More tips for better gardening

The gardening advice below are for gardens located in southern areas.

Soil Preparation Secrets

Soil preparation is always a prime topic, especially because so many people live high-stress lives with less time than they’d like for doing major garden chores.

That said, don’t let flower gardens sit idle through the winter. Plant cover crops such as clover, vetch or winter rye. When you till in the spring, they’ll have done half the soil preparation for you.

Buying Plants, Instead of Growing Them from Seed

Another sign of the busy lives we lead was that all the garden editors had advice ready on buying plants, rather than growing them from seed. Here’s what they suggest.

• If possible, buy container-grown trees rather than balled-and-burlapped ones. Balled-and-burlapped trees often lose much of their root system when they’re dug from the field.
• You can usually judge the quality of a plant by the quality of care it receives in the nursery. If lots of plants are wilted and dying from lack of water, be very careful what you buy.
• If you do purchase cell-pack annuals in bloom in the spring, cut back the flowers to help the plants establish good roots.
• Try to purchase plants grown at local nurseries, so they will already be acclimated to your growing conditions.
• Speaking of shrubs and trees, here’s some advice for handling the purchase of these more permanent landscape specimens.
• Unless you are planting a top-heavy tree with a small root ball on a windy hillside, your tree will lead a longer, happier life if you don’t stake it. There’s more risk of damaging the bark with wire than there is of having a tree lean over.

The Key to Watering

The key to watering, if you don’t have an irrigation system, is to get a good-quality, kink-free hose. It will save loads of time and masses of irritation. But here’s a tip you might not have considered.

If you’ve got a few plants or blades of grass that the sprinklers skip, stick a garden fork into the ground. Wedge the end of a hose with a spray nozzle on it into the crotch of the handle. Turn the water on and let your makeshift sprinkler do the work, instead of your standing there like a human fountain.

Fertilizing

Departmental discussions of fertilizing bring out a little controversy, not from disagreement on techniques, but because some of our readers have acid soil and others deal with high alkalinity. Useful suggestions were as follows.

• Lime lenten roses in fall if you have acid soil to increase the amount of bloom.
• Never lime your soil if it’s already alkaline.
• Flowers in containers need a constant source of nourishment. Feed every 10 days with a water-soluble fertilizer such as 15-30-15.
• Test your soil and feed your soil–then the plants will feed themselves.

Pruning, Cutting Back, and Transplanting

• The topic of pruning, cutting back, and transplanting brought these excellent tips.
• Cut roses back in late August or early September, about four weeks before the weather is due to cool off in your area, for massive autumn bloom.
• In January, cut back liriope with a string trimmer and cover the trimmed plants with mulch. It looks much tidier that way, and it grows back very clean and fresh, filling in completely by early summer.
• Cut back long-blooming perennials in midsummer (July or August), and by fall you’ll have twice as many flowers on healthier, shapelier plants.

Pest and Weed Management

We have some unusual but useful tips about pest and weed management.

• Flooding fire ant nests three or four times in a row with water from the hose will make the ants move out of a container or vegetable garden.
• When preparing a non-selective herbicide such as ‘Roundup’, add a tablespoon of liquid hand soap to the mixture. It allows the herbicide to stick to the weeds better.
• If you have a path or patio with a few weeds creeping in, reach for your teakettle. A nice dousing with boiling water will take care of most intruders.

Turf Grass

Some florists go out of their way to replace their lawns with flowerbeds or ground covers, but those who have the proper respect for turf grass offer the following:

• When fertilizing turf with a granular fertilizer, try to apply it just before a rain so it will get well watered-in without you having to do it.
• Don’t try to grow grass in shady areas. Plant ground covers instead, such as liriope and mondo grass, which thrive in shade.
• Don’t plant grass on slopes. Instead use shrubs or ground covers that won’t need mowing.
• Mowing the lawn is a good thing. It’s probably the only exercise you’ll get all week–and it’s free.

Planning a New Garden, or Dealing With an Existing One

If you are not skilled at design yourself, an excellent tips for planning a new garden, or dealing with an existing one is to hire a local designer to help you develop a plan that includes your priorities–guest parking, an area for outdoor entertaining, or beds for annual color.

And when something goes wrong in your garden, remember, you are not alone. In the words of the late, great garden writer, Henry Mitchell, “Everywhere there are violent winds, startling once-per-five centuries floods, unprecedented droughts, record-setting freezes, abusive and blasting heats never known before. There is no place, no garden, where these terrible things do not drive gardeners mad.”