Category: Advice

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What Flowering Plant is Good to Grow in a Dorm Room?

                                                                  

TheGardenLady received this question from Scott –

I want to grow some plants in my dorm this coming fall.  I have a spider plant currently in a small pot. I’m looking for something unique that hopefully flowers and smells.  My room will be facing due east.  It will get direct sunlight when the sun is about 30 degrees from the horizon to straight up.  Hopefully I’ll get a planter box for my window sill.  I’m a semi-experienced gardener and feel confident about keeping things alive.

Your confidence and experience will do you well in your growing plants in your dorm room. Eastern exposure is good for many indoor plants, even some flowering plants.
 
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Raising Roses

                                                                                 

TheGardenLady received this question from P. S:

A friend is watering roses (I’m sorry, but I don’t know the variety) several
times a week, for several hours at a time, with the hose on full blast, so that
a swamp forms around the rose bushes.  The soil is heavy adobe clay, and we have been having mostly moderate summer weather, temperatures in the eighties.  Is this watering necessary or even helpful for the roses?  Please let me know if any further information is needed.  Thanks for your help.

Most rose plants are demanding plants. Roses are high water use plants. They do like and need good watering but not too much water. Too much water can stress any plant. Keep roses too dry and they fail to thrive; if they are too wet they may succumb to root damage or disease. Keeping soils too wet will also deprive a plant’s roots of needed oxygen.

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Acid Loving Plants

TheGardenLady received this question from Tamara  –

I am looking for a list of plants that love acid soil and are edible – blueberries are one that springs to mind.  Are there others? I need a range of shrubs and smaller plants to go as a border. I’m replacing a camellia that is way too big for the space it’s in, and a couple of other plants in the same area that do well but were neglected by the people who lived here before us.

You have requested plants for your garden that needs acid loving plants. The three most popular acid loving shrubs that comes to mind are rhododendrons, azaleas and hollies. There are dwarf hybrid and species rhododendrons and azaleas and also dwarf hollies if you have a small garden. You can even plant rosa rugosa in acid soil.  A short list of some acid loving plants are kalmia-mountain  laurel, conifers, ferns, hydrangea, magnolias. Not knowing how acid your soil is, included is a list of ph tolerant trees. I do not know where you live, but most of the soil in NJ is slightly acidic and Rutgers has an excellent fact sheet about plants needing acidic soil.

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Vinca Issues

                                                                                                    

TheGardenLady received this question from John.

I have vinca that I planted about 25 days ago in St.Louis, Mo in a sunny location. The leaves of all 40 vinca plants have turned yellow! What is causing this? I water them daily. Do they need fertilizer? When I planted them, I mulched this bed with cypress mulch.

Vinca plants do not have a lot of problems and love hot weather. They should be planted in well drained soil. Vinca plants do not like a lot of watering. Once established vinca plants need little care beyond watering occasionally. Watering daily is too much.The plants do not want mulch which keeps the ground too moist. Read this about vincas. 
 
The newer varieties of vinca also need a  judicious amount of fertlizer.   Read this.

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Dead-Heading Knock-Out Roses – Is it Necessary?

                                                                              

TheGardenLady received this question from Tracey.
 
The Knock-Out rose company says that it is not necessary to dead head the roses.  See here.

Deadheading means to remove dying flowers from a flowering plant. The reason for deadheading is to trick a plant into producing more flowers. Plants make flowers to make the seeds for reproduction and when there are seeds, the plant will stop producing flowers. Plants that don’t set seed will continue to bloom longer.  Most plants benefit from having their old, dying flowers removed but it is not necessary for Knock-Out roses that have been created to continue to bloom for much of the summer without any deadheading

The other reason for deadheading the flowers is to make the plant look neater. Though the Knock-Out rose petals fall off cleanly, TheGardenLady finds that the rose bush looks nicer when she dead-heads.  TheGardenLady only dead heads when lots of the flowers have fallen, like after a heavy rain.

So to answer Tracey’s question, No it is not necessary to dead head Knock-Out roses. Easy care is another advantage to raising this type of rose.

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Something Bugging Your Marigolds?

                                                                            

TheGardenLady received this question from Joyce.

I love marigolds but am unable to keep them healthy. I have had the same problem in the past and gave up on them for a while. Now several years later the problem still persists. The foliage looks fine but the flowers and buds (all stages) are full of worms. They are about 1/8-1/4 inch size, vary from brown to beige in color and leave behind a sawdust-like residue on the flower. They burrow into the seed pod and even flowers that look unaffected have the critters inside. None of my other annuals are affected. They are all grown in containers on a balcony. Any thoughts and any treatment suggested would be welcome.

