Please be assured that I haven’t been fired and I haven’t quit.

I am on hiatus, with hope all around that I’ll return before long to yell at you some more.

But advice must still be given!

Don’t fall for the wood mulch menace

Reject wood mulch, especially mulch that has been dyed to hide its original identity of diseased wood, insecticide-soaked pallets and/or construction debris.

Wood sucks plant-feeding nitrogen from the soil, can rot the bark right off of ‘volcano mulched’ trees and can breed fungal organisms that disease plants and stain nearby homes and cars.

Yard waste compost is a great plant-feeding, disease-and-weed preventing mulch.

Shredded fall leaves make a great soil-improving mulch that invites earthworms to improve your otherwise impenetrable clay.

Finally, pine straw is the most attractive mulch of all.

Utilize the resource of previous Garden Plots

Garden problems must still be solved without poisons in my absence, so when you are unsure what to do, go the Garden Plot section of Âé¶ččÙÍű.com.

Deer, slugs, tomatoes, ticks, mosquitoes, toxic neighbors — whatever problem you face is covered there.

Literally thousands of my bits of advice are archived on this site, and the information should serve you well until I return.

You bet your garden

In addition to the many years of organic information stored right here at Âé¶ččÙÍű.com, there are close to 20 years of informative articles by me available at the website for my public radio show, , which debuted just a few months before the Garden Plot back in the previous millennia.

Just click on the link that asks if you have a garden or pest control question and then type your topic into the search box that will appear.

You can also and ask for advice from the thousands of organic gardeners who prowl those wonderful pages, which are curated by my daughter Amanda.

Everyone has a local extension office

Until I return to yell at you some more, your local state (or D.C.) extension service office can be a great help — if you use them correctly.

Extension agents and their Master Gardener volunteers are fabulous at identifying mystery plants and pests, and they are the source for information on plants that will do well in your region and specific conditions (much better than me).

Unfortunately, some, but not all, are behind the times when it comes to plant food and pest controls, so take a pass if they recommend toxic pesticides or chemical fertilizers (and give them a big thumbs up if they tell you to use organic controls like Bt and neem oil, and/or sing the praises of compost).

Parting is such un-sweet sorrow

Again, the hope at the station is that I will return when business has business to advertise again, as we here at Âé¶ččÙÍű depend on that advertising to keep the transmitter going and tushies in the seats.

I want to assure all my Plotters that the fine folks who run the station gave me two months warning and insisted that the plan is to bring me back.

I think it needs to be said that I have enjoyed the job and the people here immensely, and I have enjoyed you immensely — your emails, your kind comments at personal appearances and your “hey — are you 
” questions whenever I would open my mouth in public.

I hope and expect to return, Âé¶ččÙÍű is my home away from home.

In the meantime:

• Don’t cut your grass too short;
• Don’t let mulch touch the trunks of your trees;
• Water only in the morning and only if it hasn’t rained for a week;
• Grow in raised beds so you don’t step on the roots of your plants;
• Save and shred all your fall leaves for mulching and compost making;
• Inspect your garden daily so problems can be solved quickly;
• And be kind to your plants and people.

I’m Mike McGrath, have a great season — and I hope to see you soon with a fresh Garden Plot.

Source

Anne in Falls Church, Virginia, writes:

“My husband just purchased some shredded wood mulch to use under our tomatoes. Then I read your recent comments about wood mulch equaling no tomatoes.

Are you saying don’t use wood mulch at all? What else would you suggest?”

Well Anne, the best mulch for tomatoes is high-quality compost; and the worst is any kind of wood.

Wood attracts and breeds fungal spores that can devastate disease-prone plants like tomatoes and roses.

A 2-inch mulch of high-quality compost neutralizes disease spores as they land on it and thus protects your precious plants.

And that’s compost, not composted manure, which is another animal entirely — or CAME from another animal entirely. Or maybe less than entirely if they needed more fiber 


The Many Moods of Mulch

Anne in Falls Church writes:

“Are you saying don’t use wood mulch at all? What else would you suggest?”

Wood mulch can be deadly to disease-prone plants like tomatoes and roses; and it can stain nearby homes and cars when it breeds nuisance molds like the dreaded artillery fungus.

The worst wood mulch is dyed wood mulch. I would not use dyed mulch for anything, as the added color may be there to disguise that the original wood may have been diseased or treated with toxins.

Arborist’s mulch — natural trimmings from a tree trimming crew — is acceptable for use in pathways. You can also use it around plants if you keep the mulch layer thin and don’t allow the chipped wood to actually touch the plant.

Never till any kind of wood — or even shredded leaves — into the soil. Good or bad, mulch stays on the surface.

The only mulch you should ever use around tomatoes and roses is compost.

For other plants, I use shredded fall leaves (which encourages earthworm activity) and pine straw, which is the most attractive mulch of all.

Way Too Late to Prevent Weeds!

Jerome in the Bethesda/Potomac, Maryland, region writes:

“I know its late in the game to use a pre-emergent, but is it TOO late? And what material would you recommend? I was going to use Preen.”

Well, Jerome; “Preen” is a company name and does not define a specific product. They market chemical herbicides as well as the safe and organic pre-emergent corn gluten meal. So you have to read the fine print.

In any case, it is way too late for any pre-emergent herbicide to limit the germination of weeds.

Where have you been all Spring?!

Jerome replies:

“We were overseas in Western Africa.”

Hmm. As excuses go, that’s a darn good one.

Anyway, corn gluten meal is also an excellent slow release fertilizer for your lawn, so feel free to apply it now. (And again in late summer/early fall; but never feed a lawn in the summer!)

Then never cut the grass below 3 inches and you’re on your way to weed freedom.

What’s killing Keith’s hedge?

Keith in Arlington, Virginia, writes:

“My hedge looks terrible. The new leaves were all spotted and then dropped off. I’m afraid it’s dying.”

So I asked Keith the usual questions; he responds:

“It is mulched, not fed, and our lawn is not treated. The only thing that might be important is that we had mosquito treatments last summer, and these hedges were the targets for the treatments.”

That’s truly weird, Keith. While it is true that mosquitoes hang out in damp and shady spots, spraying some shrubs is not going to limit their numbers. But insecticides generally don’t cause leaf drop, so I asked ‘what kind of mulch?’ and Keith said “hard wood.”

Bingo. Wood mulch breeds the kind of disease spores that would account for the leaf spots that are visible on the dirty pictures Keith sent.

Prune the plants for airflow, trash the wood and hope for the best.

Mosquito madness

The pictures Keith in Arlington sent led me to believe that his plants might have been watered from overhead — the classic cause of leaf spotting. They were also overgrown, which makes disease pressures worse. AND they were victims of the hardwood mulch underneath — the best vector for plant disease spores to prosper.

