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by Rett Davis | |
Gardening Q&A by Rett Davis appears in
Alamance County's daily newspaper, The Times-News,
every Sunday in the Accent section. Each week's installment is
posted to this
website, beginning with January 1998. Scroll to the bottom of
this page to navigate to other Gardening Q&As. Please contact
Rett via e-mail with questions
or
comments in regard to this column.
Answer:
If your blackberries are the thornless type or trailing blackberries you should prune them now. As soon as the last blackberries have been picked, cut out all the old canes. Do not remove the new canes that have come up since this past spring. You should leave 4 to 8 strong shoots per plant. Erect blackberries such as the thorny varieties can be left until winter. Prune laterals to 12 to 14 inches. Also remove all dead and weak wood. Leave only about 6 healthy vigorous canes per linear foot of row.
Question:
My elderly mother cannot go outside because our yard has been suddenly invaded with large hornets. There are holes in the ground everywhere. I have tried 'Wasp and Hornet Spray' sprayed into the holes with no results. What else can I do?
Answer:
Your lawn has been invaded by the cicada killer wasp. This is one of our most attractive and ferocious looking wasps we have here. Impressive as they may be, they do frighten people. I know people that have quit mowing their lawn for fear of being attacked. The cicada killer does just what it's name implies. It attacks and kills cicadas. The cicada is then carried away to provision this wasp's nest. The hole in the ground is where the female lays her eggs and stuffs a cicada to feed her young when they hatch. There is only one adult wasp per hole. Trust me, there is not a nest full of these creatures awaiting to attack you. Although the female does have a quite large stinger, she rarely stings humans. I have never known anyone that has been stung by one. The males do not sting. This is not an aggressive wasp. Since they are only active for a few weeks the best thing to do is just leave them alone. There is no need to poision our world with insecticides to control an insect that is neither a pest nor a threat to us. They are beneficial insects. All this information may or may not convince your mother there is little to fear. It rarely convinces my wife. Your mother should be able to return to normal outdoor activites very soon.
Question:
I love phlox. However several varietes get a white powder on them each year and they will stop flowering. I really do not want to spray pesticides to stop this disease. Why do some phlox plants get this problem and others do not?
Answer:
Garden phlox and native phlox is a wonderful landscape perennial for the landscape. Unfortunately the plant disease powdery mildew is a major limiting factor when growing phlox in our climate. There are no cultivars of phlox that are immune to this disease. However resistance to this disease will vary among the many culitvars on the market. Those phlox that show high resistance to powdery mildew include 'David', 'Delta Snow', 'Robert Poore', 'Natascha', 'Speed Limit', and 'Phlox caroliniana'.
Those that are modertly resistant include, 'Fairest One', 'Miss Katherine', 'Magnificence', 'Nora Leigh', 'Miss Jo-Ellen', and 'Rosalind'. I know of no better way to avoid the use of pesticides than selecting plants with the highest resistance to disease. In this case you have the opportunity to do so.
Question:
I have always planted clover for a deer plot in late summer. This year I have been reading about a mix of seeds called 'Biologic'. What is this and is it better than other cover crops for deer?
Answer:
Biologic is a trade name for a mixture of rape and probably some other members of the Brassica family. None of these so-called wonder mixes for growing super sized deer contain seeds of plants that are new to agricultural science. They have been on the market for a long time. It is just they are just being marketed to a new audience of hunters that don't know their plants. There is no question that rape is a good winter cover crop and deer do like it. Is this the ideal deer food? A wildlife biologist will tell you that deer need more than this plant to meet their nutritional requirements. Wild deer have a wide array of foods to choose from and their tastes will change with the season and environmental conditions.. The number one food preference for deer is acorns. Planting 'Biologic' or rape mixed with a small grain (oats, rye, wheat) will certainly attract deer to your favorite hunting spot. They should be sowed now. If you are interested in more information on food plots and how to provide year round food for deer, call me at 570-6740.
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If you have any horticultural questions, please direct them to Rett Davis