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NEIGHBORHOOD GARDEN FOR OCTOBER 30, 2004 ****************************************************************** WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY PLANT? BY GLADYS JEURINK Probably the
number one cause of death in houseplants is drowning! Too much water or
too little can cause the same symptoms.
Plants droop so we think they need water. It may be they have had
too much and the roots have rotted! In that case they cannot send any
water up to the leaves. First,
you need to know if your plant does best in damp soil or wet soil. I
check my pots by sticking my finger down a little way.
The more scientific way is to pick up each pot and notice how
much it weights. Then when
it feels light it is time to water. Also, you can
turn your plant out of its pot and take a look at the roots.
If they are all brown and slimy, throw it out.
If some are still healthy white, you can wash all the soil off,
then cut out the brown, mushy ones, and replant in new soil. The plant
is ill and cannot take full sun so set it back until it looks better.
If you trimmed a lot of roots you will need to remove some of the
top, also. Do not fertilize
at this time. That will add
to the stress. My next in
order problem is pests, i.e. insects, mites, etc.
In spite of all I do to keep them out they show up! At one time I
let all my tropical Hibiscus freeze because I had so many white flies.
They love any number of plants so will affect most of you plants
if you don’t’ fight back at once.
They lay their eggs on the underside of leaves and the green
larvae stays there and drinks the sap. Before I bring anything into the
house or garage or greenhouse, I wash it down using insecticidal soap.
On some I use a systemic insecticide in the soil and then water
it in. This poisons the
“drinkers”. I prefer to
do this outside as the systemic insecticides smell terrible to me.
Some of my friends use bright yellow paper coated with a sticky
substance that attracts the enemy and holds them forever.
These can be hung from above or small ones come on sticks that
can be placed in the pots. They are available at most full service
Garden Centers. Then
there are mealy bugs. You
will notice a white fuzzy spot or if you haven’t been checking for a
while, a large cluster of fluff. They reproduce rapidly and drink the
sap until the entire plant wilts. For
a few I use a cotton swab dipped in rubbing alcohol.
I also have a spray bottle of alcohol as they hide down in small
spaces. After the alcohol
has been on for a few minutes, I wash everything off in the shower.
New ones will hatch, so repeat the process again in 7 to 10 days
until you have them conquered. Scale is a
small, usually brown hump, attached to stems or under leaves. These act
as umbrellas to protect the “creature” from spray.
However, you can remove them with the alcohol soaked cotton swab.
When the young scale hatch their “umbrellas” are not there and the
spray kills them, but you are dealing with something very small and easy
to miss. I don’t like
insecticidal sprays in the house so if a warm day comes along, I set the
plant outside and spray it there. I
then wash it off before bringing it in.
My orchids seem to be a favorite food for scale. Sometimes I
manage to bring slugs in with the orchid pots but there is a new
non-poisonous slug killer which uses iron phosphate (Sluggo) that
won’t harm pets such as dogs and cats.
It can be sprinkled on the soil in pots or outside.
Hostas are a favorite food of slugs.
Fungus gnats
are annoying creatures that fly in your face when you water.
They are not very harmful but their larvae will eat roots if they
run out of compost. They
hatch from eggs laid in the soil. Their
numbers can be lowered if the soil is allowed to dry out so the larvae
die. Most of the
insecticides will also work if poured on the soil. Spider mites
are a horrible pest outside for me, especially during hot dry spells.
They can be washed off with a hose.
Inside they can be eliminated by a systemic insecticide (2%
Systemic Insecticide). They are on the under surface of the leaves
drinking away and causing speckles on the upper surface, which results
in the leaves dropping. Put
them in the shower and spray up. A
bad infection will cause webbing on your leaves. 1,446 POUND WORLD RECORD GIANT PUMPKIN BY GEORGE EDGAR Gardeners are
always competing with each other. They
want to be the first to have a new plant, or the first on the block to
have a ripe tomato, or to have the greenest lawn with no weeds.
At Halloween time the competition is for the largest pumpkin. In order to
settle who has the largest pumpkin, the pumpkin growers have formed the
Great Pumpkin Commonwealth (GPC). There
are 23 sites in North America where pumpkin growers meet the first
weekend in October of every year for a weigh in.
At the
Pumpkinfest in Port Elgin, Ontario, Canada, on October 2, 2004, a new
world record was registered and weighed in.
Alan Eaton of Richmond, Ontario, Canada, took first prize of
$5,000 for his new world record of 1,446 pounds. To see a picture of the
giant pumpkin go to www.pumpkinfest.org/news/20041001.
The Midwest
weigh in site is Animosa, Iowa. Dan Carlson of Clinton, Iowa, who set an
Iowa State Fair record with a 500.5 pound pumpkin in 2003, and has had
the largest pumpkin a number of times at the Animosa Pumpkin Fest, said
that only an Atlantic Giant pumpkin seed will create an enormous
pumpkin. He also said that one needs a minimum of 500 square feet per
plant. He has not used chemical fertilizer for a number of years but
works leaves and compost into his garden every fall.
Fall soil preparation, and watering during the growing season on
an as-needed basis, is very important.
When his pumpkins are about 30 pounds or the size of a volleyball
he selects the two best and removes the rest. During the hot summer he
even puts a tent over the pumpkins to keep them from getting sun scald.
He checks on them daily to make sure that no insects or borers
get to them, and a friendly neighbor and competitor will watch them when
he is on vacation. Some gardeners
will do anything to be the first, or to grow the largest, while most of
us are happy to be able to keep our plants and lawns alive and healthy
with a minimum of work. May
you have a good week in your garden as you put it to bed for the winter
so you can start again next spring. |