November 19, 2003

Dear Editors:

Fall is playing its here-today-gone-tomorrow game as this packet is coming together, but it won’t be long until fall gets serious, soon to be followed by winter. This packet of MSU lawn and garden stories is timely for your use during December, January and February. Topics include holiday flowering plants, gifts for gardeners and winter mulch. Other stories anticipate the coming of another growing season, with tips on selecting varieties and choosing and preparing a site for strawberries. The Garden Corner, with its gardening questions and answers, is also on hand, as usual.

The spring packet is barely in the planning stages, but it’s not too early to forward story ideas and questions for The Garden Corner. After all, it won’t be long before the seed catalogs appear in our mailboxes, reminding us that another growing season is coming, even if the lawn and garden are still locked in winter’s grip. Other comments and suggestions are also welcome – it’s good to hear from you!

Sincerely,

Leslie Johnson
Extension Lawn and Garden Editor
ANR Communications
312 Agriculture Hall, MSU
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039

LKJ/bl
11/19/03

Contact: Leslie Johnson

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- The lawn and garden may be covered with snow, but gardeners looking back at last year’s effort and ahead to a new growing season are never short of questions. Michigan State University Extension specialists answer questions on topics ranging from vegetable gardening and houseplants to insect pests.

17. What Asian vegetables could I grow easily in my Michigan garden?

1. If you can successfully grow English peas, try Chinese snow peas. They do best in soil rich in organic matter, phosphorus and potassium, and in full sun. Sow in early spring and provide even dwarf varieties a trellis to climb on. Harvest the pods when peas are just beginning to make the pods bulge -- usually five to seven days after flowering. Asparagus beans or yardlong beans thrive in average garden soil and full sun. They need a tall, sturdy support to climb on. A warm-weather crop, they should be sown after the danger of frost is past and the soil has warmed up. Harvest the beans when they’re about half the diameter of a pencil. Harvesting keeps the plants producing. If root crops are your specialty, try daikon, a crisp, long white radish that’s very popular in Japan. It does best in loose, fertile soil and full sun. Plant this cool-season crop in early spring or late summer, thin to proper spacing and keep plants well watered in dry times to keep the roots tender. The roots can be stored for several months in a refrigerator, root cellar or cool basement in damp sand. Pak choi or bok choi is a member of the cabbage family. It’s grown for its white leaf stems. It does best in full sun and rich, loose, well-drained soil with plenty of organic matter. Plant with daikon in early spring or late summer.

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17. Where does vanilla come from?

1. Natural vanilla comes from the seed pod of the vanilla orchid, Vanilla planifolia, a vining orchid from the tropics. Most vanilla production takes place in Mexico and Madagascar.

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17. What are museum beetles?

1. This is another name for the beetles we usually call carpet or larder beetles. In museums, these dermestid beetles are used to clean up bones that are going to be used in museum displays. The adults lay their eggs on material from dead animals, and the larvae feed on the flesh, hair, feathers or fur. A problem can occur if the clean-up beetles get into mounted animals or insect collections -- they’re just as likely to feed there as on wool carpets, leather gloves or the dead bat in the attic of your home.

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17. What causes the leaves and flowers to fall off my poinsettia plants?

1. Drafts, hot or cold, can cause leaf drop. So can over- or underwatering or exposure to cold temperatures. The brightly colored parts of the poinsettia that we tend to think of as flowers are actually bracts, colored leaves that surround the true flowers, the small, yellowish green, buttonlike structures. To keep your poinsettia looking good as long as possible, make sure it’s well wrapped before you take it from the florist’s to your car and from the car to the house, place it where it will receive plenty of bright light but be free from hot or cold drafts, and water when the top inch of soil feels dry. Make sure excess water can drain away so roots aren’t sitting in water for long periods.

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17. What kind of potting medium is used for orchids?

1. For best results, pot or repot orchids in a commercially prepared mix consisting largely of chunks of fir bark.

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17. I’ve never had much luck growing ferns indoors, and now someone has given me yet another one. What can I do with this one to keep it from turning brown and losing its fronds?

