THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 4, 1994 TAG: 9412020101
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G2 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: GARDENING REMINDERS
SOURCE: Robert Stiffler
LENGTH: Medium: 100 lines
YOU CAN GO bats over Christmas, and the American Bat Conservation Society is willing to help you. The society is selling a line of Christmas gifts for gardeners and other bat-lovers.
If it's the sound of bats you love, try Night Life I and Night Life II, classical and contemporary music consist entirely of bat sounds. If you prefer to look at bats, they offer bat ornaments and tree toppers - life-size big brown bat wheat-straw ornaments from China. Or if you want a taste of bat, try the white-chocolate Antel Bat or milk-chocolate Bat Bites candies. If you'd rather wear the furry critters, order a pin, tie-tac, earrings, necklace or bracelet. Call 301-309-6610 to order.
Incidentally, the bat society says there is no evidence that bats are attracted to roost boxes the way wrens are attracted to wren nest boxes.
The only scientific study showed that little brown bats are not attracted to any of the popular artificial roost box designs. They say if you evict bats from a roost site in an attic, behind a window shutter or in a chimney and put up a roost box, the bats disappear.
Therefore, there's no reason to buy one of the many bat boxes for sale in gift catalogs and garden centers. A BIG YEAR FOR BURPEE
Burpee says its 1995 catalog is the most extensive home gardening catalog ever published. Among the highlights are ``Paul Bunyan,'' a huge 15-foot sunflower; ``Blue Angel,'' an exotic lilac-blue impatiens discovered in the Himalayan mountains and ``Rose Parade,'' which they say is ``a stunning mixture of garden-ready rosette flowers ideal for containers.''
In 1995, Burpee will celebrate the 100th anniversary of iceberg lettuce, introduced by Burpee in 1894. They say it's the one item of produce that has most enabled the salad to become part of the American lifestyle.
In addition, the company plans to challenge the genetically engineered Calgene tomato with its new ``SuperTasty'' tomato variety. If you don't regularly receive a Burpee catalog, write to 300 Park Ave., Warminster, Penn. 18974 or fax (215) 674-4170. The catalog is free. A BERRY GOOD FALL CROP
If you like raspberries in the fall, Virginia Tech's Diane Relf recommends that you let the canes stand after they've quit bearing but cut them with a rotary mower in the spring. New canes will grow from the crowns to produce a fall harvest next year.
Often varieties such as Heritage will produce a spring and fall crop, but she says you'll get more berries if you eliminate trying to get berries in the spring.
If you want a June-bearing variety, she recommends Latham. Prepare the soil this fall. They want a neutral soil with a pH of 5.8 to 6.5 and like deep sandy loam. Avoid areas where tomatoes, eggplants or potatoes have grown. Those crops often carry verticillium wilt that lives in the soil and is damaging to raspberries. DON'T LET THE BIRDS GO HUNGRY
It's time fill your bird feeders or put up new ones, if needed. Even though berries in the woods are attractive to most birds right now, they soon will be searching for food, so keep your feeders filled.
Glenn R. Dudderar of Michigan State University has this advice: ``If you feed birds because you enjoy watching them, place the feeders where they are convenient for you. If you are serious about helping the birds, you need to create a habitat by putting food adjacent to cover. Birds consumed twice as much cracked sunflower seed out of a feeder protected from the wind by a large honeysuckle shrub within 2 feet of the feeder.
``The food, dust and bird droppings that accumulate in and around bird feeders are an excellent medium for diseases. If you don't clean and sanitize your feeders, your feeders can serve as a source of disease and actually constitute a threat to the birds. Clean with a 10 percent bleach solution before you scrape and scrub them. Rinse with clear water and let the feeder dry thoroughly before filling.'' GETTING A GOOD START
I read ``Tottering in My Garden'' (Camden House, $14.95, paperback) while loafing on the beach in Cancun, Mexico, last week. If you've ever moved - and most people in this area have - it's a great read about the problems in building a new garden and fights with architects and builders. Author Midge Keeble is a Canadian, so she talks about some plants we can't grow.
One bit of advice I'd never heard, which she is convinced works, was, ``When setting out plants (trees, shrubs or bedding plants), water the bottom of the hole thoroughly before putting the plant in the hole.'' She declares the plant responds much faster and better than when watering from above, after planting. I'm doing that now and suggest you try it too. LET ROSES TAKE ROOT
If you like to plant roses in the fall, now is the time. I planted a half dozen last weekend. You occasionally can find them on sale in garden centers now, but be sure they are strong, healthy bushes.
The two best mail-order sources for good plants with strong root systems are Edmunds' Roses, 6235 S.W. Kahle Road, Wilsonville, Ore. 97070 (catalog is free) and Pickering Nurseries, 670 Kingston Road, Pickering, Ontario, Canada L1V 1A6. The Edmunds' catalog is free; Pickering catalog costs $3. by CNB