THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 24, 1996 TAG: 9603220109
SECTION: HOME PAGE: G3 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: GARDENING
SOURCE: ROBERT STIFFLER
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
Your flower and vegetable gardening advice is enlightening and helpful to me. I feel I should write at least a brief note of thanks for the clematis guide. I also appreciate your advice on how to change the colors of my hydrangeas, enrich my garden soil, how to use Epsom salts in my rose bed, lime my fig tree and asparagus bed, how to distinguish earwigs from other insects, when to sow my peas and fall squash and all the other vegetables. But now, what is wrong when daffodils fail to bloom, or my mottled leaf acuba never has pretty red berries?
Jane R. Hopkins, Norfolk
Thanks for your kind words. Daffodils fail to bloom when they are in too much shade, get too much nitrogen fertilizer or are too crowded. Most often it is from being overcrowded or in too much shade.
Acuba has berries only when it's a female plant and you have a male nearby. Unfortunately, they're not identified as male or female in nurseries, so you never know if your plant will produce berries. Many gardeners, including me for many years, did not even know that acuba could bear red berries.
I am enclosing a piece of what is supposed to be a Japanese flowering apricot tree. This is its fourth winter, and it's approximately 10 feet tall but has never bloomed. It is in full sun. Is it a Prunus mume and if so, when will it bloom? A woman at the nursery where we bought it said that the blooms are near the trunk, which is not how the article describing George McAtee's tree sounded.
Marguerite Kerris, Exmore.
Your tree is a Prunus mume. Leave it alone and it will bloom. Often flowering trees do not bloom until they are 7 years old. Don't fertilize the tree, and you should get blooms in February when the tree is ready to bloom. There are different varieties, and you are correct in that George McAtee's did not bloom close to the trunk. It bloomed at the end of its limbs, like most cherry trees. The nursery person may have been thinking of Redbud, which has blooms that hug its trunk and limbs.
Your response to William Carroll's question in November, regarding the suggested planting time for lima beans has prompted this comment. In Currituck County, butter beans can generally be planted from early to mid-April. Good Friday is considered by most old-timers to be the best planting day of the year, and many vegetables can be planted that day, with full harvest expected to begin July 4. Many of my friends, however, are having problems with butter beans germinating. One article I read suggested that the parent seed stock is becoming exhausted.
For two years in a row, my friend's mother, Cornell Dzwonek, and I have visited the camellia shows and sales that you mention in your column. Virginia Camellia Society members have been cordial and the competition has been well worth seeing. We have been disappointed, however, with the plants offered for sale. Would you suggest a good place to acquire camellias? I have more than 30 varieties, and Mrs. Dzwonek even has one of the yellow-blooming varieties that are just now starting to appear in this country.
Roy Sawyer Jr.,
Powells Point, N.C.
It's clear that gardeners don't agree on when to plant lima or butter beans. When the soil is cold, peas and lima beans will not germinate, so I think the philosophy of ``being first'' is a little crazy. This year, Good Friday is April 5, which is earlier than state universities recommend for planting butter beans.
As to camellia sources, you can try mail-order nurseries but you will receive small plants. One is Camellia Forest Nursery, Box 291, Chapel Hill, N.C. 27516. Its catalog costs $1.
I still believe camellia shows are your best bet, but you're probably disappointed in the size of the plants. Most are air-layered, grown by members, so the plants are small. They usually offer a wider variety than garden centers.
I am 74 and after 26 years, my pecan tree is bearing pecans. My father-in-law sent the tree 26 years ago. It was a grafted tree from Galveston, Texas. It only came to my shoulders then, but I wish he could see it now. It grew fine and healthy but after the first few nuts partially developed, they dropped off, still in the hull. It has provided excellent shade but now is truly putting forth nuts. I have picked buckets and buckets of these easy-to-crack, delicious paper-shell pecans.
Last fall you answered a letter about why trees do not produce wholesome pecans and suggested the soil be treated with zinc sulfate. A friend suggested we try lime first, so I put an entire bag under my gigantic tree. Now we have a bountiful crop of pecans.
Mrs. R.J. Magill Jr. Chesapeake
I'm glad to get your letter. In 21 years of writing this column, no one has ever suggested putting lime under a pecan tree to get it to bear. That proves again that gardeners know better than anyone else what will work in their garden. Readers who have pecan trees that are not bearing could experiment and do as Mrs. Magill did - so you won't have to wait 26 years for pecans. Adding lime sometimes also helps figs produce better.
A couple of months ago your column had a letter about a red-bellied land snake. I cut that out and sent it to my mother in New York City. She, through me, has also become an avid reader of your column. She now wants one of those snakes. Do you have any more info on them than what we read in the paper? Do you know where I might find one of these snakes?
Sue Lynch, Suffolk
Sorry, but the red-bellied snake is rare and found only in the wild. They're great to control slugs, but they're not for sale. MEMO: No gardening questions will be taken over the phone. Write to Robert
Stiffler, The Virginian-Pilot, 150 W. Brambleton Ave., Norfolk, Va.
23510. Answers will be published on a space-available basis. For an
earlier reply, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Daffodils won't bloom if they are too shaded or overcrowded.
by CNB