garden letters

Editor's Notebook

If you call "anonymous "anonymous" and hydrangea "hygeranium," then you'll recognize the shrub in the photo as good old "cotton easier."The correct name is cotoneaster (pronounced cut-TONE-ee-ast-er). Some form large bushes, while others are low-growing. Unfortunately, they do a rather poor job as ground covers because they seldom grow thick enough to keep down weeds. However, I can recommend two types. Cranberry cotoneaster (Cotoneasterapiculatus) offers large, bright red berries from fall through winter. Garden centers often sell it pruned into an upright trunk with a cascading top. Brightbead cotoneaster (C. lacteus, formerly C, parneyi) becomes a graceful, arching shrub about 8 feet tall and wide. Large clusters of deep red berries weigh down its branches all winter. It makes a fine espalier when trained against a wall or fence. Please give these two plants a try. Look for them in the same places you buy "impatience." -STEVE BENDER

Question:

When do you feed azaleas? I heard that if you fertilize when there is snow on the ground, the nutrients will be drawn deep into the ground as the snow melts. Is this true? CAROL ULLERICH * PADUCAH, KENTUCKY

Answer

In our humble yef fbrthlright opinion, winter isn't the best time to feed azaleas. For one thing, in most places they are dormant now and don't need food. For another, fertilizer combined with unseasonably warm weather in late winter may cause them to break dormancy too early and be nipped by frost. A better time to fertilize is right after they finish blooming in spring.

We bought a house last fall with a young willow in the yard. The tree had no leaves then, and many of the branches look dead now. Is there anything I can do to bring the tree back? JUSTIN DAVIS

EVANS, GEORGIA

There's an easy way to determine how much of the tree is still alive. Use your fingernail to scratch the bark. If a branch is alive, you'll see the green cambium layer just under the bark. Prune the branches back to live wood. Willows grow fast, so the tree may recover its former size in a year or two. If you find no green layer anywhere, start weeping for that willow.

How and when do I prune raspberry plants? CHARLES DALLARA

DESTIN, FLORIDA

Raspberry plants grow from perennial roots that produce thorny stems called canes. The canes grow for two years, bear fruit, die, and are then replaced by new canes. Some experts recommend different pruning methods for summer-bearing raspberries (bearing one main crop in the canes' second summer) and everbearing types (bearing in fall during the first year and then again the next summer). But we think it's easier to treat both the same way. Each winter, cut to the ground all canes that fruited the previous year.

Deer are destroying my garden. What is your best advice for deterring them?

KELLY LONG

CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

Have you considered sharing your home with a pack of wolves? Seriously, one thing you can do is use plants that deer don't usually like to eat, such as coreopsis, purple coneflower, Lenten rose, petunia, salvia, and yucca. You'll find a list of plants that won't tempt deer in The Southern Living Garden Book. You can also spray your plants with a deer repellent, such as Deer Off, or use garlic clips. You can order these products from Gardens Alive!, (513) 354-1482 or www.gardensalive.com.

Copyright Southern Progress Corporation Jan 2005
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