But Keith added that the bushes had been sprayed for mosquito control, which is weird.

The best way to limit the number of mosquitoes on your property is to fill buckets and other watertight containers and then treat the water with BTI. Available in the form of donut-shaped dunks and granules, BTI prevents mosquitoes from breeding in that water without harming anything else.

It is THE best path to mosquito-bite prevention!

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 to plant warm weather crops like peppers and tomatoes outdoors. It seems like it took forever to reach this point, but there are two reasons for this feeling:

1. It takes forever to do anything these days, and three times forever if the journey involves toilet paper.
2. Despite all the cuteness about Mother’s Day plantings, May 15 has always been the “safer” day to plant summer gardens.
3. No date is safe. You must look at the 10-day forecast and hold off if nights in the 30s or low 40s are predicted.

And yes, that is three reasons. I thought you should know that you’re about to take advice from a man who can’t count to two.

It takes a hard tomato 


Following last week’s frigid blasts (my volunteer potatoes froze! Sob!), the 10-day weather forecast for the D.C. area finally shows nights consistently in the 50s. I checked several outlying suburbs and couldn’t find a single night below 45 or so. That means that tomatoes, peppers and the other crops of summer can safely go outside.

If you have had your starts indoors waiting until the snows of May finally stopped, I suggest you “harden them off” — which does not mean sending them to a military school. It just means letting them sit outside for a few days in their pots before you actually plant them in the ground.

Keep those started plants well-watered and use this time to examine your garden for the perfect spots for your precious plants.

Top tips for tomato success

• Tomatoes should be planted in an area that gets morning sun and six to eight hours of sun daily.
• Tomatoes should not be planted in the same spot three or more years in a row or they will succumb to a soil-borne wilt. Plant them at least 3 feet away from that spot and they will thrive. You can safely plant other crops in that original spot, and tomatoes can return there after a two- or three-year absence.
• At planting time, pull off the lower leaves of each tomato so that three-quarters of the stem will be underground, where it will grow auxiliary roots.
• If you have eggshells, place the crushed particles of a dozen dried eggshells in the planting hole. Otherwise, toss in a half cup of an organic plant food designed for tomatoes, such as or . They have the extra calcium needed to prevent blossom end rot.
• Otherwise, only fill the hole back up with the crappy soil you removed so that the roots have no choice but to grow into it.
• Then improve the soil on the surface with 2 inches of the finest compost you can beg, borrow, steal or buy.
• Then support the vine. Compact determinate plants won’t grow taller than 5 feet and can get by with a standard tomato cage. They may be labeled “bush” or “good for containers.” They generally have shorter days to maturity. Indeterminate tomato plants (longer days to maturity) will grow like a surly teenager and need to be kept inside a sturdy 5- or 6-foot-high cage — not unlike actual surly teenagers.

And if you planted early and got frosted

Many of you jumped the gun and planted your crops of summer just in time for them to endure nights that were cold, frosty or just plain freezing. If they now look like the dog’s breakfast, pull them out, apologize and replace them.

Or have nothing to eat when the Zombie Apocalypse hits. Your choice.

And Finally 


• Always plant tomatoes deeply but plant everything else at the same height as it was in the pot.
• Don’t improve the soil in the planting hole or the plant won’t grow well. Instead, improve the soil by spreading an inch or two of high-quality compost on top, around the newly installed plant.
• Plant in the evening, not first thing in the morning, to lessen transplant shock.
• Water deeply at the base of the plant after planting.
• No matter what, do not use any kind of wood mulch in your vegetable garden — or the zombies’ll get cha!

Mike McGrath was editor-in-chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated public radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Âé¶ččÙÍű Garden Editor since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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Special cold weather alert

Longtime fans of the Garden Plot know that they don’t have to wait until Saturday to hear my advice for that week; they can read the online versions of my bits — often containing additional information — beginning Friday.

I hope everyone with houseplants outdoors or frost-tender crops in the ground does so, because they now have some advance warning to bring houseplants back inside and to cover peppers and tomatoes with cardboard boxes or fabric row covers.

If you don’t protect summer plants already in the ground, it’s likely that you’ll have to replant, especially in the outskirts of the D.C. area, because even if they don’t die, frost-tender plants that endure a massive chill may not produce fruit until several weeks after their normal time — if at all.

Cold weather protection: Boxes are best

Temps are expected to drop into the 30s in the heat sink of D.C. Friday night into Saturday morning, and Saturday night into Sunday morning. Outlying areas are looking at low 30s, with a serious risk of frost and possibly a hard freeze. Maybe even some snow. Oy!

But many gardeners have jumped the gun and already have summer plants, such as tomatoes and peppers, in the ground. You can try and protect these plants by placing upside-down cardboard boxes over them before sunset Friday. Place a rock or a brick on top to keep the boxes in place.

Do not remove the boxes Saturday, as even the daytime temps will be injurious to frost-tender plants in many areas.

Remove the boxes after noon Sunday, but keep them handy, as cold overnight temps are predicted again later in the week.

Certain fabrics are also a good choice

An alternative is to cover the plants with a professional row cover such as Reemay or sheer curtains, but it will be important to anchor the covers securely as Saturday is predicted to be extremely windy.

Do not use tarps or sheets of plastic; they have a strong potential of doing more harm than good.

Old bedsheets might work, but not if they’re going to get soaking wet.

If you have frost-tender plants that are not yet in the ground, keep them inside until the 10-day forecast for your specific area shows nights at least in the high 40s, preferably 50 degrees or more.

No planting on Mother’s Day this crazy year.

Matt can resist everything except temptation

Last Sunday, our pal Matt in D.C. sent this prescient email:

Wuddya say, Mike? What’s the skinny? Is it still too early to put out summer crops? It’s May and the forecast is calling for some cold overnight lows. But my tomatoes are begging to be put outside. Guide me, garden leader!

Matt’s email was the reason I took a look at the (startling!) 10-day forecast and then warned him that the predicted overnight temps for Friday and Saturday were way too low for the health of frost-tender plants, even in the heart of D.C. where it’s always much warmer than outlying areas.

And even with a Mother’s Day warmup predicted, don’t yield to temptation, as more cold nights are predicted in the coming week.

It looks like May is about to replace April as “the cruelest month!”

Some like it cold

The good news is that early cool-weather crops such as spinach, lettuce, kale, peas, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, carrots, beets and radishes won’t be damaged by these low temps.

But warm-weather lovers such as peppers, tomatoes, eggplant and cucumbers are almost certain to be damaged.