1. Most ferns are native to tropical areas where they live in the rain forest understory. This means they’re adapted to high humidity, filtered light, high soil moisture and temperatures somewhat cooler than the average home. To keep a fern thriving, place it in a cool area with indirect light and find a way to increase the relative humidity in the air around it. A room humidifier is one way. Double potting the fern and filling the space between the two pots with moistened pea gravel or sphagnum moss is another. Placing the fern and other moisture-loving plants together on a tray of moistened gravel or aquarium stone is another. Water your fern when the top surface of the soil is just beginning to feel dry.

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17. I know there’s nothing I can do about spring bulbs that begin to come up during a midwinter thaw, but I’m wondering if they’ll bloom this year.

1. Bulbs that start to push up leaves during a winter warm spell may have their leaves nipped back by freezing temperatures but should be OK unless the warm weather lasts long enough to bring the flower buds above the soil surface. Then the flowers are likely to freeze when the cold weather returns, but the bulbs themselves will probably survive and come back next year.

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17. What causes the flower buds of gloxinias to dry up and drop off the plants before they have a chance to open?

1. Temperatures that are too warm (above 65 to 75 degrees), poor drainage or underwatering can cause buds to dry, turn brown and drop, as can botrytis blight, which can be spread by cyclamen mites.

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17. Is it true that pillbugs and sowbugs are more closely related to lobsters and shrimp than to insects?

1. Sowbugs and pillbugs are crustaceans, like shrimp and crayfish. Like insects, they are members of the larger group called arthropods, as are spiders, mites and ticks. These eight-legged arthropods are classified as arachnids. Millipedes and centipedes are also arthropods but not insects. Insects have three distinct body sections: a head with eyes, mouth and one pair of segmented antennae; a thorax, with six legs and, usually, wings in the adult stage; and an abdomen. Arachnids have two body sections and eight legs. Most crustaceans live in water. They also have more than two antennae and more than six legs.

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17. What is that white crusty stuff in my houseplant pots?

1. That crusty stuff is soluble salts from fertilizer. If it forms on pot rims, it can burn plant foliage that rests on it. You can scrape it off of pot rims and soil, then add new soil mix as needed. Avoid fertilizing plants in winter, when they’re not actively growing. During the growing season, if you fertilize regularly, leach the pot occasionally to wash excess fertilizer salts through the soil and out the drainage holes in the bottom. To do this, hold the pot over a sink or bucket and pour water through the soil as fast as the soil can take it. Use several times as much water as the pot would hold if it were empty. At regular watering times, add water until some drains out of the bottom, then empty the excess from the saucer.

#lkj#

ANR Communications
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Contact: L. Johnson or M. McLellan
Telephone: 517-432-1555 or 353-3774
11/19/03

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- So, how does your garden grow? Do plants march in orderly rows or sprawl hither and yon? Is it formal and restrained, with carefully manicured lawn areas and paths and precisely pruned shrubs, or informal, with plants finding their own forms and flowers running rampant? Does your garden have a theme?

Theme gardens? Think of an Oriental garden with its mostly green color scheme and its mixture of plants, stones, paths, benches and other structures, and water, all contributing to a peaceful, understated elegance. Or an English cottage garden, a riot of colorful annuals and perennials with an informal, old-fashioned look that takes more planning than you might think to achieve.

"Theme gardens can be large or small," says Mary McLellan, Extension Master Gardener program coordinator at Michigan State University, "from a small bed or a border to a big chunk of the landscape."

A vegetable garden could include one or more themes, such as a heritage garden (old varieties grown by generations of gardeners), an Indian garden, a salad garden (a selection of lettuces and other greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, radishes, green onions, etc.) or a pizza garden (tomatoes, basil, oregano, green peppers, etc.). A butterfly garden -- plants with flowers attractive to butterflies -- could be a separate part of a perennials bed, or the plants could be interspersed with other perennials and annuals.

