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Aristocrat hosta

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Allan P. McConnell hosta

SeaMate™
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Many people are finding that their Crape Myrtles have suffered winter damage.  Some are dead to the ground (but in many cases will re-sprout from the base and bloom this year).  Some have died back part way and need a pruning.  Some were totally unaffected by the severe winter. 

Choice of a Crape Myrtle involves 4 factors; fungus-resistance, ultimate height, hardiness and bloom color.   In general, the USDA-introduced hybrids are the most fungus-resistant and the hardiest.  You can tell a USDA introduction because all their hybrid Crape Myrtles are named after Native American tribes.  But unless you are really familiar with Native American tribes, there are some names you wouldn’t necessarily recognize without some thought.  For example, Miami, Witchia and Natchez. 

For years I thought that Velma’s Royal Delight (not a USDA hybrid) was the most winter hardy of all crape myrtles.  I no longer feel that way.  I now feel that if you are going to push your luck to the limit, the crape myrtle to plant in cold situations is Hopi. 

Crape Myrtles come in various sizes.  A particularly common mistake is to plant the tree when you want the bush and vice versa.  Some, like Chicasaw and Pocomoke, grow only 2-3 feet tall and are great planted in masses as ground covers.  Some like Victor grow about 4-5 feet tall and can be used as low hedges or inter-planted with perennials.   Then there are those that are really 6-8 foot shrubs.  For example; Hopi and Velma’s Royal Delight.  Some Crape Myrtles naturally mature as trees at 20 or more feet tall.  The most spectacular of these is the new cherry red-blooming Dynamite.

For a really unusual color, choose the purple-flowered Catawba, although it’s not the hardiest.  Velma’s Royal Delight is also an unusual shade of purple.

Question & Answer

Question:
I went through the fertilizer instructions from the newsletter last week and made a table with fertilization instructions for every plant in my garden.  Your newsletter was helpful, as always, and I really appreciate your solving the fertilizer mystery for me.  However, you missed one plant, my clematis.  What do I feed it with and when?

Answer:
You’re right; I didn’t mention any vines specifically.  In general, deciduous vines get treated the same as deciduous shrubs.  We covered Clematis specifically in an earlier newsletter.  Clematis get fed in the early spring and late fall preferably with Bulb-tone® and Kelp Meal, although either FertileGRO™ or Plant-tone® can be substituted for Bulb-tone.  This year because of the extreme moisture, I would do a supplemental feeding now.
 

Comment:  Some years ago you recommended adding a tablespoon of SeaMate™ to the rose spray but I haven’t heard you mention it recently.  It really does help with the black spot.

Answer:   
You’re right; I haven’t mentioned SeaMate in this regard for quite a while and I should have - especially since black spot is going to be so bad this year.  It’s interesting to note why you see this effect on your roses when they are sprayed with a combination of fungicide and SeaMate.  The humates in the SeaMate increase the absorption of both fungicides and insecticides.  In addition, the seaweed (kelp) in SeaMate thickens the cell walls of the rose leaves, which makes them more naturally resistant to fungus. 

Incidentally, you shouldn’t generalize and presume that spraying your weeds with SeaMate will enhance the uptake of herbicides.  SeaMate works the opposite way and it makes the weed killer less effective, rather than more effective as in the case of fungicides and insecticides.  I don’t fully understand why SeaMate works this way, but it does.