DATE: Sunday, June 1, 1997                  TAG: 9705310056

SECTION: HOME                    PAGE: G6   EDITION: FINAL 

                                            LENGTH:  101 lines

PLANT CLEOME SEED IN EARLY SPRING OR FALL, AND IT WILL OFTEN RESEED

When should one plant cleome seeds?

Delores Roberts, Chesapeake, Va.

Cleome, that tall wonderful annual that's back in style, will often seed itself and come up again next season. This means the seeds fall out of their pods in late summer and fall.

I buy seed in the fall and scatter it wherever I want it. You can rake it in lightly or let nature do it for you. An alternate plan is to throw the seed out in early spring.

You'll find as the plants grow and bloom, the seed will scatter around your garden and you'll have cleome where you never planned. But the young plants can be easily moved.

My red-tipped photinias are being ravaged by blight. Some time ago you printed the name of a spray that would combat the blight. What is the magic solution?

David Arnold, Virginia Beach

The spray is not a magic solution but will help stop leaf spot in photinia. The spray used most often is Daconil. It needs to be sprayed every 10 days as new growth starts in the spring. Once you get the leaf spot under control, the long-term solution is to prune photinia only in winter when it is dormant. Pruning spreads the disease.

You'll never believe this, but I found not one but two raccoons in my Hav-A-Hart trap in early January. We had seen many signs of their ``snouting'' in the lawn and were able to trap them with a large lettuce leaf filled with tuna. I took the critters across the river and let them out at Portsmouth City Park. They were the third and fourth raccoons we'd caught and released. We also trapped two opossums after offering them lettuce with crunchy peanut butter.

Our 12-year-old plum trees have only had one bumper crop, and that was in 1993. We feed them and have pruned them but not too hard. The few plums they produce get eaten by birds and squirrels. We think we will investigate a persimmon tree after reading your article in January.

Kathleen Stenicka, Portsmouth

The first paragraph of your letter proves that raccoons go for tuna while possums prefer peanut butter. Readers who trap them will most likely be interested in your research.

As to your plum trees, Virginia Tech's Bonnie Appleton asks if it has borers. That would be indicated by a gummy substance seeping from the trunk near its base. Or perhaps it's the lack of a pollinator. Though most plums are self-pollinating, another tree helps produce more fruit. It could be too much nitrogen fertilizer, resulting in all foliage and no fruit. Or it could be not enough sun. From these suggestions, perhaps you can find the reason why you're not picking plums.

As to your plans for a persimmon, they're easy to grow. Buy a Japanese persimmon, because it bears large, edible fruit on a tree that seldom grows over 12-15 feet high.

The last two home inspections by my termite-control company have revealed evidence of snakes living under my house. Though they may keep mice away, I want to get rid of the snakes. I have been told there is a product that, when applied to an area where snakes live, will run them away. I was told the product smells of sulfur. Do you know of such a product and where I can buy it? Is it safe to use under my house?

Is there any chemical damage that might occur to the house's structural members or any health hazard to my family or pets created by seeping fumes?

James B. Myers, Suffolk

There has been a product on the market called Dr. T's Snake Away that was used to prevent snakes. It is camphor-based and snakes are repelled by it. No one I've talked with seems to know whether it's still sold. Experts say not to use sulfur because of a fume problem. The best solution is to close up all openings, cracks and crevices where snakes may get under your house. You can do that yourself. If snakes are really under your house, you'll find snake skins. If you don't find any, most likely there are no snakes there.

I have quite a few nandina bushes around my house that need to be cut back. When is the best time and best way to do this?

Ella Gibson, Virginia Beach

The time to prune nandinas is late winter, perhaps the latter part of February. The pruning method varies, but this one came from Bob Matthews, retired superintendent of the Norfolk Botanical Garden. Take three stems and prune one down to the ground. Prune the next one halfway down and on the third, just prune out the top. In that way, you should have foliage from top to bottom of the shrub. Do that with every three stalks of your nandina.

The late Fred Heutte also advised to take an old pair of gloves and knock off the dead stems that hang on to each stalk. He said if you do that, new limbs and foliage will sprout. I've found sometimes that works and sometimes it does not.

Is there anything that can be done to prevent the two large black walnut trees in my back yard from producing walnuts? They are messy and too much trouble to husk and use. We love the shade from the trees, but they really are a mess.

Nancy Bishop, Norfolk

Unfortunately there's nothing you can do to eliminate the black walnuts dropping from your trees except to cut the trees down. Tree authority Bonnie Appleton at the Virginia Tech Research Station confirms that there is no product or method to achieve what you want, except a chain saw.

I noticed a remark in your column that morning glories are banned in some states. Because they are my favorite blooming vine and I use them profusely, I am curious as to the reason for the ban.

Wendy Quattlebaum, Rocking J. Ranch, Ahoskie, N.C.

I cannot recall which state banned morning glories - possibly Arizona - but I know many farmers in Illinois and Iowa who would like to ban them. They are a real pest in soybean and cornfields. Morning glories are a nuisance to farmers, especially at cultivating and harvest time when their vines get tangled in the machinery and seeds scatter everywhere. And most of the seeds germinate the next spring.

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