A wildflower meadow could be established in a corner of the yard delineated by a split-rail fence or confined to a flower bed or allowed to take over a larger expanse of yard. Once sod is removed and perennial weeds such as quackgrass are controlled, native plants and seeds will start to make a comeback. The addition of prairie wildflowers in clumps and drifts, ornamental grasses, native woody plants and mowed paths enhances the eye appeal and speed the conversion from lawn to garden.

A rock garden is also a theme garden, McLellan notes. A few rocks in a flower bed doesn’t make a rock garden, however -- native rocks buried halfway or more in a hillside or mound set the stage for small, delicate-looking, often low-growing, spreading plants. Dwarf evergreens can be added for accent and texture and height.

A raised-bed kitchen garden of salad vegetables, annual flowers for cutting and culinary herbs may be located the traditional few steps from the back door or wherever a mostly sunny location is available. It can include wide rows for maximum production in a small space, as well as trellises for pole beans and vertical culture of vining crops such as cucumbers.

"These more or less traditional theme-type gardens are some of the possibilities, but many others could be put together," McLellan observes. "If you have plants handed down from family members, you could combine them into an ancestors’ garden. A shade garden is a sort of theme garden, too, as is a water garden or one featuring desert-type plants. A display organized around a certain color is a color theme garden; one made up only of plants from a certain family -- all hostas, for instance -- is organized around that relationship."

If your garden is organized around what you like, with no particular regard to any theme or style, that doesn’t mean it’s styleless -- it’s eclectic!

"A little of this, a little of that arranged in some sort of order -- if you like it, who’s going to argue?" she says.

#lkj#

ANR Communications
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Contact: L. Johnson or M. McLellan
Telephone: 517-432-1555 or 353-3774
11/19/03

GARDEN CAN GET GOING
WELL BEFORE END OF MAY

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Ah, winter! Last year’s garden is a snow-covered memory, and this year’s is a colorful promise in the form of a pile of seed catalogs.

The gardening season will be here sooner than you think, however, especially if you’re thinking that you can’t do much before Memorial Day.

"Garden planting not only can start weeks before that -- it should," says Mary McLellan, Extension Master Gardener coordinator at Michigan State University. "Some crops can be planted much earlier than that and actually do better if they are."

These so-called cool-weather crops can be sown or transplanted when the soil is still cool and frost is still possible. They include lettuce, spinach, beets, carrots, onions, radishes and peas. All of them grow best in cool weather and have some frost resistance. Somewhat later, you can plant the cabbage family plants -- cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, etc. -- and potatoes.

Those grown from seed will do better if you warm the soil a bit, McLellan notes. Removing mulch and covering the soil with black plastic enhances the warming effect of sunlight. Warming the soil speeds seed germination.

Another way to get an early start is to germinate seeds before you plant them. Pre-germinated seeds will take off and grow in soil that would have been too cold for them to germinate in, McLellan notes.

The easiest way to germinate seeds before planting is to fold them in a moist paper towel, place the paper towel in a plastic bag and place the bag somewhere warm -- the top of the refrigerator, for instance. Most seeds will germinate in a few days. Check the seeds daily so you can plant them when the majority have sprouted and before the roots get long enough to be easily broken.

Tactics such as hot caps, little greenhouses made from plastic milk jugs and other season extenders can be used to start frost-sensitive crops before the danger of frost is past. Success with them depends on warming the soil, McLellan points out.

"You may save your pepper plants from frost, but if they’re sitting in cold soil, they won’t grow and the roots might rot," she says. "The same is true of warm-weather crops from seed, such as beans and sweet corn. Warm the soil first, then plant and apply your season extenders, and you’ll be rewarded with an early harvest."

Extending the season in the spring rather than the fall makes sense for several reasons. First, it’s easier to warm the soil in a small area and protect a few plants from frost in the spring than to try to shield vast areas of tender crops in the fall. Also, gardening enthusiasm is likely to be running a little higher in the spring, and that may make the extra effort to get the garden going early seem more worthwhile. By fall, you might be almost eager for frost! And probably most important, the spring weather is so well suited for growing cool-weather crops that it’s simply a shame not to take advantage of it.