A new hope

Luckily, as I slam these words into my keyboard on Thursday, rain is predicted for Friday night, which is good, as wet soil offers a few degrees more frost protection — as does the wind predicted for Saturday.

But don’t depend on that wind; if your plants of summer are still alive, protect them with cardboard boxes or a sheer breathable fabric such as professionally made row covers or some old sheer curtains.

Of manure and men

Jim in Fairfax writes:

You recently said to hold off on using manure unless you know what you are doing. I added llama manure to my raised beds this spring — a layer of about 3 inches that was aged when I picked it up. The beds are 6 feet by 12 feet and 12 inches deep. I also added some perlite and peat moss, then used a small tiller to mix it all into the soil. Is there anything I need to worry about?

Yes, but not from the manure itself.

Llama manure is somewhat light in nutrients, but what it has is nicely balanced. It also comes out of the animal in pelletized form, which means it will release those nutrients very slowly, which is good. Llama poop is also one of the only animal manures that can be used fresh without the risk of burning your plants.

However 


Plowman’s folly

Worry about the weeds, Jim! Tilling destroys soil structure, releases nutrients and uncovers then replants lots of dormant weed seeds.

And your beds are too big! The maximum width of a raised bed should be 4 feet, so that you can reach the center without stepping on the soil. No stepping means no need to till — and a lot fewer weeds to fight.

So, seriously consider remaking your beds to the proper width. Then, you can put the tiller up on eBay!

Mike McGrath was editor-in-chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated public radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Âé¶ččÙÍű Garden Editor since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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Temperatures are expected to drop into the 30s in the heat sink of D.C. proper Friday night into Saturday morning, and Saturday night into Sunday morning. Outlying areas are looking at low 30s with a serious risk of frost and possibly a hard freeze.

But many gardeners have jumped the gun and already have summer plants, such as tomatoes and peppers, in the ground. You can try and protect these plants by placing upside-down cardboard boxes over them before sunset Friday. Place a rock or a brick on top to keep the boxes in place.

Do not remove the boxes Saturday, as even the daytime temperatures will be injurious to frost-tender plants in many areas.

Remove the boxes after noon Sunday, but keep them handy, as cold overnight temperatures are predicted again later in the week.

An alternative is to cover the plants with a professional row cover such as Reemay or sheer curtains, but it will be important to anchor the covers securely as Saturday is predicted to be extremely windy.

Do not use tarps or sheets of plastic; they have a strong potential of doing more harm than good.

If you have frost-tender plants that are not yet in the ground, keep them inside until the 10-day forecast shows nights at least in the high 40s, preferably 50 degrees or more.

Mike McGrath was editor-in-chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated public radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Âé¶ččÙÍű Garden Editor since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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The editor I got along with the least instantly picked me. When I asked why, he said, “At least I’ll have plenty to eat.”

We’re all on desert islands now, and many of you want to have a food garden over the summer for the first time — both to keep busy, and have fresh-grown food without having to wear a mask to get it. Here are the basics for first-time success.

Start small and know thy crops

• Start small. Don’t try and establish a farm overnight. Only plant what you can manage — which is much less than you think.
• Don’t plant warm weather crops like peppers and tomatoes until the 10-day forecast shows nights consistently in the 50s.
• Know thy seasons. Cool-weather crops like spinach, lettuce, kale and peas won’t last through the summer, and summer crops like tomatoes and peppers can’t stand chilly nights, so harvest all your lettuce and such when summer heat hits, and plant them anew as soon as summer heat breaks. That’s three seasons: spring crops; summer crops; fall crops.
• Lettuce, spinach, kale, beets, radishes, zucchini and string beans are always ripe. If you can see it, you can (and should) eat it.

Tomatoes, peppers and cukes, oh my!

• Tomatoes: Small, compact “determinate” varieties are best for beginners. They’ll have a days-to-maturity rating of around 55 to 70 days and produce a lot of fruit on well-behaved plants that require minimal support. Great for containers, too.
• Peppers: Classic varieties like California Wonder take a long time to reach full size and then another two weeks to a month to fully color up, so look for sweet peppers with shorter days to maturity, like Italian frying peppers and mini, or “baby” bells. They’ll color up fast. Don’t eat green peppers unless frost is predicted; they’re not ripe or nutritious.
• Grow cucumbers upward on a trellis or inside a tomato cage to save space and get cleaner fruits.

Dos and don’ts

• Growing zucchini and other summer squash? Look for compact “bush” style plants.
• String beans, also known as green beans. Look for “bush” types here as well. They stay small and compact, whereas “pole” beans require a very tall trellis.
• Pumpkins: Don’t. It sounds like fun, but they’ll overrun your garden faster than kudzu.
• Potatoes: One of the easiest crops to grow. Look for certified disease-free “seed potatoes” and do not cut them up or “coin” them. Plant them whole; and consider growing them in a big
  
• Starting plants indoors from seed: Don’t. It’s best to have a couple of years gardening experience before you start trying to start your own plants indoors. It’s also much too late in the season to start summer crops from seed.

Raise those beds!

• Don’t till! It destroys soil structure, releases nutrients and creates tremendous weed woes. Build raised beds to spec instead and you’ll never walk on the soil, which means no need to till.
• Raised beds deliver twice the food in half the space. Scalp the area with a lawn mower set as low as she goes, cover the space with a single layer of cardboard and create dedicated areas four feet wide for growing with two-foot walking lanes all around. Frame them about a foot high with low-grade cedar or redwood, bricks, cinder blocks or pavers, or just plain old cheap untreated pine. Don’t use any kind of treated wood or railroad ties.
• Fill the beds with a mixture of compost and/or aged-mushroom soil, good-quality topsoil and perlite (for drainage). Don’t use garden soil.
• Don’t use wood ashes, milled peat moss or manures of any kind unless you’re sure you know what you’re doing.

Getting the plants and keeping them alive

Mail order seed companies are overwhelmed right now, so make sure you know shipping dates before you buy.

Your best bet is always a local independent garden center. Call ahead to see what their hours and conditions are.

And don’t forget people like me. If you have friends or neighbors who always start way too many plants, ask for some of their extras — and advice.

Don’t use chemical fertilizers, herbicides or fungicides. They’re unnecessary and weaken plants.

Always wear gloves. Baseball batting gloves are an excellent choice and widely available in a large number of different sizes.

There’s no need to feed your plants if your newly-constructed beds have a good amount of compost or aged mushroom soil mixed in. If the beds are existing, the best fertilizer is a fresh two-inch layer of compost on the surface of the soil, not tilled in.

And finally 
 remember to breathe, grasshopper.

