Proper pruning will bring more rose blooms
Q. I started a cutting of a Dr. Van Fleet rose that was growing at my grandmother’s home for years. I planted it on the east side of my house, and the second year it was covered with blooms. Since then I get mostly long stems and just one flower. Any suggestions?
A. Avoid excess nitrogen fertilizer that encourages lots of stem growth at the expense of flowers.
Also, fine-tune your pruning to encourage more blossoms. Dr. Van Fleet is a rambler (a sport of this rose became the popular NewDawn rose). Prune out dead branches to the ground in early spring. Wait to do any additional pruning until right after flowering.
Only shorten the canes as needed to manage the overall size. Prune side shoots (laterals) back to about 4 to 6 inches to stimulate flowering. Train the longer canes to grow horizontally so they produce more flowering side shoots.
Q. The leaves and flowers of my once-gorgeous impatiens have been eaten. Only the stem remains. This just happened within the last week and all but a couple of pots have been attacked. Your advice would be appreciated.
A. When whole leaves and flowers are devoured in a short time, I suspect animals. Insects eat smaller holes in the leaves that can coalesce over time rather than larger plant parts seemingly overnight.
Watch for signs of squirrels, rabbits, woodchucks and deer that eat impatiens. They usually feed when we are not watching and can quickly damage our plants.
You can try repellents, but these are usually most effective when applied before the animals start feeding. Scare tactics may discourage them, but urban animals are used to the scent and sounds of human activity.
Try covering the plants to prevent feeding or moving them to a lessinviting
location. And consider applying animal repellents next year before they start feeding.
Email questions to Melinda Myers through melindaymyers.com, or write her at P.O. Box 798, Mukwonago, WI 53149.
Melinda Myers was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Garden Writers Association, now called The Association for Garden Communicators, earlier this month at the group’s annual awards and honors dinner in Buffalo, N.Y.
It is the highest honor the group bestows.
According to the group’s president, Kirk Brown, “Melinda has worked tirelessly to communicate the pleasures and life values of gardening throughout her entire career.” Myers, who has a master’s degree in horticulture, is a certified arborist and was a horticulture instructor with tenure. She has more than 35 years of horticulture experience.
She has written more than 20 books, she hosts the nationally-syndicated “Melinda’s Garden Moment” program, now in its 11th season, and hosts an internationally distributed gardening DVD series. She’s a columnist with not only the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel but also Birds & Blooms magazine, Chicagoland Gardening and Wisconsin Gardening.
Previously, she hosted “The Plant Doctor” radio show for more 20 years as well as seven seasons of “Great Lakes Gardener” on PBS.
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Myers honored