Gardening Bytes

Terra cotta pots are a popular pot to plant in, but they often dry out easily, requiring multiple waterings every week. Compost loses moisture quickly through the sides when in a terra cotta pot. A good way to help maintain the moisture in your terra cotta pots and keep your plants happy is to use a lining of plastic in the pot. Line around the inside wall of the terra cotta pot with black plastic or an old compost bag before adding your compost and plant, then water in the new plant. The plastic will help maintain moisture in the pot after watering.

Looking for plants that will keep your visiting butterflies well fed in spring? Here is a list of nectar rich plants that will keep your butterflies happy:

Aubrieta
Bluebell
Clover
Daisy
Dandelion
Forget-Me-Not
Honesty
Primrose
Sweet Rocket
Wallflower

Heaths and Heathers are sturdy sun loving, acid soil shrubs that add structure to gardens year round and, depending on the variety, provide beautiful blooms and vivid leaf color in different seasons all year long. After your heaths and heathers finish their bloom the flower buds brown and fade, which is the ideal time to prune back the shrubs. A neat trim below the flower blooms and cutting off bare stems above the main portion of the plant will help shape them for continued healthy growth. In the colder climate zones, prune heaths and heathers in the spring. If you do not trim back spent heath and heather flowers the shrubs may become spindly looking with sparse leaves as it grows. Trim back farther to regenerate the shrub when it is growing poorly. Do not trim back too far into the main woody portion of the heather shrub because it may not regenerate new growth.

Learn more about pruning heaths and heathers here: Heaths and Heathers Nursery

Nasturtiums are one of those plants that are easy to grow and produce a great deal of seed once established in your garden. After flowering has finished the nasturtium leaves a green pea sized seed that you can harvest the seed by picking it off the flower vine. Sometimes seeds fall to the ground and dry, you may find brown seeds below the nasturtium vine. Generally I dry mine out in a greenhouse or warm location, sitting the seeds in a big wide container. When the seeds turn brown and wrinkle they are ready to plant. Once the nasturstiums are established in an area they will self-seed readily, keeping your garden filled with colorful flowers.

Looking for summer and autumn plants your visiting butterflies will flock to? Here is a list for the best nectar rich summer plants butterflies will like:

Buddleia
French Marigold
Hebe
Honeysuckle
Ice Plant (Sedum)
Ivy
Knapweed
Lavender
Marjoram
Michaelmas Daisy
Mint
Red Valerian
Scabious

Looking for deer resistant plants for your garden? If you have deer grazing on your plants you know how frustrating it can be to have a garden that looks healthy. Here are a number of plants rated rarely damaged by deer that would be a good choice for your garden:

Angel’s Trumpet – Annual (all parts of plant are poisonous)
Annual Vinca – Annual ground cover
Autumn Crocus – Bulb
Barberry – Shrub
Bearberry – Ground cover
Bleeding Heart – Perennial (shade plant)
Blue Fescue – Ornamental grass
Butterfly Bush – Shrub
Cinnamon Fern – Fern
Foxglove – Biennial
Daffodils – Bulbs (bulb and leaves are poisonous when eaten)
Flowering Tobacco/Nicotiana – Annual
Heaths & Heathers – Shrub
Iris – Perennial bulb
Japanese Painted Fern – Fern

Heaths and heathers require a gentle touch when newly planted. As hardy as the plants are the roots are fragile and must receive regular weekly watering during their first year in the ground or the roots may suffer, causing the shrub to die. Once heaths and heathers are established in the ground for the year they are drought tolerant. I regularly water my heaths and heathers once a week even after they are in the ground for a year. Heaths and heathers need free draining soil since they do not like wet feet, make sure they are planted in well draining soil and they will provide beautiful flowers and leaf color for your garden.

Spring and Summer bulbs are a wonderful item to add to your garden, coming back year after year and naturalizing to add even more blooms to your garden. When flowering bulbs finish their bloom you can deadhead or trim back the flower once it has wilted, but do not cut down the leaves of the bulb. The leaves of the bulb help provide nutrients and energy needed for next year’s bloom. Tie back the leaves if needed or plant other flowers surrounding the bulbs that will help hide the bulb leaves until they wilt back naturally. Once the leaves die back naturally you can trim off the leaves of the bulb.

