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Animal repellents

Nothing is more frustrating than putting all that time and effort into planting only to find something had a feast at your expense. Sources tell me that repellents containing pure capsaicin derived from hot peppers will repel squirrels, rabbits & deer.

Homemade repellent
You can make your own hot spray version in your kitchen: 

 Mix 1/2 cup finely chopped Jalepenos or Habanero peppers with 1/2 gal of water. Wear gloves when chopping the peppers.   Boil 20 min. Do not inhale vapors as they can burn.  Strain the mixture and use as spray.  Re-apply once a week or after heavy rain.

Hot spray to keep dogs and cats away.
2-3 cloves garlic, 3-4 hot red peppers (habaneros, serrano)
Grind up in blender-add mix to 1 gal of water with a few drops of dishwashing liquid. Mix well. Wear rubber gloves when handling hot peppers.
Spray around edges of garden. Repeat after a rain.

You can also try sprinkling ground cayenne pepper on the soil surface. People have tried baby powder, blood meal and lion feces with mixed results. They do not weather well and need to be re-applied on foliage every 5 days or after any rain or dew.  Another interesting repellent is used coffee grounds mixed into the soil.  Apparently rabbits & deer don’t like the smell. In the least coffee adds nitrogen to the soil. If all else fails a dog.
To keep deer away, fencing seems to be the most effective-bury 6 inches of a  7  1/2 ‘ chicken wire fence underground.
Commercial repellents
For a nice piece of change, there are some commercial products out there that specifically claim to be rabbit and squirrel deterrents. Repellants  should be used before damage occurs or the animal has tasted the plant. Thiram, a fungicide is recommended as a rabbit repellant. Deer Away and Liquid Fence (spray and run, its smelly)  seem to get good results for both deer and rabbits.

Homemade deer repellent recipe:
Beat 1 egg with 1/2 cup of milk, add 1 TB of cooking oil and 1TB of dish detergent along with a few dashes of hot sauce and garlic juice.  Mix in a gallon of water.  Spray plants every 2 weeks and after a heavy rain.

Hanging Basket care

In spring many of us buy beautiful, blooming hanging baskets. They look great for a few weeks and then slowly start to  fade; no longer looking like the ones we bought a month ago. Here are few hints to keep that hanging basket looking good all summer long.

Fertilize
Keep in mind that growers fertilize the baskets every time they water. This helps maintain healthy, vigorous growth. A grower recommended fertilizing once a week with a formula with a ratio of 1:2:1 (10-20-10) with micro nutrients such as iron, copper, manganese to satisfy the heavy feeding requirements for hanging baskets. There are some specially formulated fertilizers available for container growing on the market. It is the moderate steady supply of fertilizer that will sustain and maintain the plant in a vigorous growing state. A research study in Michigan State compared 3 flowering baskets: one with soluble fertilizer, one with a time-release fertilizer incorporated into the soil and the one with both soluble and time-release fertilizer. The third basket with both soluble and time-release fertilizer preformed the best.

Watering
Many of us find that by the time we get home from work, our poor hanging basket is drooping from the heat of the day and lack of water. So we immediately get the watering can and pour lots of water on the plant to rehydrate it. This practice causes lots of stress to the plant. In addition, leaving soaking wet roots overnight (when its cooler) can invite root rot and other diseases.  Water just enough to revive the plant in the evening  and then water again in the morning using a wand or watering can and pouring directly onto the soil avoiding wet leaves. To make sure all the roots get wet, water  until it runs out of the bottom of the container.  In hot weather, you may have to water twice a day. If  the soil has completely dried out, to the point where it separates from the side of the basket, then you may have to soak the basket in a tub of water to slowly re-hydrate the soil.  This may take a couple of  hours.  Do not leave the soaking basket for a prolonged period of time or overnight, this can cause root rot.

When feeding your plants, water first with unfertilized water and drain; then re-water with a fertilizer solution. This will keep soluble salt accumulation to a minimum and avoid fertilizer burn to the roots.  A moisture retaining polymer can also be added to the soil to keep your plant hydrated longer.

Exposure
Check the label for sun exposure- place your hanging basket in the right spot – too much sun can be as bad as not enough. If you basket shows signs of scorching, brown edges and faded or bleached leaves if may be getting too much sun, therefore move it to a shadier spot. Spindly, leggy plants with lack of flowers can indicate not enough sun. Plants facing west in the summer will require more water and need to tolerate hotter temperatures

For continual bloom deadhead hanging baskets with larger flowers such as geraniums, lantana, petunia and verbena. 

Hopefully, some of these suggestions will reward with summer long blossoms.

How can I propagate it?

Lantana should be propagated in mid-summer and fall from greenwood or semi- ripe stem cuttings. Make 3 inch cuttings off non-flowering shoots. Strip off any leaves that come in contact with rooting medium and the soil.  Dip the ends in a hormone rooting medium and insert in a moist, well drained, soil made of peat moss and sand or perlite. Cuttings also root well in rockwood plugs.   Cover the container with a clear plastic bag and keep in a spot with bright filtered light. It should root in 2-3 weeks. When you see new growth emerging uncover your container and place it in brighter light and start to lightly fertilize every 2 weeks to promote healthy new growth. When the plants have about 2-3 inches of new growth, pinch the tips to encourage bushy growth. The following spring repot plants in individual pots. Young rooted plants usually bloom more profusely than older plants.

