THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996 TAG: 9603150106
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G3 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: GARDENING
SOURCE: ROBERT STIFFLER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
What is the best way to care for a purple lilac bush? It was doing nicely in the sun; then the leaves turned brown around the edges. What did I do wrong? What can I do now?
Stephanie L. Weir, Norfolk
I'm afraid there's not much you can do to help your sick lilac. This area is too warm for most varieties. It's too hot in summer and not cold enough in the winter for lilacs, although this past winter could be an exception.
Your best bet is to replant with one of the early-blooming varieties that are usually labeled ``Southern lilacs'' or ``lilacs for the South.'' They'll usually grow and bloom, but they're not as fragrant as the ones you're used to. Terri Foss at ``All Thumbs'' garden designers has done a lot with lilacs locally and sells the ones that will grow here. Her number is 623-6335.
My clematis are flourishing, thanks to you, but something is still dining on nearly all the things growing in my yard. Please forgive me for sending a dead insect to you, and I hope it does not decompose before you get a good look at it. I believe this bug is the culprit. The leaves of my morning glory, mahonia, clematis and angel-wing begonia all have holes in most of their leaves.
I never see anything in the daytime but at night, with a flashlight, I find these little bugs hopping on the affected plants. I believe it must be some relation to the cricket but smaller, with a yellow stripe around its main body part. These critters seem to sleep in the young, curled up leaves of the angel-wing begonias on my deck. Do these bugs eat at night and hide during the day?
I caught another one last week and took it to Ghent Gardens. They told me it was a mole cricket. They said I should spray with diazinon. I did so, apparently rubbing my eyes in the process and woke up with my eyes swollen shut. After visiting the opthamologist, I went to the library to look up mole crickets. Brittanica says they are not true crickets. The insect pictured is definitely not the bug in my yard. Mole crickets live underground and feed on plant roots. I still can't tell whether the diazinon did as good a number on the bugs as it did on me. Can you help?
Betty Brigman, Norfolk
Entomologist Peter Schultz at the Hampton Roads Research Center identified your bug as a ``camel cricket,'' so Ghent Gardens was half right. The camel cricket (Daihinia brevipes) is found primarily in the Great Plains states and is injurious to tomatoes, watermelon, cotton, cowpeas and other plants in the seedling state. It feeds at night and is found mostly in sandy areas.
Diazinon should provide adequate control. Poison bran-mash bait also gives satisfactory control, according to ``The Gardener's Bug Book,'' by Cynthia Westcott. Westcott's book is out of print, but gardeners who want to know more about bugs should look for the book in used book stores.
I have a serious infestation of the pervasive Creeping Charlie (Pennywort) weed. I have eradicated it in my lawn with chemicals, and I persistently dig it out of my organic vegetable garden. Alas, it is beyond my control in a beautiful perennial and bulb garden, where I cannot apply a weed killer. Is there a solution short of digging everything up to eliminate this obnoxious headache?
Mrs. Joan W. McCall, Edenton, N.C.
You're right to believe it's not an easy job. Virginia Tech experts say your weed will give up if you continuously pull off the tops. Dig the roots if you can, but at least keep pulling off the tops. MEMO: No gardening questions will be taken over the phone. Write to Robert
Stiffler, The Virginian-Pilot, 150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, Va.
23510. For an earlier reply, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope. by CNB