Slugs are ever present in moist garden spots, but you can reduce their impact. Avoid poison slug baits and sprays that can wash away. Remove slugs instead.
Pick them off plants at night when they feed. Use rubber gloves so they don’t “slime” you.
Trap them in grapefruit halves (empty) placed upside down throughout the garden. Check and dispose of any containing slugs.
Sink margarine tubs into the soil with rims at ground level. Fill ¾ full with beer. Empty when “traps” contain several slugs.
When stem cuttings are not possible, use root cuttings to get new plants exactly like the parent. Plants to propagate in this manner include phlox, sea holly, globe thistle, and Oriental poppies.
In midfall, fill a flowerpot with a rooting medium that is two parts pasteurized potting soil, one part coarse sand. Press evenly to firm the soil.
Carefully dig up the plant and choose no more than one-third of the thickest roots. With a very sharp knife, cut off the roots close to the crown of the plant. Take care to keep the ends closest to the crown together, as new shoots arise only from this “top” end.
Cut the roots into 2- to 3-inch lengths—arranging direction.
Make a hole that is large enough to insert each root piece upright (“top” end up) in the rooting medium without bending or snapping it.
Water and place the container in a temperature of 45° to 55°F. No light is needed until new shoots begin to push up through the soil.
In spring, separate the new plants and plant them in the garden. Protect from direct sunlight for a week.
To stake tall plants, cut lengths of twiggy brushwood (such as birch) in early spring before leaves appear. Make them 1 foot shorter than the plants requiring staking. When a plant has reached half its normal height, place stakes in the ground all around it. Surround with garden twine if necessary.
Japanese beetles are somewhat fond of Shasta daisies. One of the surest ways to get rid of these pests is to pick them off early in the morning while the beetles are groggy (they do have a very active social life). Wear rubber gloves if you find their touch distasteful. To drown the captured beetles, drop them into a jar filled with water and a shot of dishwashing detergent.
Within the world of shade gardening, you’ll find plants that accept all degrees of shade while others are tolerant only of certain types. Your garden will flourish best when you match your perennials with the kinds of shade that are cast over the planting beds during different seasons.
Relegate your most sun-sensitive plants to areas of deepest shade—beneath heavy tree canopies, on the sunless north side of buildings and fences, or under overhangs where no sun penetrates.
Plants that must have brighter light but no direct sun do well in moderate shade provided by evergreen trees with lower branches removed, or by clumps of deciduous trees, such as those in woodlands. Widely spaced trees with few low branches create part shade. No sun reaches directly underneath at midday, but the open space all around allows morning or afternoon sun to flow beneath their canopies.
Lighter shade is filtered or dappled, and is found beneath uncrowded, open-branched deciduous trees.
If your perennials will flower more heavily in a bit of sun but cannot tolerate severe intensities, try to plant them in either part or lightly filtered shade. Remove lower tree limbs to let in more indirect light.
Mulching during the growing season provides many benefits for perennials (see page 4), but mulching for winter protection is a different kind of safeguard.
Many plants need winter protection to guard them against repeated thawing and freezing. Without insulation, shallow-rooted and freshly set plants are inevitably harmed when the movement of the soil heaves them out of the ground. Winter protection also prevents plants from drying out in cold winter winds.
After the ground is well frozen, cover the entire plant with straw, salt-marsh hay, or pine needles.
Add a layer of pine boughs or other available evergreen prunings; don’t overlook the branches of a discarded Christmas tree.
In spring, at about the time the forsythia blooms, remove the protective materials. You can shake off the pine needles or evergreen leaves and spread out the straw or hay to use as the first layer of spring mulch. Keep it away from the crowns of your plants where the new shoots are emerging.
To increase flowering in many plants, remove flowers as soon as they have passed their peak. Cut down to the next leaf or branch on the spent flower stem. This prevents the formation of seeds and encourages the plant to produce more flowers. The plants look better, too.
Rooting stem cuttings is an easy form of vegetative propagation when plants grow roots easily. It’s often easier to get more clumps using this method than by dividing existing clumps. Try it with spotted dead nettle, periwinkle, and upright bugle, to name a few.
Remove the lower pair of leaves from 4- to 6-inch nonflowering shoots. Stick the cut ends of the shoots in a glass of water on a sunless windowsill. Allow the shoots to develop roots for 4 to 6 weeks
Transplant the shoots to the desired outdoor location and water thoroughly. Cover with weighted-down newspaper for a few days to shade them.
Remove the newspaper for a short time in the morning or late afternoon; increase the time by a little each day, until the new plants are perky enough to stand on their own.
You can protect small plantings, raised beds, and containers from slugs or snails by installing copper barriers. Rolls of very thin copper strips are available from garden centers and supply catalogs. Install these along the edge of containers or planters, or around small plantings. Slugs and snails can’t crawl across copper. Wear gloves when handling the copper strips, because the edges are razor sharp.
Ephemerals are plants that disappear completely after blooming. Many spring wildflowers such as leopard’s bane and Virginia bluebells fit this description. Spring ephemerals leave a “hole” in the border when they go dormant in midsummer.
These holes are best filled with tender bulbs or annuals. However, you can’t simply install these plants at the beginning of the growing season. To fill the holes, you must plan ahead, since in spring the ephemerals will occupy the space.
In spring, pot up impatiens, dahlias, caladiums, or similar plants in 6- to 8-inch flowerpots to give them time to get established.
When the spring ephemeral starts to look punky, trim yellowing foliage. (Leave the foliage in place until it has yellowed to ensure that plants will have enough energy to bloom the following spring.)
Hide the ephemeral with the potted filler plant placed in front.
Balloon flowers (also blue stars, butterfly weeds, some bellflowers, and Oriental poppies) bleed when they are cut. To stop the bleeding, singe the end of each stem immediately after cutting with a quick touch from the flame of a match or a lighter. Flaming the stem ends of these plants will extend their vase life; it will not enhance flowers that don’t bleed.