July 18, 2003

www.CarrollGardens.com

Featured Items

We get many inquires about Wisterias that refuse to bloom. Indeed, there  are 100 year old wisterias that have never bloomed. That’s the chance you take with a seed grown wisteria. All of the wisterias we sell at Carroll Gardens are either cutting grown or grafted.

We import some of the nicest wisteria from New Zealand. This year customs got into our boxes and separated many of the wisteria from the tags, so we don’t know which variety is which.  As a result, we cannot sell them for the regular price of $34.85, and instead are offering a "grab bag" of wisteria at half price.  More information about this special offer is in the "Featured Plant" section below.

New Dawn climbing rose

Endless Summer hydrangea (PPAF)

Stella de Oro daylily

Neptune's Harvest
Crab Shell

A Quantum Leap With Endless Summer

The re-blooming Hydrangea Endless Summer (PPAF) is here and ready for pick-up at the nursery now.  Shipping orders will go out on Monday, weather permitting.  These are beautiful, full 2 gallon pots loaded with buds and blooms.

Each year 1000’s of new plants are introduced. Some of them are slightly better than those that are currently available (and quite frankly some of them are worse and I wonder why they were ever introduced). Every few years a plant is introduced that is a distinct and vast improvement over anything else on the market.

That was true in 1930 when the New Dawn climbing rose was discovered as a branch sport of the one time blooming “Dr. W. Van Fleet”. This branch bloomed recurrently all summer and fall. It truly was a “new dawn” - the first re-blooming climbing rose and the parent of many other good re-blooming climbers. It was so important that it was the first plant patented. Plant patent number 1.

In the 1970’s, Walter Jablonski introduced the re-blooming daylily “Stella de Oro”. It soon became the most widely planted daylily of all. It still is, in my opinion, the best of all the re-blooming daylilies and the parent of most of them.

I believe that with the new Endless Summer Hydrangea, we have a similar quantum leap forward. Mop head hydrangeas always set their buds reliably in the fall - no problem there. But hydrangeas tend to go into the winter with soft and tender tips and that’s where the buds are. In addition, if the buds survive the late fall frost and winter cold, they start to grow early in the spring and are subject to a late spring freeze. As normal mop head hydrangeas do not produce flower buds in the spring and summer, when these fall-produced buds die (or are eaten by deer), there will be no bloom that year.

On Endless Summer, flower buds are formed not only in the fall, but also with the spring and summer new growth. As the Endless Summer hydrangea continues grow all season it is forming buds that will flower all season long. Prompt removal of the faded blooms will encourage new growth and new blooms. I expect you will see 2-3 cycles of bloom instead of the usual one.

Question & Answer

Question
My Stella de Oro and Happy Returns daylilies are loaded with seed pods. Should I remove them?

Answer
Removing the seed pods encourages re-bloom (to be technically correct, removing the seed pods actually causes new leaf growth and with the leaf growth comes additional flower scapes. If a re-blooming daylily isn’t actually growing it probably won’t bloom anymore). So in addition to removing the seed pods you need to keep re-blooming daylilies actively watered and fed.

The seed pods and the entire stem should be cut off at the base as soon as the last flower on the stem has passed. If you wait for the seed pod to get to full size, you'll do very little good. Sometimes it’s a little difficult to tell the seed pod from the flower bud. The flower buds tend to be long and slender and the seed pods tend to be fat and egg shaped with 3 or 4 indents on the side.
 

Question
I would like to know the easiest way to get rid of the nut sedge in the lawn. It is so ugly. It grows faster than my lawn and is so light colored against my deep green Black Beauty lawn. I tried pulling them out, but they came back stronger than ever. Can you help me?

Answer
I suggest you use a product called Manage. We have it in the store or it can be ordered by phone (1-800-638-6334) and shipped to you. It is not currently on the web site. Several applications may be necessary. Start as soon as you can. Early treatments are more effective than later ones and a second treatment 6 weeks later is usually required.
 

Question
We have some Gardenmeister Fuchsia and they have been doing well; but just in the last couple of days they are showing a white powdery residue on the neck of the flower and when disturbed, white bugs jump off.  What do they have and what can we do about it?

Answer
I presume your fuchsia is out of doors. You have white flies, a frequent problem on Fuchsia. Di-syston systemic granules are a long-term solution, but they work slowly. In addition, you can make three applications of Orthene sprayed five days apart. Or, you can use horticultural oil (at 2% rate) or insecticidal soap as organic (safer) substitutes, but these are less effective. Be aware that fuchsia is very sensitive to sprays and you may disfigure (but not permanently injure) the foliage.

If the plant were mine, I would depot it, washing all the soil off the roots and placing the soil in a sealed container in the trash. Then, hose the foliage thoroughly to wash away every vestige of white fly and repot with Fafard soil mix mixed with the di-syston systemic granules. Special care will be needed to help the fuchsia recover from this harsh treatment.

Watch carefully for re-infestation before the systemic granules have a chance to work. Treat promptly by washing off the white flies or dipping the foliage in the oil or soap. (If re-infestation gets bad, throw the plant away). Be especially watchful if you decide to bring the fuchsia indoors for the winter. White flies spread from plant to plant quickly and they are even more difficult to control indoors.
 

Featured Plant - Wisteria "Grab Bag" Special

As mentioned above, we get many inquires about Wisterias that refuse to bloom. There really are 100 year old wisterias that have never bloomed. Such is the risk with a seed grown wisteria. All of the wisterias we sell at Carroll Gardens are either cutting grown or grafted. We import some of the nicest wisteria from New Zealand. This year customs got into our boxes and separated many of the wisteria from the tags, so we don’t know which variety is which.

There’s a mixture of pink, white, lavender and purple. If they had the tags attached we would be selling them for $34.85 each. If you are not that concerned about color or variety, you can have your wisteria for about half price at $17.85 ea. There is a mixture of five named varieties. Even so, if you order more than one, I can’t guarantee that they will be different.

Click here for more information or to take advantage of the Wisteria Grab Bag Special.

The Garden Club Radio Show

Every Saturday morning from 7:00 am to 9:00 am you can listen to the highly acclaimed Garden Club Radio Show online through WCBM's website. Click here for more information about the radio show, including how to listen online.

If you live in or will be traveling in the Maryland or Washington DC area, you can also listen to the show by tuning your radio to 680 AM. Any local listeners that may be traveling out of the area can still tune in to the show online, as mentioned above. Feel free to call in with your questions at 410-922-6680 or toll-free at
1-800-922-6680.

Happy Gardening,

Alan Summers