Mike McGrath was editor-in-chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated public radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Âé¶ččÙÍű Garden Editor since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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Since almost everyone is under stay-at-home orders, we’re not driving as much. That means fewer road kills, which could mean that the populations of garden munching vermin is going to explode — with a lot more deer, groundhogs, rabbits, and evil squirrels this year. Do you think this will be true, and if so, what can we do to prepare/protect our gardens?

It is undeniably true, Doug — news reports across the country are noting wildlife moving closer to human habitat, and animals that are in heat and searching for mates are crossing highways with ease instead of the normal “road pizza” flattening that occurs at this time of year.

You’re right to think about protecting your garden with fencing and other deterrents.

Deer, deer, deer

Doug in Adamstown names four different bad actors, starting with deer.

The best defense against these remorseless stomachs on legs is to give them a bad experience early in the season; research shows that they may then avoid your place and eat the neighbors’ azaleas this summer.

For dedicated areas, like a vegetable garden, a is ideal. You put batteries in the unit, aim it at the area you wish to protect, hook it up to your hose and it will lurch into action and throw cold water on the intruder. Yes, you will forget it’s there and walk right into your garden on a beautiful morning. A small price to pay for unravaged fruits!

Another tool I use personally is the — battery powered stakes with deer attractant inside an electrified metal cage; harmless but shocking!

Wabbits and groundhogs

Among the pests concerning Doug in Adamstown are rabbits and groundhogs.

Rabbits are easy. Unlike European hares, the rabbits in our region don’t burrow, and they can’t hop very high, so a three-foot high fence with one foot buried straight underground will keep them out.

Groundhogs are tough; they can burrow and climb with the best of them, so a more sophisticated fence is required. Six feet high, with a foot and a half buried straight down, then securely stake the next two and a half feet, but leave the top foot unstaked and bend it outward to act as a baffle. When they climb up the supported part, they’ll reach the unsupported baffle and get dropped right back down on their furry butts. Fun for the whole family!

The Darth Vader of the garden

Now it’s time for the Doctor Doom of the garden — the seemingly unstoppable Evil Squirrel.

Acrobatic, clever and fiendishly evil, these long-tailed Servants of Satan are a gardener’s worst enemy. Forget flying or super-strength, if I was able to pick one superpower to have, it would be heat vision! Fry squirrel, fry!

Ahem.

The first thing you need to do is not lure them: That means no bird feeders — the birds don’t need artificial food at this time of year and ‘feeding the birds’ will increase your population of Evil Squirrels! Talk to your neighbors about taking their feeders down — and if they are deliberately feeding squirrels, call the police!

Fighting the Fiendish Foe

Doug in Adamstown worries that Evil Squirrels will devour our 2020 Victory Gardens (Thanks for using their proper name, Doug.)

Number one: Do not put out bird feeders; they are Evil Squirrel breeding stations.

If squirrel are digging in your containers or raised beds, lay chicken wire flat on the soil surface; this keeps cats out as well.

Surround your tomatoes with real cages made of welded wire fencing and fasten more
fencing over the top with twist-ties.

Prune off any tree limbs that give the Servants of Satan access to your garden.

Position a high-powered motion activated sprinkler at ground level.

And deploy fake explosive Squirrels throughout your garden.

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Houseplants or habaneros — it’s too early to go out

Mary Ann in Hillandale, Maryland, writes: “When is it safe to put my houseplants outside on a screened porch?”

Most houseplants are tropical in origin, so the answer is the same as it would be for our favorite plants of summer, such as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and melons — and that’s when nighttime temperatures are reliably in the 50s.

Temperatures in the high 40s, such as 48 and 49 are fine — but it’s risky to go any lower.

Despite the perception that summer has already appeared, we recently had nights with temperatures in the 30s in the heat-sink of D.C. and that means frost in some of the surrounding suburbs.

So here’s the deal: Wait until May, check the 10-day forecast and if all the upcoming nights are in the 50s or high 40s, go for it.

Holy Bat-Poop, Batman!

Sina in Front Royal, Virginia, writes: “We recently installed a bat house on our property with hopes that the little dudes will help cut down our mosquito population and that they will be fun to watch from our yard in the evenings. I’ve read about bat guano being an amazing fertilizer but wanted to get your opinion since they are technically ‘meat eaters’ and your article on animal manures states that those are a big no-no. Any advice on collecting and using guano once our new residents move in? Or should I avoid it altogether?”

Bats are bug eaters — like free range chickens, ducks and such — and their guano is highly prized, although it can be very high in nitrogen.

The best way to capture it is to have a bin of shredded leaves underneath their home and mix it all up every once in a while.

Now, about those hopes that bats will eat mosquitoes…

The real ‘Batman’, Dr. Tom Kunz, Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Ecology and Conservation Biology at Boston University, where the is named in his honor, explained the concept that bats eat lots of mosquitoes is a mistake based on a 1960s-era lab experiment using fruit flies.

Although bats do eat a few mosquitoes, their main diet is big, fat, juicy moths — almost all of which would have given birth to agricultural pests like the tomato hornworm, corn earworm and almost any other caterpillar that attacks crops.

So bats are great to have around vegetable gardens, but dragonflies are the mosquito eaters.

Not all bat houses make a respectable bat cave

Many bat houses go unoccupied because they’re too small, not placed high enough or are not near a source of fresh water.

Bats need to be able to move up and down inside the box during hot days and chilly nights to regulate their body temperature — so the bigger the better.

Bats are also very social and like to nest in large groups.

They need a long, straight drop out of the bottom to exit safely — and they would greatly prefer a habitat shaped more like a big martin house than a “box.”

It should be up on a pole to keep predators out, etc., etc.

Several years back, I interviewed a number of experts and wrote a for my public radio show, You Bet Your Garden.

Spring bulb procrastinator of the year!

Dot in Frederick, Maryland, writes: “I have bulbs that I purchased in the fall but didn’t plant. Some of the bulbs have started to sprout. Can I plant them now?”

Well, you can try — and if you are lucky — you will get leaves, but the flowers deep down inside those bulbs have not had the chilling hours required to produce the flower stalk that the flowers would otherwise have risen up on.

And you are really late — daffodils and crocus are long-done flowering and area tulips are wide-open and almost finished.

Although they’re called spring bulbs, you are supposed to plant them in the fall!

If you have a spare fridge in which no fruit will be stored, you can try and force them out of season.

Plant the bulbs in containers filled with potting soil, saturate them well with water and place the containers in a fruit-free (ethylene gas released by the fruits would ruin the bulbs) fridge.

A minimum 16 weeks for tulips, 12 weeks for other types.

