Stella D' Oro Daylily

This daylily is a popular addition to modern gardens for it’s compact size (12 to 18 inches)  and ease of care.  Plant in full sun for best performance.  In a few years it will be ready for dividing and brightening up other areas of your garden or for sharing with a friend.

rose with compost

I added an inch or two of compost under my roses in the spring, which greatly diminished the appearance of Black Spot on the leaves.

rose with compost

Hanging Basket

Petunias (pink and purple), lantana (yellow) and lobelia (blue) complement each other nicely in a hanging basket.

Hanging Basket

Petunias (white), lobelia (blue), and potato vine (green) go well together in a hanging baskets.

Gloriosa Daisies

These beautiful gloriosa daisies flower abundantly all summer and also reseed themselves for the following year.

KUDZU

Kudzu is an extremely aggressive vine, and infests over 7 million acres in the southeastern United States and it’s estimated that kudzu is spreading to 120,000 acres each year(CWC-chemical.com).

The scientific name of Kudzu is Pueraria montana var. lobata (Invasive species info.gov).  It’s vigorous growth and large leaves smother native plants: it’s vines kill trees through girdling and the added weight of the vines can lead to uprooting of trees (nps.gov).

It spreads relentlessly, mostly through soil movement and vegetative growth. Under ideal conditions it can grow a foot-a-day (Bugwood .org).

Two common names of this vine are:

“Mile-a-minute vine” and

“The vine that ate the south”.

HISTORY

Kudzu is native to Japan.  It has a woody stem, broad leaves and clusters of large purple flowers.  In Asia it is cultivated for it’s edible tubers and hemplike fiber.  Ground kudzu root (kuzu) has been a common ingredient in foods and medications for centuries.

Kudzu was introduced to the United States in 1876 at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennylvannia.  The large leaves and sweet-smelling blooms of kudzu, brought by the Japanese, caught the attention of American gardener’s who brought the plants home for ornamental purposes.

In the 30′s and 40′s, kudzu was propagated and promoted by the Soil Conservation Service as a means of holding soil on the swiftly eroding gullies of the deforested southern landscape.  Farmers were paid $8 an acre by the soil erosion service to plant kudzu, and greater than 1.2 million acres were planted under this subsidized program (Invasive.org).

Kudzu is distributed south as far as Florida and as far west as eastern Oklahoma and Texas.  The most severe infestations occur in the Piedmont regions of Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.  Only in the Southeastern United States is kudzu considered a serious pest (invasive.org). ???

In his poem “Kudzu” James Dickey wrote “In Georgia, the legend says that you must  close your windows at night to keep it out of the house.”

CONTROL

Kudzu grows better in our South than it does in it’s native environment.  It’s natural insect enemies were not brought to the United States with it (Maxshores.com) See reference to PBS documentary.

There is little spread by seed so expansion of kudzu patches occurs mainly by rooting of runners at nodes.  Adventitious rooting gives rise to large storage tubers that can survive repeated herbicide treatments over many years (Miller, 1985; Moorehead and Johnson 1996).

Kudzu is an invasive species which costs the United States $500 million per year in lost farm ground (ehow.com).

For successful long term control of kudzu , the extensive root system must be destroyed. Any remaining root crowns can lead to re-infestation of the area.  Mechanical methods include cutting the vines  just above ground level, and frequent mowing and cultivation.

Use of systemic herbicides is the most effective and practical method currently employed. The Federal Government is investigating biological control agents for kudzu (nps.gov).

Controlling Kudzu can be very costly. Conventional herbicide treatments can cost as much as $2,000/acre to treat kudzu over the course of several years.  One acre of kudzu an become an 11 acre patch in 10 years.  So, a $2,000 expense easily becomes $20,000 in expenses.  Thus, it pays to control kudzu (CWCchemical.com).

wisteria

My wisteria supplies abundant shade for my porch in the summer, which is a godsend, since my porch has a southern exposure.  My white wicker rockers would be useless without the lovely shade it provides.  Also, the screen of grape clusters of purple flowers in the spring are breath-taking!

Taming this vigorous vine is no easy task, but the rewards are well worth the effort.

In the summer, I continuously trim new vines as they grow out of place.

In mid-winter, I trim it down to the appropriate size for my porch.  I’m careful to  leave enough pencil-size branches, with 2 to 3 buds from a branching point, to ensure I will have an abundance of blooms in the spring.

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hanging basket

Petunias (pink and purple), lantana (yellow), and lobelia (blue) complement each other nicely in a hanging basket.  These flowers perform best in full sun.

hanging basket

Petunias (white), lobelia (blue), and potato vine (green) perform great together in a hanging basket  in full sun.

Gloriosa Daisies

These beautiful gloriosa daisies flower abundantly all summer and also reseed themselves for the following year.

It is generally best to do your pruning in the spring.  For spring-blooming bushes such as forsythia, lilac and spirea, prune after they’re done blooming.  Summer blooming plants such as rose-of sharon and butterfly bush can be  pruned in the summer after they bloom.

Nothing should ever be pruned in the fall.  Pruning at this time only stimulates growth when the plant is going dormant.  New growth will be quickly killed by frost.

hydrangea

Hydrangea flower color is influenced by soil acidity. 

An acidic soil produces blue flowers;  an alkaline soil produces pink flowers.

Soil with variable acidity produces flowers with a variation of color.

As you can see from the top photo my Columbine were attacked by leaf miners last year.

Without compost

This Spring I added a one to two inch layer of compost around my Columbine. The bottom photo shows this year’s leaf miner free plants.

With compost

The addition of compost appears to have eliminated the appearance of leaf miners.

I don’t know how compost would deter leaf miners. Perhaps healthier plants are able to withstand leaf miner invasion? Perhaps leaf miners are attracted to weaker or weakened plants?

Predators tend to prey on the weak.

• Make your own compost and lay it down as a mulch, about two inches deep.
• Wood mulch in the garden? No, but maybe a bit of liquorice root or cedar mulch on a highly trafficked footpath.
• Don’t prune anything in the Fall.  Pruning can cause the plant to start growing again, using up the plant’s, shrub’s or tree’s energy stores to send out new growth, growth that will promptly be killed by the first frost.
• Prune Spring blooming plants in the Spring, AFTER they bloom.
• Prune Summer blooming plants like Rose of Sharon and Butterfly Bush in early Spring.

• I added a one to two inch layer of compost around my columbine this spring and it appears to have practically eliminated the appearance of leaf miners.

• The same amount of compost under my roses greatly diminished the appearance of Black Spot.
• Dead-heading (removing spent blossoms), saves the plant energy it would normally put into making seeds, and induces the plant to make more flowers.