide. Smaller containers will keep plants from reaching their full growth potential. Sunflowers grown in containers need to be watered daily and even more frequently during really hot weather. Feed them a 1/2 strength water-soluble fertilizer every other week or so to support big blooms, and mulch around the tops of the containers to help conserve moisture.
House plants like to be in groupings, perhaps they create their own little garden atmosphere that way. Try to have several plants together instead of isolating them. I have an old apartment that has a planter as a room divider and I have my group of plants there.
I have TWO 16"x16"x1" Concrete forms for making patios or just stepping stones. My question is should I use quick setting concrete or just concrete? Also, what would be the ratio of water to concrete? I don't want to mix a whole bag for only two forms.
Joyce from Near South Bend, IN
Answer:
Joyce,
Both types of concrete will work just fine, but quick setting concrete will give you faster results and it's usually cheaper. If you're looking for something other than standard gray concrete, you can create various colors using a cement/mortar tint. These products can be found at most hardware or home improvement stores. They really allow you to jazz things up a bit or even match the color to your home's foundation or to other elements in your landscaping. Some products are mixed in and change the color of the entire body of concrete, while others are applied as tints after the concrete sets and cures.
In regard to the correct water-to-concrete ratio, different mixes will harden at different rates depending on the air temperature during curing, the temperature of the water added, and the percent of cement in the mix. As a general rule, the more cement the faster the concrete cures. Also, the less water (or more cement) the stronger the concrete. Try a 4:1 ratio (4 parts mix, 1 part water) to start with. You can always add more water. Aim for a not-too-thick but not-too-thin consistency similar to brownie batter. Stepping stones need to be durable, so a slow, damp and cool cure is best for producing the strongest finished product. In other words, cover the form with a damp cloth while it cures and keep it out of direct sunlight.
I have spirea and forsythia that have gotten very few blossoms this year and last year, too. Any ideas as to what I could do to promote better blossoming from these bushes? Should I trim them down? Should I dig them up and get new plants? Thanks everyone!
Hardiness Zone: 5a
Sandy from WI from Stoughton, WI
Answer:
Sandy,
One of the best ways to perk up your bushes is through rejuvenation pruning. This is a great solution for plants that are getting thin and straggly or when their flower production starts to drop off. Each year for three years, remove 1/3 of the largest branches nearest the ground. You can either cut them back by 1/3 or remove them completely. Both Forsythia and Spirea can withstand severe pruning, so instead of taking three years to complete the process, gardeners with less patience will be happy to know that they can get away with cutting back the entire plant back in one year. After that some patience will be required though, as you wait for the plants to come back. Because Forsythia blooms on old wood, a good time to cut it back is shortly after it finishes flowering. Spirea can be pruned in the late winter or early spring. If it's been a while since you refreshed their soil, add some compost this fall.
Gardening is the number one recreational activity in the United States. One out of every three people spend some of their leisure time in the garden and it's easy to see why. To put it simply, gardening is good for you. Not only does it enrich your mind and spirit, but gardening is great physical exercise. Here are a few pointers to help make the time you spend gardening even healthier.
What is the best and easiest method for getting rid of crabgrass? This year is probably too late to do anything. What should I do for next year? My lawn was over run with crabgrass this year more than any other year.
Hardiness Zone: 5b
Vanet from Saugerties, NY
Answer:
Vanet,
I cannot think of any easy solutions to controlling crabgrass, and I'm not sure a person can hope to ever get rid of it completely. Even when using pre-emergent herbicides, it seems to come back eventually. The first thing that I would suggest is to raise the height of your lawn mower blades to 3 inches. This will support the healthy growth of turf grass and leaves less room for crabgrass seeds to take hold.
For long-term control, I would recommend applying corn meal gluten. This is an all natural by-product of milling corn that acts are a pre-emergent for controlling crabgrass, barnyard grass, foxtail, dandelion, lambs quarters, pigweed, purslane, smartweed and others. If applied once in mid spring (around the time the lilacs bloom) and again in mid August, you should catch two different flushes of crabgrass. A third flush will probably be ready to germinate just in time to be killed off by frost. Corn meal gluten should not be used if you're trying to establish a lawn, because it prevents regular grass seed from sprouting too. If you apply this at a rate of approximately 20 lbs per 1000 sq. ft. the first year, you should see at least a 40-50% reduction in crabgrass. Control will continue to improve each year with successive use.
I live in Montreal Quebec and made myself a small garden outside my office. It's full of tomatoes but some are not too big and all of them are green still. I took off the branches with no tomatoes very gentily to give more power to the tomatoes. Did I make a mistake?
Hardiness Zone: 5a
Debbie from Montreal Quebec
Answer:
Hi Debbie,
What a great idea for the office, and no, you didn't make a mistake. All varieties of tomato plants produce suckers. These are the shoots that appear between the main stem and the stems of the leaves (petioles). Removing them is a great idea, and encourages the plants to focus all its energy into producing fruit rather than diverting some of it unnecessarily to the production of leaves. Small suckers can be snapped off easily by hand, while the larger, fleshier suckers can be removed using a sharp knife. There are two types of tomatoes: Indeterminate and Determinate. Indeterminate types of tomatoes will continue to grow and produce more fruit for as long as the season lasts. To create a steady supply of larger (but fewer) fruit, gardeners use a technique on indeterminate tomatoes called early pruning. With early pruning, all of the plant's lower leaves and suckers are removed below the first flower cluster, creating one strong stem that maximizes the plant's food producing efficiency by presenting all of its leaves to the sun. It also helps minimize the risk of disease and maximizes garden space.
This type of pruning makes no difference to determinate types because they come genetically preprogrammed with a specific number of stems, leaves and flowers. Pruning off the additional stems on determinate tomatoes only causes you to lose out on potential fruit.
I have a lovely Hawaiian Umbrella tree, it lives indoors, and is approximately 25 years old and quite healthy.
Recently, while visiting a local mall, I saw another Hawaiian Umbrella with the roots wrapped around the trunk: a banyan effect, but not random, and besides being quite attractive it had the added benefit of supporting the (by no means sturdy) trunk.
Mine is about due for transplanting and I'm wondering if I can take some of the (very long) roots and wrap them around the trunk without losing the tree (I do realize roots need some degree of moisture).
Any advice/suggestions would be most appreciated.
Hardiness Zone: 3a
Thanks and regards, Rose Anne from Calgary, Canada
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