Bring them out in September (any earlier and they would burn up in the summer heat, spring bulbs are cool-weather lovers), water well and, perhaps, amaze your friends and neighbors!

Mike McGrath was editor-in-chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated public radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Âé¶ččÙÍű Garden Editor since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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Sunny days do not mean summer-planting time

Matt in D.C. writes: “I have planted way more starts than I can handle. My sunroom is getting packed, and I’m dying to put things in the ground outside. Is it too early to plant basil, sweet potatoes or flowers (specifically bee balm and purple coneflower)? Let me know what you think.”

I think it’s still April, Matt — and early April at that!

Hopefully Thursday and Friday nights’ chilly lows dropped a little reality into your pockets — but I feel your pain.

Summerlike days, social isolation and fear of running out of toilet paper have us all feeling a little squirrelly, but nighttime lows in the suburbs are predicted to drop into the 30s next week; and those temps can kill or severely injure tropical plants, such as basil and sweet potatoes. And the temps in D.C. will be too cold, as well. Just give them some food and good light and wait for May.

Don’t help April be the cruelest month

Stay thy hand, Matt — or you will learn why April is called the cruelest month!

If you’re itching to plant, this is the perfect time to grow cool-weather crops, such as lettuce, spinach, kale, peas and broccoli.

They won’t mind upcoming nights in the very low 40s. That is exactly what is predicted for the heat sink of D.C., which is always warmer than the surrounding suburbs. And next week could drop below freezing in the area.

And it’s not just “freezing” that you need to be worried about. Subjecting tropical plants, such as tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, cucumbers, and annual herbs, such as basil, to temperatures in the 30s can set them back by a month. Or just plain kill them.

Yes to flowers; no to yams

Cold-sensitive plants — such as basil (a real drama queen) and sweet potatoes, whose vines are often the first to die on a chilly September night — could die if you put them on the ground now.

Note that I said chilly and not frosty. Tropical plants have no sense of humor about nighttime temps in the 30s, especially when they are young and small.

Flowers are another story. Because you are in the heat sink of the city, perennials, such as beebalm (aka monarda) and coneflowers, are well-adapted to chilly nights. You can plant them outside now without fear.

How much wood would a wood chip chip if a wood chip could chip wood?

Sylvia in Falls Church, Virginia, writes: “I have a large 2-year-old pile of oak tree stump chips, still with visible chips. Can it be used for garden mulch, or just for mulching around bushes? Would it be more usable for garden mulch in another year?”

Interesting question, Sylvia. What you have is considered “arborist wood chips,” which is far superior to the dyed wood trash sold at big-box stores that may have originally been insecticide-soaked pallets and construction debris.

I would not use your chips in the garden*, but a 1-inch layer should be safe to use around shrubs, as long as the mulch »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t actually touch the plant.

But if you choose to wait another year, the entire pile should become good-quality compost, especially if you mix in spent coffee grounds to move the composting process along. And then your garden plants would love it!

*Fresh wood chips of any kind are an inappropriate mulch for veggie gardens. Use compost, pine straw or shredded leaves instead.

Hats off to Montgomery County

As reported by the county’s Department of Environmental Protection, Montgomery County, Maryland, has banned the use of all chemical herbicides, including the notorious and nefarious “weed and feed.”

To its further credit, however, the use of natural, pre-emergent herbicides, such as corn gluten meal and natural broad-leaf herbicides, such as Iron-X and horticultural vinegar, are permitted.

To briefly quote from its recent release, “Exposure to certain pesticides has been linked to serious health conditions in children including pediatric cancers, decreased cognitive functioning and behavioral problems. Exposure for adults can cause Parkinson’s disease, diabetes, leukemia, lymphoma, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease and many cancers.”
Bravo, Montgomery County.

Mike McGrath was editor-in-chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated public radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Âé¶ččÙÍű Garden Editor since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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Feeling a little “squirrely?” Then do what those Long-Tailed Servants of Satan do and take to the trees! Specifically, the trees in Baker Park in Frederick County, Maryland. The Frederick Forestry Board has created a “tree walk” by placing placards on thirty different varieties of trees, identifying them by name and noting some of their more interesting characteristics.

Curated by Bethany Dell’Agnello, a retired teacher, the tree walk is the perfect antidote to these trying times. It gets you out in nature where you can proceed at your own pace, practicing social distancing, of course.

Best of all, there’s no group leader to keep up with, in fact, there’s no group at all, just you and the trees; “and if you’re not careful, you’ll learn something.”

Tree test time

Can you tell a beech tree from an oak?

Would you know a weeping pendulous Katsura tree if you saw one? Or, would you know that in Asian mythology, this magnificent looking tree is connected to the appearance of the Man on the Moon?

Did you know that the so-called tulip poplar isn’t a poplar of any kind, but a close relative of magnolias? It’s also not a tulip — but you knew that.

Or that the county champion English Elm — believed to be two hundred years old — is located on a local high school campus?

These are just a few of the thirty trees that are identified and explained on the “tree walk” section of the Frederick Forestry Board website — complete with the exact coordinates defining their location, so you take an actual tour !

Herons and chewing gum, too!

Looking for a safe place to wander in Nature? Need an interesting subject for your homebound child’s schooling? The “Tree Walk” includes white pines by Culler Lake, where you can try to find the white-crowned night herons that nest there every Spring. While there, you can learn that the sweet gum tree got its name because native Americans used its sap as chewing gum.

And you may be surprised to find a majestic gingko tree — a “living fossil” that dates back hundreds of millions of years — in the yard of a home. It was planted there long before Baker Park was created.

Mosquito prevention time!

Just got an email from “Noah” at an undisclosed location, asking about BTI traps. Perfect timing, Noah!

Everyone knows that mosquitoes breed in standing water, and the advice for years has been to clean out your gutters — their biggest unseen breeding ground — and empty all the standing water on your property. But there’s a better way.

Instead of dumping water, fill up buckets, cat food cans, take-out containers and such and then treat the water with BTI — a naturally occurring soil organism that prevents mosquito eggs from progressing into biting adults without harming anything else. Birds can drink the water, your dog can drink the water, and it only affects mosquitoes.

You’ll find BTI in the form of little doughnut-shaped dunks and granules at any hardware, home store or garden center.

Trap those bloodsuckers!

A warm, wet winter means more mosquito misery for us, but there is a way to fight back.

First, clean out your gutters, as they are the biggest unseen source of mosquito breeding.

Second, get thee to a hardware, home store or garden center and buy BTI.