Snails can be the bane of the gardeners existence. There is nothing like finding the chewed up petals or leaves of a new plant you know has been ruined by snails. An effective way to help control snails in your garden is to gather them in a bucket. Water doesn’t work to drown them since snails are pretty good at crawling up or surviving in water. Snails tend to hang out in shady spots, making lush leafy gardens a perfect place for them to hide. Look under overhanging foliage, ferns, leafy vines and in corners and sheltered areas on fences and structures.

When salting a snail, through osmosis the snail dries out, the body foams up and the snail dies of dehydration. Find a deep bucket you can carry easily with you as you go through the garden. Place a small amount of water in the bottom of the bucket. Add salt to the water, salt will foam up the snail bodies and kill them. This is a time consuming but very cheap way to help eradicate snails as you go about your gardening tasks.

A mix of dish soap with water will give you an organic way to spray against pests such as aphids, blackfly and more. Use this natural spray consistently until the pests die back or disappear:

Organic Pest Control

2 tablespoons baking soda
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon dish soap (do not use dish soap that contains bleach)
2 quarts of water

Combine the above ingredients in a spray bottle to spray on your infested plants. Shake to mix every time you use this natural spray in your garden.

We have a gang of raccoons that like to visit our back yard every month or so. These mischievous critters like to investigate potted plants, play in water and find new places to poop in the yard. As cute as the raccoons appear from a distance, they can cause some damage to your yard and should never be approached directly since they can be carriers of the rabies virus. Raccoons can be deterred by eliminating some of the items they find interesting in your garden.

If you put out food or water for cats or dogs in the yard, take them out of the yard at night when these night time animals like to visit. Raccoons enjoy playing in water and can make quite a mess when they want to. Keep potted plants at a lower level, curious raccoons have great manual dexterity and like to tip over high set pots, having been known in our yard to dig for bulbs in pots. Fruit trees can be attractive as a food source for raccoons since they have a sweet tooth when it comes to food. If you have a pond or water feature this may attract raccoons to your yard. Making sure there is no water or food supply in your yard will lessen the goodies available to these nocturnal visitors.

Passionflower vines are a very hardy vine that produce growth during the warming summer months. Here on the north coast these sun loving vines do surprisingly well with the foggy weather. Trimming back the vines in spring once severe frosts have passed is a good idea to keep the vines tidy and from becoming too overgrown during summer.

Trim passionflower greenery back close to the woody vines so there is good leaf coverage still over the vines but trimmed back. A hedge trimmer will do the trick for trimming back leaves. A trim once in spring will help keep the growth of the vines under control through the summer when the vines produce rampant growth of leaves and produces masses of flowers. Keep up on watering passionflower vines during warm weather, these are thirsty vines that need a minimum of 1 to 1.5 inches of water a week. From my experience, more water is better for creating the most flowers on the vines. Passionflower vines need a regular deep watering at least once a week for good flowering and healthy growth during the growing season.

Iron phosphate is a natural snail bait that is safe for use in your garden, as well as around wildlife, children and pets. Iron phosphate works by the snail ingesting the ground particles, giving them a stomach ache so they stop feeding, they crawl away and in a few days eventually die. The iron phosphate based snail bait is sold under the names Sluggo and Escar-Go. Bait in areas that snails frequent since they tend to return to food source sites. Baiting during temperate weather is helpful since snails tend to hide out in very hot or very cold weather.

Learn more on here about managing snails and slugs in your garden: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7427.html

The Butterfly Bush is a large shrub with over one hundred species. The majority of the species are shrubs that can generally grow from 6 to 10 feet tall, while tree varieties can grow up to 30 feet tall. My Butterfly Bushes grow rapidly from 8 to 12 feet tall after pruning and grow well in my coastal climate as well as in hot climates in the U.S.

Pruning is very important for Butterfly bushes since they can become gangly and tall, and yearly pruning helps encourage flowering on new wood. Prune Butterfly Bushes back in Spring past danger of severe frost to 3 to 4 feet tall. When pruning cut the branches back to 2 inches above a new bud. Young plants should be in place a year or two, developing a sturdy woody trunk before you begin pruning the shrub.