THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 21, 1994 TAG: 9408190088
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G2 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: GARDENING REMINDERS
SOURCE: Robert Stiffler
LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
INTERESTED in propagating perennials? David J.A. Smith, one of the country's most noted perennial experts, will tell how in a Sept. 28 workshop at Norfolk Botanical Garden. Lecture time is 10 a.m. Cost is $10; $7.50 to members of the Botanical Society. Register early. Mail a check to Education Department, NBGS, Azalea Garden Road, Norfolk, Va. 23518. Call 441-5839. GEM OF A ROSE
Rosarian Stephen Scanniello, writing in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Plants & Garden News, describes a climbing rose everyone should have.
Named ``Sombreuil,'' it covers an 8-by-12-foot panel lattice and grows in partial shade at the Brooklyn garden. Three-inch-wide petaled blooms are white with a peach hue. It's very fragrant. If you remove faded blooms, Scanniello says, it blooms right up until frost.
This rose is available from Antique Rose Emporium, Box 143, Brenham, Texas 77833 and Pickering Nurseries, 670 Kingston Road, Pickering, Ontario L1V1A6. I have not had good luck with plants from Antique Rose Emporium, so I am going to order from Pickering. PLANT MILDEW
With wet weather comes mildew on plants. New books on organic gardening recommend copper sprays and baking soda as effective controls. BORON OR LIME?
If your soil is acid, should you use boron instead of lime? Agronomist Dale Blevins at the University of Missouri says yes. He says that as little as 2 pounds of boron per acre alleviated aluminum toxicity of alfalfa. If this can be duplicated for other plants, you may see gardeners sprinkling a little boron instead of a lot of lime. Boron is available in farm supply stores. CONTROLLING WISTERIA
One of the hardest plant-vines to manage is wisteria. It is determined to throw out new growth all summer. Every seed that drops germinates into a new seedling. Prune your wisteria again now. PICK BUDS
Pick flower buds off coleus and caladiums. They're grown for their foliage and not their blooms. Blooms sap energy that is needed for foliage. REBLOOMING PLANTS
Some azaleas, magnolias and other spring blooming plants are again throwing out a few blooms. The June drought forced them into dormancy. That makes some plants try to bloom again. BLEACH DEBATE
The Clorox Co. is buying ads in professional publications to convince journalists that Clorox is not a dioxin. They say Clorox bleach is not chlorine. It is sodium hypochlorite (a 5.25 percent solution), which reacts and breaks down quickly during use, primarily into salt and water.
That's why household bleach can't build up in the environment and why bleach should not be part of the CHL chlorine debate.
The company says Clorox has been an indispensable, safe household cleaner and disinfectant for nearly 80 years and is not a problem to the environment. by CNB