As mentioned above, BTI is a naturally occurring soil organism that prevents mosquito eggs from developing into biting adults — and now is the time to place BTI “traps” all around your house, as female mosquitoes are just now emerging from hibernation and looking for standing water nearby in which to lay their eggs.

If that water is laced with BTI, you defeat that all-important first generation, and get the math to work in your favor for a change. BTI is safe for everything except mosquitoes, and comes in two forms — small donut shaped dunks designed for large areas of water (like ponds) that are effective for a month; and granules in shaker jugs that are more powerful, but only last a week or two.

Feel free to bust up the big ones with a hammer and place a chunk in things like a five-gallon bucket. Shake the granules into wet areas of your property. This will allow frogs, toads and lightning bugs to breed, but no skeeters!

​For more info, the Summit Chemical Company.

Mike McGrath was Editor-in-Chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated Public Radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Garden Editor for Âé¶ččÙÍű since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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Patti in Howard County writes:

It appears that spring has arrived very early this year. Does this mean that we can move up the earliest safe time to plant to before Mother’s Day?”

The answer is no. Âé¶ččÙÍű is as unpredictable as the stock market and warm-weather crops like tomatoes and peppers have no sense of humor about temperatures in the 40s, no matter what the calendar says.

And it’s not even April yet! So our diagnosis is boredom secondary to cabin fever thanks to the ‘Cottonelle-19’ toilet paper crisis.

That said, this warm spring does bring us the opportunity to plant cool-weather lovers and number one on my list would be pansies.

Buy a flat of pansies, plant them everywhere and pick and eat the edible flowers!

It’s Pea Planting Time

Itching to get out in the garden like Patti in Howard County? Get to a garden center and buy packs of pea seeds.

Whether you go for snow or snap peas (both of which you eat, pod-and-all) or English shelling peas, the weather is perfect for future pea picking.

To ensure good germination, roll the seeds out onto damp paper towels and put the towels into Ziploc bags, but don’t zip them closed.

Keep them in a warm room and check the seeds daily. When you see sprouts, it’s safe to plant the seeds (the seeds need warmth to sprout, but the plants need cool weather to thrive).

Bonus: Both snow and snap peas come in “bush” form, which means the plants will stay nice and compact. “Pole” means the opposite, tall plants that must be trellised. Most — if not all — English shelling peas (aka “June peas”) fall into this category.

Plants Don’t Need Social Distancing

Patti in Howard County wonders whether our warm winter means tomato planting before Mother’s Day. No way to tell Patti — it isn’t even April yet!

But if you have seedlings growing indoors, by all means take them outside on sunny days and bring them back inside on chilly nights. Then, when we get to the merry month of May, start checking the 10-day forecast, looking only at the predicted nighttime temperatures, not the daytime temperatures.

If the nights are reliably in the 50s and you feel like rolling the bones, go ahead and plant a few peppers and tomatoes, but hold some plants back for a week —  just in case. And don’t even think about putting warm weather crops in the ground before May or you will find out why they call April “the cruelest month.”

Don’t Commit ‘Crepe Murder’

Linda in Damascus writes:

I have two crepe myrtles in my front yard. One is about ten feet tall and the other is eight feet. Should I prune them now? If so, how much should I cut back? Do I take off all the old flowers and growth?”

I know we’re bored and running out of silly cat videos to watch, but it’s still a little early to prune late summer bloomers, Linda. Wait another couple of weeks or until they show new growth — but prune them you should!

Crepe myrtle puts on its best show when it gets a good clean haircut in the spring.

Absolutely remove the old flowers and then prune off as much as the plants grew last year to keep them at a nice stable height. No matter what, do NOT commit “crepe murder” by cutting them back to stumps.

Don’t Smell the Flowers

Debbie in Springfield, Virginia, writes:

I was wondering if you could identify the big trees that are blooming with white flowers all around our area? I thought they were all Bradford pears but I’m not sure if other kinds are also mixed in. Some flowering cherries bloom white at the same time as the so-called ‘ornamental pears.'”

And the buds on apple trees, including flowering crab apples, open up to reveal snow-white flowers and some of those apple trees can grow very large.

But the majority are probably “caliper” pears, a designation that includes Bradford, Cleveland, and other ill-advised invasive trees. The best way to identify them for sure is to sniff the flowers.

Pear flowers have a rotten smell.

Mike McGrath was Editor-in-Chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated Public Radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Garden Editor for Âé¶ččÙÍű since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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Major and Minor League Baseball have been postponed nationwide, with the players forbidden to even hold “sandlot” games, which I would have watched with great enthusiasm, because I’m wearing out my old VHS tapes of Ken Burns’ great PBS series on baseball.

March Madness has been canceled, forcing office workers to resort to legal gambling (except that the casinos are also closed). Bottles of hand sanitizer are approaching the price of gold, with toilet paper not far behind.

Uncertainty rules, with one great exception: No one can cancel spring, and no one can stop us from gardening.

Back in my native Pennsylvania, the state-run wine and spirits shops closed yesterday. But in my front yard, the crocus are blooming, to the delight of the native bees that have been feeding on their pollen on sunny days, even the ones following freezing cold nights; and the blooms on most of the Snowdrops and Glory of Snow are still hanging on.

Even the forsythia are in bloom, despite the fact they already bloomed last November. Perhaps they realize how much we need their brightness now.

I’m in a cold spot and lower USDA Zone, so my daffodils are just about to open, but the tulips are right behind them, thanks to the blessed nonintervention of the evil squirrels, who once took every single tulip bulb out of one of my beds and replaced each bulb with a black walnut.

I had to give them points for inventiveness and determination, but it gave new meaning to the phrase “Black Forest.”

The movies are closed and Broadway is dark, but the sun still rises in the east and makes my fall planted pansies warm and happy. That reminds me to pinch off a few flowers for my salad tonight. (Yes, pansy flowers are edible. They are also the only true food source of the nutrient Rutin, which has the power to prevent or even reverse the visible effects of varicose and spider veins.)

The distinctive red shoots of my peonies have broken ground, with the promise of crazy big pink (and red) flowers that no government order can stop. St. Patrick’s Day was canceled in Ireland, which yes, is one of the signs of the apocalypse.

However, no one can stop the greening of spring, even if the record amounts of tree pollen have forced me to stock up on Kleenex.

The buds on my azaleas and rhododendrons are fat and happy; soon that show will begin and the ancient two-story high rhododendron in the front will be covered by hundreds of blooms, each more entertaining than the best Pixar movie.

Most of us “have never seen anything like this,” but perhaps my garden tulips have. They were old when we moved in thirty-five years ago, no one knows how old the house is and older neighbors tell us “those red tulips were always there.”

