Sun, infrequent watering can help bougainvilleas bloom
Question: Lots of bougainvilleas are blooming in my area. What can I do to get my plants to look like these?
Answer: Providing benign neglect is the best way to have bougainvilleas in bloom each year. Some of the best-flowering bougainvilleas are found in full sun with infrequent watering. Also, keep fertilizer applications to March, May and early October. If given too good of care, the plants luxuriate and put on lots of growth with few blooms. Try to find a spot for your plants where they can grow with minimal pruning. When pruning is needed, do the trimming by midsummer so new growth has time to mature by fall, which is the start of a new blooming cycle.
Q: I managed to save a geranium from last year that is struggling. What can I do to make it healthy again?
A: Feel lucky your plant made it through the heat and frequent rains of summer, which often cause geraniums to decline. Start the revival by giving your plant a new container with fresh soil. Carefully remove an intact, but what may be a limited, root system and provide a container of a similar size or a bit larger than the old one. If the root system is reduced due to rot and decline, a smaller container may be fine. Keep the plant in full sun with moist but not overly wet soil. Apply a slow-release fertilizer made for container plants or use a liquid fertilizer every other week following label instructions. In about a month, your plant should be in full bloom like you remember.
Q: We received a phalaenopsis orchid as a gift that is still flowering. How long will it continue to bloom and what care is needed?
A: Orchids are gifts that can keep on giving. Phalaenopsis orchids, also known as moth orchids, have been known to flower for months in the home. Find a place with bright light but not full sun. Keep the plant out of high air movement as from air conditioners or heaters. Water once or twice a week and skip the fertilizer until the plant is ready to move outdoors.
When flowering stops, find your plant a bright but shady spot under a tree or on a sheltered patio. Keep moist and fertilize every other week with an orchid product spring through fall. Old flower stems and declining leaves can be removed as needed. Many phalaenopsis orchids are gifted in containers without adequate drainage. Your plant may benefit from a new container with fresh potting mix when moved outdoors.
Q: Each year, you do not recommend giving crape myrtles a major pruning. Why?
A: Frankly, pruning crape myrtles each year is work. Next, unless the plants are growing in the wrong place, there is very little benefit from a harsh pruning. Studies have shown crape myrtles assume a nice shape when let grow naturally and produce as many or more blooms. Granted, a severe trimming concentrates the blooms on the new stems, but the plants have an abnormal appearance. When left to grow naturally, the blooms are just as many but dispersed uniformly over attractive shrub or tree forms. Feel free to get your exercise removing old seed heads, entangled branches and shoots from the base, but this is all that might be needed.
Q: I purchased lettuce transplants that grew leaves but now appear to be flowering. Is there a way to prevent flowering to obtain more leaves?
A: Lettuce is a bit finicky when it comes to producing a harvest. The crop prefers consistently cool weather but no freeze. Regretfully, fall and early winter days are inconsistently warm and cool, which encourages the plants to initiate flowering — a process called bolting. Early plantings are likely to be affected the most.
One cure is to make frequent sowings and harvest the young leaves before the plants begin to bolt. Another control is to
make plantings a bit later in the season during December, January and February, when the weather is more consistently cool. Some varieties may be slower to bolt and are said to be heat tolerant. Check the labels for this feature.
Q: I planted viburnums and crape myrtles a year ago. When is the best time to prune them?
A: Have a little more patience and wait another
month to do the pruning. Around mid-February is the best time to break out the trimmers for plants about ready to begin spring growth. Be kind to crape myrtles and only remove seed pods and entangled limb portions.
Viburnums can be left to grow naturally by selectively removing out-ofbounds shoots or tipping limbs back to where more shoots are needed. These plants can also be trimmed
to a hedge form but leave a little new growth at each pruning to prevent forming thickets of twigs at the top and sides of the plants.