Lantana can also be started from seeds sown early in the spring. Plant them in late winter. Germination for lantana is 42-60 days and seeds should be planted 1/8″ deep in peaty soil.  Another trick is to soak the seeds in hot water for 24 hrs. before planting.

Seed grown plants may have a variation in color and quality of the original plant. Newer varieties of hybrids produce less seeds which may be sterile.
The above method of propagation may be used on many other plants.

Propagating Kalanchoe
I would love to propagate my kalanchoe plant. What is the best way to do so and how often should I water the repotted clipping?

To propagate your kalanchoe, take 4-6 inch cuttings, remove the lower leaves so you end up with a stem 2-3″ long. Place the cutting on a counter for 1-2 days so that it can form a callus. Plant in a 3 inch pot filled with a cactus type soil (free- draining) and water. Insert the cutting, so the leaves are just above the soil surface. Rooting should take 1-3 weeks.  Once rooted plant in 3-4 inch pots and water in well. Kalanchoe should be kept on the dry side, to avoid root rot. Water when to top 2″ of soil are dry.  You can also root them in water.

Here’s a chance for you to show off your gardening success. 

Now here’s a prize winner tomato!
Nice job Mike!

Look what’s growing in David G’s  place.  Can you guess what it is?

David says its a zygopetalum orchid. The flowers have a nice frangrance to them.

Spider mite on mini rose

I had a very severe infestation of  spider mites  on my miniature rosebush. One day I just noticed the plant was totally covered in webs and tiny bugs. I mean, it was really really bad. All of the leaves were turning brown or covered in brown spots. I put it in the shower and sprayed down the plant with a medium pressure spray. This removed all the webs and a lot of the spider mites. Of course it also removed about half of the leaved from the plant, mostly the more damaged ones. A few days later I noticed that there were still a noticeable amount of mites tormenting my plant. I filled a small wastebasket with water and added a few tablespoons of 3% hydrogen peroxide. I submerged the entire plant and soaked it for a few hours in there but I’m not really sure how much that helped, since most arachnids can live up to 24 hours underwater. A few days later there were still signs of the mites eating my plant so I took to mechanical means of removal. I spent about an hour repeatedly flicking the stems with my fingers over a piece of paper and squishing anything I saw moving on the paper. Over time less and less mites were coming off, and I took that as a sign that I had eradicated most of them. I wanted to be sure that they were all gone, so I filled a small cup with 3% hydrogen peroxide straight from the bottle, and individually dipped the remaining leaves in it for a few seconds. This was a pretty easy task because there were only a few clusters of leaves left.  After that I sprayed the plant with water to wash away the peroxide and let the plant dry. This whole time my boyfriend (who gave me the plant) was laughing at how much effort I was putting in to saving this little plant that looked like it was about to die anyway. But during the next few days, with the mites completely exterminated, new leaf buds started appearing all over the plant where the leaves had been falling off throughout the infestation.  My plant is now re-growing its leaves and starting to look really healthy again.

I know this is a very long story but I know these mini rosebushes are very prone to spider mite infestations so I wanted to share my success and method in treating a very severe infestation. If I had let it go another day before showering it off, it probably would have died, as there were thousands of the little suckers all over my plant.

 Don’t give up on your plants! Dana

Thrips are tiny, narrow insects with feathery wings which are difficult to detect.  The adult female will lay eggs on the leaf surface. Once they hatch they suck the juices out of flowers and new leaf shoots. One generation of thrips will live about two weeks and continue to multiply thru the season producing several generations. To test your plant for thrips shake and infested flower head over a piece of white paper and you should see dark fecal pellets and white dead plant tissue Another way to monitor for thrips is to hang blue-colored sticky traps by the plant. Yellow traps will also work. The sooner you spot and treat the easier they will be under control.

Thrips attack dry, stressed plants.  They will feed on leaves which will be flecked white and have black specks on the underside of the leaves. Their favorite targets are light-colored flowers such as white, blue and yellow. Infested flowers will become discolored and disfigured and the buds will turn brown, dry up and die.   Damage can look similar to spider mites infestation. The added bonus is that they can transmit viral disease.

Other than disfiguring the plant, thrips should not kill a healthy plant. The best way to approach this problem is to remove the infested flowers/buds and spray with insecticidal soap twice a week for 2 weeks until  they are under control.  Since they like dry conditions keep the plant moist not dry. A garlic spray can also be effective in repellilng thrips.  Mix 1/2 cup of finely chopped garlic in 1 pt of water, strain and spray every few days for 2 weeks. Persistance pays.

 A spray that contains spinosad (Conserve) is a biologically, safe organic insect killer which you can apply directly on the flowers and leaf buds. It works by contact and by injestion and will not harm most beneficial insects or predatory mites.  Neem (botanical) will also work.
A systemic such as Orthene will give you long term control. Orthene is not environmentally friendly since it will kill all insects even beneficial ones. Extreme caution should be used during application.

Plants affected by thrips: tuberous begonia, dahlia,daylily, gladiolus, hollyhock, iris, peony, rose.