"So it may be winter now, but spring will be here before long," McLellan observes. "Once the ground is thawed, planting can start as soon as the soil is dry enough to work. If you tilled it in the fall, you already have a head start. Get the cool-weather crops in early so they can grow when they grow best, and you’ll be enjoying an early harvest of salad vegetables, peas and green onions while the warm-weather crops are still being planted."

#lkj#

ANR Communications
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Contact: L. Johnson or M. McLellan
Telephone: 517-432-1555 or 353-3774
11/19/03

GARDEN PLANNING? WHY NOT INCLUDE
ORNAMENTAL VEGETABLES?

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Seed catalogs list flowers and vegetables separately, but that’s no reason to keep them apart in the garden.

Mary McLellan, Extension Master Gardener program coordinator at Michigan State University, suggests that gardeners, especially those with limited space, treat vegetables as decorative plants and mingle them with flowers.

"Think of a border of mixed lettuces, including some red varieties, with a backdrop of spinach or parsley and, behind that, colorful peppers alternating with large yellow marigolds or multicolored snapdragons," she suggests.

Many vegetables have been developed for container culture and can add color and interest to a patio or deck. Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, for instance, offer fruits in a wide variety of colors, shapes and sizes. Bush varieties of summer and winter squash could also grow in containers or mingle with annuals in a sunny flower bed. Their large leaves and general shape would contrast nicely with finer textured spreading or vertical annuals such as petunias, salvia or cleome (spider flower).

Perennial vegetables such as rhubarb and asparagus can play a landscape role, adding their radically different textures and forms to a perennials bed alongside a fence or building. Climbing beans can go anywhere morning glories or other climbing vines can go and serve the same screening function. The bonus is that they produce an edible crop, also.

Herbs offer a variety of foliage textures and colors. The new purple basil varieties can contrast with other largely green herbs or blend into a colorful annual border. Dill can play a taller role in a bed or border.

"The new rule in combining plants is that there are no rules any more," McLellan sums up. "Just as it’s OK to have a separate vegetable garden in the backyard and flowers in front of the house, it’s OK to take advantage of the ornamental traits of vegetables by mixing them with your annual and perennial flowers."

So, as you peruse the new seed catalogs and make out your seed order, think in terms of color, shape, texture and form, and you may see vegetables in a whole new light.

#lkj#

ANR Communications
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Contact: L. Johnson or M. McLellan
Telephone: 517-432-1555 or 353-3774
11/19/03

GIFTS FOR GARDENERS?
DON’T HAVE TO LOOK FAR

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- If there’s a problem person to buy for on your holiday gift list, chances are he or she’s not a gardener.

"You don’t have to look far for gift ideas for people who like to grow plants," says Mary McLellan, Extension Master Gardener program coordinator at Michigan State University.

"If you don’t know what a person’s special interest is, you can’t go too far wrong with a gift certificate to the local nursery or garden center," she suggests.

Then, whether the recipient needs seeds, vegetable plants, greenhouse supplies, gardening gloves, tools, landscape ornamentals, fertilizer, wild bird food and feeders, bedding plants or you-name-it, he can get just what he wants when he needs it.

If you know that someone likes irises or hosta or ornamental grasses or is thinking about getting into water gardening, leafing through the ads in a couple of gardening magazines will turn up specialty catalogs that you can send for. Tuck a gift certificate into a catalog and wrap it in a bit of paper and ribbon for a thoughtful gift.

The truly lucky shopper is the one who knows of a specific tool or book or plant that someone wants or needs.

"Maybe your brother-in-law has been borrowing your bulb planter for several years," McLellan suggests. "You can approach this in a couple of ways -- either buy him the tool he’s been borrowing or buy him something you want so the borrowing can run both ways!"