I took a break and wandered outside a minute ago. I pulled up a clump of onion grass, and rather than just toss it into the woods, took a while to marvel at the bulbing structure and intense aroma of this accidental cousin of onions and garlic.

Then I tossed it into the woods. Then the real garlic!

Planted last September, the shoots are up and looking good. So I dream of the ritual of harvest time, when I will carefully pull up each bulb in early July, gently brush the dirt off and then arrange the bulbs on the table on my enclosed porch to “cure” under the gentle breeze of the ceiling fan.

That heavily insulated porch and my kitchen island are currently covered with baby tomato and pepper plants under lights. Actually, most of the tomatoes are already two months old, thanks to my clever idea of starting my peppers super early to get an earlier harvest.

But I was out of seed starting mix and so combined some potting soil from old containers with castings from my wonderful worm bin and used packs of pepper seeds that were technically expired.

Everything came up great!

But eventually I realized that, “Hey! These aren’t peppers!” I will have the first tomatoes on the block, perhaps even before the plants go outdoors.

Hopefully, the government will realize that garden centers and nurseries are just as essential as gas stations and grocery stores. I can guarantee that millions of flats of peppers, tomatoes, flowers and the like are being grown for us all over the country and will be ready to rock by Mother’s Day.

And so will we!

In the meantime, seek out blooming bulbs and flowering cherries; stare intently at the new greenery of roses and the inevitable invasion of the hostas. There is something growing or flowering wherever you are, and this is the time to marvel at the wonder and persistence of plants.

Because “They can’t take that away from me.”

Or you.

Mike McGrath was Editor-in-Chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated Public Radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Garden Editor for Âé¶ččÙÍű since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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Karen, “Somewhere in Southern Maryland,” writes:

“Last year, our holly bushes were attacked by aphids or mites that left them full of black gunk. We treated them with neem oil and that seems to have solved that issue. Now we realize that the bushes are in need of a major trim. We read that we should wait until they go dormant in the winter, but our winter was pretty mild and they never really went dormant. When would it be safe to give the bushes a major trim?”

Pretty much the same time it’s safe to put tomatoes out, Karen — anytime around or after May 15, when the 10-day forecast shows nighttime temps consistently in the 50s or high 40s. You do not want to prune during a warm spell with freezing nights to follow.

Holly! Go lightly on that pruning!

Karen in (quote) “Southern Maryland” wants to give her hollies a major trim.

Good news, Karen — hollies can take what’s called a “rejuvenation pruning” without harm, although they’ll look their best if you remove around 30% of each plant a year for several years in a row instead of doing the Texas Chainsaw Massacre thing all at once.

And get your timing right! Pruning during warm weather always stimulates growth. But if that warm spell is followed by freezing weather, that new growth can freeze hard — and then all bets are off. Yes, it’s been warm lately, but Sunday night will drop below freezing in the burbs. So be smart: Wait until May and even then, check the 10-day forecast before you prune away.

Prune on the plants’ schedule — not yours!

Karen’s pruning question leads us to repeat the rules of pruning.

• Prune nothing now, especially if you are bored
• Prune Spring bloomers like forsythia, flowering cherries, lilacs, azaleas and rhododendrons right after they finish blooming. You can give them another trim a month or so later but that’s it, because then they’ll be forming their buds for next Spring
• Prune summer bloomers like roses around the same time you plant your tomatoes. Prune off any dead or damaged canes, remove the prunings and any old mulch and then mulch with compost to prevent disease
• Cut summer-blooming plants like butterfly bush back hard in May to keep them shapely.
• Prune late bloomers like crepe myrtle in May as well, but only take off the previous year’s growth. Do not commit “crepe murder!”

It’s corn gluten time!

Gil in Gainesville writes:

“Spring is around the corner and I always wonder about when it’s a good time to do a crabgrass prevention treatment on my lawn. Is now a good time to apply? And can you advise me on the most effective product to use?”

The classic natural pre-emergent is corn gluten meal, Gil. A by-product of cornstarch production, corn gluten meal is 10% nitrogen, which gives your turf a perfect spring feeding. At amounts that deliver 20 pounds of corn gluten meal per thousand square feet of turf, the product also prevents germination of weed seeds, but that amount is technically disallowed under Maryland and Virginia’s lawn care laws. So apply 10 pounds now and another 10 pounds in a month. That should be effective — and it’s legal.

Soil temp resources

Joe in Derwood writes:

“Can you provide the website links that show our current soil temperature? I want to be prepared to spread corn gluten meal.”

Absolutely, Joe — , which is currently hovering around 50 degrees at the classic four inches deep; and as you probably know, the magic number is 55.

But because this has been such an historically mild winter, I would start now. Put down 10 pounds of corn gluten meal per thousand square feet of turf this weekend and then follow that with another 10 pounds in a month. That’ll give your lawn a great spring feeding and prevent the seeds of annual weeds like crabgrass from successfully sprouting.

Website special: Lawn care laws and physical reality

The bar shifted in favor of nontoxic lawn care in the ’90s when Dr. Nick Christians discovered that “corn gluten meal” (a by-product of cornstarch manufacture) was an excellent lawn fertilizer and — at rates of application high enough — would also prevent the germination of weed seeds like crabgrass. Bingo — organic weed and feed!

Then, beginning about a decade ago, Maryland and Virginia adopted new “lawn care laws” designed to protect the Chesapeake Bay from nutrient pollution from agricultural fertilizers. As a result, homeowners are forbidden to use nitrogen fertilizers that provide more than 10 pounds of that nutrient per thousand square feet of turf; and are forbidden to use fertilizers containing phosphorus — a nasty actor in Bay pollution.

But the law made no distinction between natural products like corn gluten meal, which are extremely “slow release” and “conventional” fertilizers made from highly explosive chemical salts that get into waterways super fast.

That puts me in a tight corner. I’d like to say “go ahead and apply 20 pounds of corn gluten meal all at once because there’s no way it can impact the Bay.” But I would make myself and the station liable if I did so, and that’s why I’m suggesting 10 and 10 this year. It meets the letter of the law and should give you a great looking lawn.

Oh — and if you see stores selling lawn fertilizers with a first NPK label number (nitrogen) greater than 10, PLEASE dime them out to your state agencies. Same if there is any number in second place (phosphorus) on the label. These products do harm the Bay.

Just saying


Mike McGrath was Editor-in-Chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated Public Radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Garden Editor for Âé¶ččÙÍű since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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As the explains, “deciduous trees shed their leaves in the fall and begin storing energy in their root system in the form of starch.” The following spring, these starches are converted into sugars and move up into the ‘sapwood’ of the tree on their eventual journey to the canopy, according to the Forestry Board. In some trees, especially sugar maple, this sap has a high sugar content, and is collected and boiled down to produce maple syrup, they said.

