Bloomin Times

The gardener's year, like the farmer's, is of twelve months duration. It has no closed season. Every day in every month something can be done. Each new year piles experience on experience and vision on vision.

The gardener always gets up from the garden hungry. Sometimes it is the hunger to learn more, sometimes the craving to think more. An old question of what gardeners do when they are not gardening can be easily answered...they read about it.

Men and women, lowly and high, all possessed by the same divine, forgivable, mad desire to take a seed and bring it to flowering.

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   WHICH SIDE UP

If you are planting Begonia or Gloxinia tubers for the first time, you may not be quite sure which part of them is top or bottom. The gnarled, dried coverings look the same on all sides, offering you very few clues.

Tubers usually have a concave or rounded part, this is the bottom. The top is somewhat flat, and may have a hint of pink coming from a bud, which is always on top. Some folks recommend planting them a little on their side so water doesn't collect and rot the tuber.

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   WIND-SWEPT

Some trees and shrubs seem to enjoy the wind and thrive. Perhaps, if we studied their fibres, we would find that they are adapted both to resisting wind pressure and bending before it when necessary. Here are a few for wind-swept locations:

	     Alders                   Hemlock
	     Barberris                Oaks
	     Bladder Senna            Pines
	     Elders                   Sycamores
	     Gray Oak                 Thorns
			  

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   AGING EFFECTS

Homeowners and builders often desire new copper roofs, copper lawn ornaments and pipes to have that verdi color or aged effect. To help speed the natural greening process, scrub the surface with salt and vinegar.

For aging a new stone wall or specimen rocks, apply either a thin solution of molasses or a mixture of milk and stale bread. Either of these will provide a congenial culture medium for spores of moss. You can also gather some moss, grind it up and mix it with the molasses or the milk.

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   DORMANT OIL

Scale, Woolly Adelgids and overwintering Aphid eggs can be controlled using dormant oil. The spray should only be applied when there is no danger of freezing nights. Be sure not to spray the plants with more than one coat of oil. The spray coats the woody stems and a double dose could be ruinous to the plant.

Did you know that mayonnaise is great
for removing pine sap from your hands