Early winter isn’t exactly prime planting time, so if your gift is to be a shrub or tree or favorite perennial, a gift certificate and a catalog with the item boldly circled or an IOU for a plant from your garden when it’s time to divide and replant perennials may be the way to go.

A subscription to your favorite gardening magazine is another possibility, if you know the person isn’t already a subscriber. Someone who’s in the habit of buying from the same firms every year might enjoy a selection of catalogs from other companies.

If you have a small greenhouse, you could give a friend a reservation for greenhouse space or offer to start her tomatoes and peppers for her. An older gardener might greatly appreciate an IOU from you that he can redeem for garden tilling or a few hours of planting or weeding assistance. For an apartment-dwelling friend, you could give a "deed" to a certain amount of space in your garden in the coming growing season.

"Cuttings from favorite plants, an attractive vase or decorative plant pot, packets of your favorite annuals from seed or a new squash variety – the list of possible gift ideas goes on and on," McLellan says. "It could even include a gift enrollment in your local Master Gardener class, a one-day workshop on some gardening topic, a trip to a special garden, or a donation in the recipient’s name to the 4-H Children’s Garden at MSU or the MSU Horticultural Demonstration Gardens. Your county MSU Extension office has more information on Master Gardener programs and donation possibilities."

#lkj#

ANR Communications
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Contact: L. Johnson or M. McLellan
Telephone: 517-432-1555 or 353-3774
11/19/03

GREEN THUMB SECRET: THE RIGHT
PLANT IN THE RIGHT PLACE

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Call it luck or a green thumb, but what success with houseplants often boils down to is matchmaking -- matching a plant’s needs with the growing conditions in your home.

"Your chances of success increase significantly when you put a plant in an environment that provides the light and humidity levels and temperatures it needs," says Mary McLellan, Extension Master Gardener program coordinator at Michigan State University. "Put it in an adverse environment -- too dark, too hot, too dry, too cold, whatever -- and you may lose it."

Some houseplants have a well-deserved reputation for tolerating a wide range of light intensities, humidity levels and temperatures, she notes. Plants such as dumbcane (Dieffenbachia), corn plant (Dracena fragrans), Indian rubber plant (Ficus elastica), philodendron, devil’s ivy (Scindapsus aureus), pothos and sansevieria are common in homes, offices and public buildings because they will not only survive but thrive in less than ideal conditions.

Others are more difficult to grow because they need more bright light or higher humidity levels or much cooler temperatures than the average home or office can provide. Ferns, spider plant (Chlorphytum comosum) and prayer plant (Maranta leuconeura) may be lush and green when they enter your home, but they typically turn brown around the edges in the dry-as-a-desert air of a heated home. Flowering plants that come into the home in bloom may never flower again because of low light levels or certain temperature requirements.

Indoor gardeners can expand the range of plants that will thrive in the home if they are willing to modify the natural growing conditions, McLellan points out. Adding fluorescent fixtures to increase light levels and using a room humidifier to change light and moisture levels are relatively easy and inexpensive ways to make the environment more suitable for certain plants. Growing plants that need high relative humidity in terrariums is another way to increase the variety of plants that will thrive in your home.

If dry air indoors in winter is such a problem -- and it is -- one solution would appear to be growing cacti and succulents instead of tropical plants.

"This works only if you realize that these plants are adapted to dry environments," McLellan says. "They don’t need a lot of water even when they’re growing, and in winter they’re not growing, so they need almost no water. Too much water leads to root rots and dead plants. Neglect kills far fewer cacti than too much water."

#lkj#

ANR Communications
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Contact: L. Johnson or M. McLellan
Telephone: 517-432-1555 or 353-3774
11/19/03

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- A living Christmas tree need not be the traditional pine or spruce to give you years of enjoyment. A large houseplant can hold small, lightweight ornaments and then, after the holidays, take its place in your indoor landscape.

Favorite large-scale houseplants include parlor palm, dieffenbachia, schefflera and rubber plant, or ficus, says Mary McLellan, Extension Master Gardener program coordinator at Michigan State University. If you want a more traditional evergreen look, there’s always Norfolk Island pine.

