Ferns, roses and sweet potatoes
Fern care: Remove burnt or dead fronds from ferns. This will encourage more new fronds, also known as croziers or fiddleheads, to emerge. Established ferns are extremely durable and drought-tolerant due to their rhizomes. Even if a clump of established ferns is neglected for some time, it will return to its previous glory upon being cleaned up, with old growth removed, and watered. Sword fern (Nephrolepis cordifolia) is the most rampant grower among the group. It is considered invasive by some, but this depends on where it is planted and how it is maintained. It is hardy down to 25degrees. Sword fern is one of the few ground covers that grows reliably under pine trees, because pine needles fall between its fronds without ill effect. If it starts looking peaked, cut it down to the ground and, within no time, it will be sending up fresh fiddleheads.
Die, ants!: Control ants to keep sucking insect pests out of your woody perennials. Ants have a major interest in the success of these sapsuckers. Pests such as aphids — sometimes referred to as “ant cows” — and scales especially, but mealybugs and whiteflies, too, excrete a sticky substance called honeydew that is a food source for ants. Ants also carry pests from one branch to another — whether on the same plant or to a neighboring specimen. Exclude ants from woody shrubs and trees by tying an old silk stocking around the trunk (or trunks) and slathering it with petroleum jelly, or you can purchase a product known as Tanglefoot that serves the same purpose. The ants get trapped on the sticky substance. You may need to change the stocking occasionally since an accumulation of stuck ants can serve as a bridge trod upon by other ants on their way up the trunk.
Fruit prevention: Eliminate undesirable fruit by spraying a product such as Florel whose active ingredient is Ethephon. Ethephon stimulates the release of ethylene, a naturally occurring plant hormone that is responsible for physiological processes such as ripening, maturation and senescence. (If you wish to speed up the ripening of a pear or avocado, put it in a bag with a ripening, ethylene-releasing banana.) By spraying Ethephon on olive flowers, the flowers die before the fruit
— a nuisance where it falls on parked cars — can form. By spraying it on liquidambar flowers, you prevent the development of those annoying spiked seed capsules; by spraying it on flowers of a volunteer loquat tree, you can prevent a crop of insipid and often messy loquats (named varieties are sweet), and by spraying on oak flowers you can prevent acorns.
Sweet advice: The sweet potato growing process can be started now. Unlike common potatoes, whose shoots grow from eyes, sweet potato shoots sprout from the end of the tuber. Sweet potatoes belong to the morning glory family, while regular potatoes that are members of the nightshade family. Cut a sweet potato in half and place the two pieces in a pot of soil, cut side down, leaving the ends uncovered, or balance each half potato on the rim of a jar or glass of water with toothpicks as you would an avocado seed that you wish to germinate. Eventually, you will see slips (shoots) reach 6 inches in length, a good size for planting. When detached from the tuber, some slips may have roots and some not. Those with roots attached may be planted, while those without roots can be rooted in a glass of water before planting. Plant slips 12-18inches apart in full sun and you will have large tubers in the ground sometime in the fall. There are two types of sweet potatoes: firm when cooked (white to yellow flesh) and soft when cooked (orange flesh), the latter often mistakenly referred to as yams. True yams — with rough, dark skin and white flesh — are found in specialty markets. You may want to purchase organic sweet potatoes for this process since others may be sprayed with a chemical that inhibits sprouting.
A rose champion: In honor of Jack Christensen, plant one of the rose varieties that he hybridized. Christensen, who passed away just over a year ago, authored the “5 things to do in the garden this week” recommendations given here for 25 years. He was also an accomplished rose hybridizer, having created more than 80varieties. Perhaps his best-known rose is “Voodoo,” a hybrid tea and All-America Rose selection in 1986. Its huge blooms are 5-6inches in size, sporting 35petals. Flowers emerge orange and pink, transitioning to scarlet. Foliage is a rich, glossy green. “Voodoo” has an outstanding fragrance and is disease-resistant and long-lasting in vase arrangements. “Gold Medal,” a grandiflora rose of Christensen’s creation, is included among the “Fifty Immortal Roses” listed in “The Rose Bible,” the most authoritative yet easy-to-read book on growing roses I have found. The author, Rayford Reddell, regales “Gold Medal” as “the best rose of the 1980s . ... The petals of its blossoms are a dazzling combination of golden yellow with tawny edges. The overall effect is simultaneously pleasing and cheerful. As if their color weren’t enough, blooms are notably fragrant, too.”