Marigolds, Latin name Tagetes, are usually one of the easiest annual flowers to raise because they have so few pest problems. In fact, they are often used to prevent problems for other plants because they get rid of nematodes in the soil. They are used as companion plants.   See here.  

But like most plants, Marigolds like to have their environment just as it was in their place of origin. Marigolds, in spite of some of their names, originated in Mexico and Central America. There they had lots of sun and not too rich soil. Marigolds, if raised in an area where they do not get the conditions they want are more susceptible to problems.  See here.

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Veggie Garden Help

                                                                            

TheGardenLady received this question from Carrie.

This is the second year that I have tried to grow a veggie garden in south east Washington.  The location is the previous owners’ garden location.  I know I have plenty of water and fertilizer but my plants still insist on being small and not very impressive.  I’m running out of ideas.  How can I improve my garden?

The first thing you must do to help answer your gardening problem is to get a soil test. This will give you the most important answer to what is causing problems in your veggie garden. Every good gardener or farmer has his soil tested every few years. And even if someone had success with their garden, soil needs amendments every few years to bring it up to its optimum level.

How do you get a soil test? The easiest answer is to go to your local Master Gardener Office (some of the phone numbers can be found here or at your state agricultural extension office-call them and they will probably tell you to go to the Master Gardener Office which is really part of the state agricultural extension- and buy a soil testing kit. This kit will cost you just a few dollars- in TheGardenLady’s state the kit cost less than $15.  The people selling you the kit will tell you how to use the kit plus the instructions are in the kit for you to review when you get home and are doing the work.

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Tip: A Great Nursery to Buy Perennial Plants and Herbs

TheGardenLady has been answering questions for months. The strange thing is that TheGardenLady has never received any comments. For example, a comment may have been: “HELP! I find your column interesting reading because you recommend great plants that I would like to grow, but I can’t find them in the stores near me or they are too expensive. What should I do? ”

Well, TheGardenLady would like to address her own “comment” by telling her readers where to buy perennial plants and to pay cheap prices for these plants. The nursery is called Russell Gardens Wholesale Perennials and Herbs at P.O. Box 702 Richboro, PA 18954 – Phone # is 215 322 4799 and Fax # is 215 322 9884 The nursery is located at 600 New Road in Churchville, PA 18966. They are open Mon-Fri from 8am to noon and reopen from 1pm to 5pm. Saturday they are open 8am to noon. Closed Sundays and holidays.

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Create a Moss Garden

                                                                     

TheGardenLady received this question from Greg.

I want to make a decorative bed on the side of my house. This area gets about 2-3 hours of morning sun. There is a lot of moss there and even grass is hard to grow in this area. I am going to put down a foot of fresh topsoil and mulch it. I am  thinking of putting in ferns, hosta, burning bush but I need a nice center piece.  What will grow there? Maybe a butterfly bush? Any suggestions?

From your email, it sounds like your house blocks the sun, your ground is compacted and moist plus your soil is acidic. This is the ideal environment for mosses. So why fight it? Work with what nature gives you. Create a moss garden. Forget bringing in topsoil and mulch and making hard work for yourself. It is always easiest to go with what you have. This is the idea for Japanese gardens, especially in Kyoto. Look at photos of Japanese gardens and you will see that the more moss the better. Two of the loveliest gardens on the East coast are moss gardens – David Benner’s Moss Garden  in NJ and La Foret in Penna. (This garden may be up for sale since the owner and his wife are elderly) Moss gardens are unique and very calmingly beautiful. Someone visiting David Benner’s Moss Garden felt that she had had an epiphany from the experience.

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Caring for Marigolds

                                                                          

TheGardenLady received this question from Sammy.

I am trying to grow marigolds on my balcony. They were already partially grown when I got them and were already flowering now they are starting to get lots of  flowers and the leaves are starting to fall off. I need some advice on pruning  them. Is there anything else I need to do to care for them? Also I kept one of the  dead flowers that fell off because I was told they hold the seeds of the plant that I can then replant.  Is there anything special I need to do before I plant  them.

Some people think that the marigold is the easiest flower to raise.  See here.   However, that being said, they do need lots of sunshine – the more the better. Marigolds like continuously warm or hot weather – not cold and hot weather – after all most of the marigolds we have in the US come from Mexico. They like to be watered but don’t like to be over watered – water twice a week in dry times. Too much rain can be bad for them so be sure the pots have good drainage. And though marigolds generally don’t seem to have many problems, they can have problems.  See here.  Your leaves falling off may be a sign that something is wrong.

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