These plants are well adapted to an indoor climate, though all will benefit from higher than normal in-home humidity levels, she notes.

"The most common care problem with these plants is overwatering," McLellan points out. "Plant roots need air as well as water. Roots that sit in waterlogged soil die and rot, and eventually the whole plant dies. Even plants in pots with drainage holes can get too much water, and those in pots without drainage are seriously at risk."

To decorate large houseplants, use small, lightweight ornaments -- tinsel, bows, tiny glass balls, small artificial birds, etc. -- and cool lights, she suggests. Spotlighting the plant is another lighting possibility. A tree skirt or colored felt could be draped over the plant pot, or that pot could be set inside another, more decorative one and the soil covered with small evergreen boughs for a woodsy look and smell. Small poinsettias could be added for holiday color.

#lkj#

ANR Communications
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Contact: L. Johnson or M. McLellan
Telephone: 517-432-1555 or 353-3774
11/19/03

PROPER CARE KEEPS
HOLIDAY PLANTS FLOWERING

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- Flowering plants add splashes of living color to the holiday season. Proper care keeps them flowering and attractive.

"The exact care requirements of flowering plants vary slightly from one to another," observes Mary McLellan, Extension Master Gardener program coordinator at Michigan State University. "Following the care labels that come with them is the best idea, but some general recommendations apply to all of them."

Most flowering plants -- from amaryllis to azalea, Christmas pepper, holiday cacti and poinsettia -- do best when they receive plenty of light. Because of short, often cloudy days, natural light may be in short supply around the holidays, so supplementing natural light with bright light from fluorescent tubes is often recommended.

The prescription for watering holiday flowering plants sounds like something out of Goldilocks and the Three Bears -- you want to apply not too little and not too much.

"Applying just the right amount of water usually translates into watering whenever the soil surface begins to feel dry," McLellan says. "If containers have drainage holes in the bottom, add water until some drains out, and don’t allow pots to stand in water for longer than a half-hour. Plants without drainage holes are easy to overwater," she cautions. "Roots need air as well as water -- if they stand too long in waterlogged soil, they rot and die."

The air inside most homes is extremely dry in winter, and that’s quite a contrast to the atmosphere in the greenhouses where plants were grown. Leaves may dry around the edges, and flower buds may fail to open and dry up or drop off. Using a humidifier will make the environment more comfortable for people, as well as plants, and keep furniture from drying out. Short of that, placing plants together on trays of moist gravel or in areas of the house that are naturally more humid, such as the kitchen or bathroom, will help prolong flowering.

"Keeping plants out of warm drafts and away from appliances that give off heat will help, too," McLellan adds.

Some plants, particularly poinsettias, don’t tolerate cold drafts, either, so they need to be placed where drafts from open doors and cold windows won’t swirl around them.

High temperatures often combine with low humidity to shorten the flowering period, so she recommends placing plants in cool areas. Temperatures of 65 to 75 degrees F during the daytime and 50 to 55 degrees at night are adequate for most plants except cyclamen and paperwhite narcissus, which do better if daytime temperatures don’t exceed 60 to 65 degrees.

Fertilizing usually isn’t necessary unless plants are going to be kept and rebloomed. This is practical with amaryllis and holiday cacti, but other flowering plants generally require temperature and/or light conditions that are difficult to achieve in the home.

"With proper care, they’ll stay looking good for some time," McLellan says. "Then you can discard them feeling that you got your money’s worth from them."

#lkj#

ANR Communications
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Contact: L. Johnson or M. McLellan
Telephone: 517-432-1555 or 353-3774
11/19/03

SITE IS KEY TO SUCCESS
WITH STRAWBERRIES

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- If you intend to plant strawberries this spring but you didn’t prepare the planting site last year, you would be well advised to buy fruit this year and next, and spend some time getting the site ready and the bed established.

Mary McLellan, Extension Master Gardener program coordinator at Michigan State University, says a well-chosen, well-prepared site is the key to success with strawberries.