The Forestry Board will celebrate this annual running of the sap on Saturday and Sunday, March 14 and 15, and the following weekend, March 21 and 22, at Cunningham Falls State Park with demonstrations of tree tapping and, of course, maple syrup tastings.

And you get to visit the tallest cascading waterfall in all of Maryland. Hours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. each day and admission is $3 in cash per person.

Boxelder syrup? Who knew?

The Frederick County Forestry Board added this interesting bit of trivia to their release about the upcoming maple syrup festivals: “Over the years, additional tree varieties have been tapped for syrup, creating a booming niche market. Black walnut, butternut, sweet birch, sycamore, red maple, hickory, black maple and boxelder trees are being tapped for syrup, providing a wide array of flavors for all of us pancake lovers.”

Woods chips + dirt = future compost

Steve in soggy Ellicott City writes: “Last fall we had a large ash tree taken down and the stump ground up, as the tree had succumbed to the emerald ash borer. A 12-inch high mound of dirt and wood chips from the tree remained. We would like your advice on what to do with it. We thought about spreading it out in beds in the yard and then planting grass seed, or planting a tree or bushes it in. Or are we smarter to leave the mound alone?”

Much smarter Steve. A pile of dirt and wood chips will slowly decompose into good soil/compost. But if you spread it out in planting areas before that decomposition, it will suck up all the soil nitrogen and slowly starve the plants. Grass seed is an especially bad idea for two reasons:

1. Grass is especially nitrogen hungry and would suffer the most.
2. Grass seed sown in the cold soils of spring rarely — if ever — succeeds long-term. The seed of cool-season grasses like fescue and bluegrass should be sown in late August, not in the Spring.

Don’t boil sidewalk weeds

Steve in soggy Ellicott City, Maryland, continues: “I have read that weeds in sidewalk cracks can be killed by pouring boiling salty water on them — specifically a quarter cup of salt in 2 quarts of water. Following that, just sprinkling salt in the cracks will keep the weeds from appearing again. Is that a good idea?”

It is an extremely bad idea, Steve. How did you plan on getting the boiling water from the kitchen to the sidewalk without sloshing some of it out of the pot and onto your hands, arms, and/or legs? Boiling water burns are one of the most painful injuries you can suffer — and the pain lasts for a long time. And salt is bad for the actual material of the sidewalk, any nearby wanted plants and the environment.

Swap out sidewalk weeds

Steve in soggy Elliott City wants to get rid of the weeds that grow in the cracks in his sidewalk.
One good answer is to use a flame weeder to incinerate the unwanted greenery. You screw a small propane canister into the short end of the Shepherd’s Hook-like device, click the igniter and a small flame comes out the long end, allowing you to roast and toast your weeds away while you remain standing.

But new weeds will always appear, so a better long-term solution is to deliberately plant something of your choice in these cracks. There are many low-growing perennial groundcovers perfect for this job, including many that are aromatic, like creeping thyme. “Stepables” is the brand name for a wide selection of these plants, available at local independent garden centers.

Mike McGrath was Editor-in-Chief of ORGANIC GARDENING magazine from 1990 through 1997. He has been the host of the nationally syndicated Public Radio show “You Bet Your Garden” since 1998 and Garden Editor for Âé¶ččÙÍű since 1999. Send him your garden or pest control questions at MikeMcG@PTD.net.

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Ali in Woodbine writes: “Our front yard is home to some tall oak trees. We get a good amount of shade every summer. We have been trying for a few years to get a lawn going but have not been successful. I tilled the soil last fall, added leaf compost and used a shade mix from Southern States. The sprouts came up but just didn’t take. What would be your recommendation for a type of grass seed to use for a shady area.”

Unfortunately, it sounds like you already used the correct seed last fall and did pretty much everything else right as well, planting in the fall and adding compost.

The harsh truth is even the most shade-tolerant grass needs at least four solid hours of sun a day, and some areas just won’t grow grass, no matter how much you want them to.

So, instead of grass 


Ali in Woodbine is “blessed” with tall oak trees that cast deep shade in summer and wonders what kind of grass will grow there. Sorry Ali, even the most shade tolerant grass needs four hours of sun a day — and the roots of those trees are going to compete with any turf grass for food and water. The roots will win.

The go-to plant in these situations is pachysandra, because it fills in nicely and thrives in shade. Sweet woodruff is a lesser utilized but more interesting alternative.

It grows in dense shade, flowers in the summer, tops out at about a foot tall and is nicely fragrant.

Sweet woodruff does need to be watered to be able to compete with those tree roots — and you should install deep edging to keep it out of flower beds and such.

The ultimate ground cover!

It’s not just the shade — the roots of tall trees are going to compete with any turf grass for food and water. The roots will win.

But there is a ground cover that looks like grass and »ćŽÇ±đČőČÔ’t have a root system. It’s also green all year long, and never needs cutting OR feeding — it’s moss!

Yes, moss!

The same plant that many lawn owners try to kill is actually the perfect ground cover for areas that don’t get enough sun — it’s the plant that belongs there!

Check out online. This Pennsylvania-based company ships four different kinds of moss nationwide and has lots of informative articles about achieving mossy success.

Let’s plant a lilac!

Janet, of an undisclosed location, posted this message on the Âé¶ččÙÍű Facebook page: “When can I plant a lilac bush? I bought it at Costco yesterday.”

First, I want to urge everyone in ‘TOP land to purchase their plants at a local independent garden center like Homestead, Greenstreet’s or Merrifield, not a big box store.

Independent garden centers are longtime members of our community and deserve our support. They are as endangered — and just as important — as family farms.

I will now get down off my high horse to say plant that lilac as soon as you can and make sure the spot gets good morning sun. Dig a wide hole, but not a deep one; you want the roots to be just below the soil line.

Refill the hole with the same soil you dug up and keep chemical fertilizers far away. Instead, mulch the plant with compost.

Lilac details

Janet of an undisclosed location asks, “When can I plant a lilac bush I bought yesterday?”

ASAP Janet!

Plants are always anxious to get out of the pot and into the ground, and lilacs are not the least bit frost sensitive.

But they ARE disease sensitive. In fact, they are real horticultural drama queens with strict demands.

The first is morning sun — to dry the morning dew off their leaves as soon as possible.

The second is lots of sun. Lilacs will not bloom until they get six to eight hours of sun a day.

The third is the correct kind of mulch. Lilacs want 2 inches of high-quality compost around their bases. Any kind of wood or bark mulch will breed disease spores and literally make them sick.

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