The first thing to look for is a spot with well-drained soil and exposure to full sun, she advises.

"Strawberry roots won’t tolerate waterlogged soil, and plants need full sun for good production," she explains. "Low areas prone to standing water are also undesirable for another reason -- such areas are likely to suffer late spring frosts, which can kill strawberry flowers. No flowers means no berries."

If you’ll be converting lawn to garden space, she recommends removing or killing the grass and then working the soil for an entire season before planting strawberries the following spring.

"If you simply till the grass under, it will keep trying to make a comeback," she points out. "It’s much easier to eliminate grass and perennial weeds before you plant the strawberries than afterward. Working the soil regularly will also bring up seeds of annual weeds so they can germinate and be killed by the next round of tilling. You won’t get rid of all the seeds hidden in the soil, but you’ll reduce the number of weeds you’ll have to deal with after planting."

Turfgrass areas may also be thick with white grubs -- the larvae of June beetles, rose chafers and Japanese beetles -- which feed on grass roots. Remove the grass and the grubs will switch to whatever else is available -- in this case, strawberry roots.

Areas that have grown other crops may contain fewer weed seeds and insect pests, but gardeners should avoid planting strawberries in areas where strawberries, raspberries, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant or potatoes grew within the past four seasons. These plants all act as hosts for Verticillium wilt, a soil-borne fungal disease that kills strawberry plants, McLellan explains.

You can plant strawberries as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring. Tilling and incorporating organic matter in the fall before planting can give you a head start on spring planting, she suggests.

What varieties you select depend on how you intend to use the harvest and when you want it. June bearers produce during late spring and early summer and then are done for the year. Everbearers give a crop in June and a second one in late summer. Day-neutral varieties produce a heavy crop in June and then a more or less continuous harvest until frost. Seed catalog descriptions will highlight traits such as disease resistance and suitability for freezing, along with fruit size, color and yield. Names of varieties recommended for use in Michigan are available from county MSU Extension offices.

Accepting surplus plants from well-meaning neighbors may seem like a money saver but is not a good idea, McLellan notes, because plants from old beds are often diseased. Beds established with disease-free plants will last longer and yield more than those started with hand-me-down plants, she advises.

Plant in early spring in individual holes in the site that you’ve prepared. Planting holes should be large enough so that the roots can be placed straight down and somewhat spread out. Typical spacing for a matted-row planting system is 18 to 24 inches apart in the row with 3 to 4 feet between rows. As runners develop, they will root and form a bed 1 to 2 feet wide.

Keep plants from drying out before planting, and water thoroughly afterward. Plant so the crown of the plant is level with the soil surface. Planting too deep may smother plants; planted too shallow, roots and crowns may dry out.

Weed control is critical, but deep cultivation will damage strawberry roots, McLellan points out, so she recommends shallow hoeing to keep the weeds down. This also loosens the soil so runners can root easily.

Any flower clusters that appear on June-bearing plants in the first season should be removed. The focus the first year needs to be on vegetative growth, McLellan explains. Allowing plants to flower and set fruit right away will decrease yields in future years.

Remove the flowers on everbearing varieties until mid-July. This will give you a fall harvest the first year.

Strawberry plantings can be productive for several fruiting seasons with good management during the growing season and proper mulching to protect against winter cold, McLellan says. Insect, weed and disease problems will increase over time, so it’s a good practice to start a new bed in a different area every two to three years. If you start the new bed before the old one gives out, you can take the time to prepare the new site and keep harvesting the old one until the new plants start to produce.

#lkj#

ANR Communications
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Contact: L. Johnson or M. McLellan
Telephone: 517-432-1555 or 353-3774
11/19/03

SO MANY VARIETIES --
HOW DO YOU CHOOSE?

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- The seed catalogs usually start to appear in gardener’s mailboxes just after Thanksgiving, but they accumulate in earnest after the beginning of the new year. Browsing the catalogs and planning the coming year’s garden is a pleasant way to spend a winter day, in spite of the danger of setting off a massive case of spring fever. But choosing from the abundance of vegetable varieties in even a few catalogs can quickly become a challenge.

"Beginning gardeners, especially, may have difficulty picking varieties to plant because they don’t have the benefit of gardening experience and a list of favorites," says Mary McLellan, Extension Master Gardener program coordinator at Michigan State University.

Catalogs are full of useful information about disease resistance, days to maturity, plant habit (vining vs. bush, for instance) and other desirable traits, but so many choices -- all of which are described in only the most positive terms -- can be overwhelming.

A good source of information on varieties recommended for Michigan is your local MSU Extension office, McLellan suggests. These varieties have been tested and found to give good, dependable results under Michigan growing conditions.

Another reliable guide is the catalog notation that a variety is an All-America Selections award winner. To win an AAS award, a variety has to perform well in side-by-side trials with proven varieties. Trial gardens are located all across the United States and in Canada, and varieties have to perform well under a wide range of conditions to earn an award. Summer visitors to the AAS flower trial garden at the MSU Horticultural Demonstration Gardens can see trial varieties growing under Michigan conditions.

A friend or neighbor who has the sort of garden you aspire to have may have some insights to share, also. If someone shares his harvest with you and those big, juicy tomatoes are the most flavorful you have ever tasted, ask what variety they are.

"Variety selection is just one step in growing a fantastic garden, but it can make a big difference in productivity and performance," McLellan points out.

Though "new and improved" is often the watchword in the seed catalogs, not all recommended varieties are new introductions, McLellan notes. Some garden standouts have been around a long time. Connecticut Field pumpkins, for instance, go back to colonial times. Other venerable varieties include Mary Washington asparagus, Detroit red beets, New Yorker tomatoes, yellow crookneck squash, Waltham butternut squash and early Jersey Wakefield cabbage.

Most newer introductions are hybrids that offer improved disease resistance, earliness or productivity; more compact plants; improved color, shape, taste or storability; or some combination of these and other desirable traits.

If you’ve been gardening for a while and you have your favorites but find yourself tempted to try "new and improved" this year, McLellan suggests planting the new variety alongside the old favorite rather than switching entirely to the new variety. If the new variety doesn’t live up to its billing, you still have your old standby to fall back on. And if it performs spectacularly, you’ll have the tried-and-true variety to compare it to. And maybe you’ll have a new favorite.

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ANR Communications
MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY
East Lansing, MI 48824-1039
Contact: L. Johnson or M. McLellan
Telephone: 517-432-1555 or 353-3774
11/19/03

EAST LANSING, Mich. -- For retaining soil moisture and discouraging weeds during the growing season, mulch is hard to beat. During the winter, mulches protect rose plants and strawberries from freezing, and newly planted ornamentals and bulbs from frost heaving -- being pushed right up out of the ground by the alternate freezing and thawing of soil.

Winter mulches also provide mice with hiding places. And if those hiding places are conveniently located next to the trunks or main stems of trees and shrubs, the result can be mouse gnawing that girdles and kills valuable landscape plants.

Mary McLellan, Extension Master Gardener program coordinator at Michigan State University, points out that a properly mulched tree or woody shrub has a thick layer of mulch over its root zone but not lapped up against the trunk or main stems.

Another good place for an insulating layer of mulch is perennial and bulb beds. A potential drawback is that it makes the area attractive to squirrels looking for places to bury acorns and other nuts. The problem occurs when the squirrels return to dig them up -- they may dig up shallow-planted bulbs or, in the spring, even newly planted annuals. Cleaning up and mulching flower beds as early as possible in the fall and covering mulched beds with chicken wire so the squirrels can’t dig in them so easily is one tactic for foiling the squirrels. Another is to sort the nuts from the mulch when you remove it to plant in the spring, then placing the nuts nearby where the squirrels can find them without digging up your flowers, she suggests.

"This may sound like a bother, but the alternative is replanting the flowers you find uprooted each day," she points out.

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