Garden Tips Newsletter
May 18, 2009
Trees
Be careful when mowing or using a string trimmer around trees, especially young ones. You could accidentally scrape the bark and open a wound where insects and diseases can attack. If you gouge the trunk all the way around, the tree is girdled and will die. You can protect young trees from injury several ways. One is to maintain a mulched area around the base of the tree so you won’t have to trim around the trunk. You could use tree wrap, or place a section of corrugated drain pipe around the base of the tree. Just cut a slit down one side, and slip it around the trunk. In the years to come, as the trunk becomes too large for the pipe, it can easily be removed.
Evening Gardens
Working all day and no time to enjoy the garden during the daylight hours? How about planning a late afternoon or evening garden for your after work viewing and sniffing pleasure! There are several annuals that look and smell their best at twilight. These flowers open in the evening or release fragrances at night to attract night-flying pollinators such as moths. One of the familiar night-blooming annuals is flowering tobacco. There are several to choose from: Common flowering tobacco, Nicotiana alata; N. landsdorffii, Lime tobacco; N. sylvestris, White shooting Stars. And the hybrid cultivars of N. x sanderae come in many colors.
Other night-blooming annuals to consider are the moonflower vine (Ipomea alba), angel’s trumpet (Datura inoxia), night phlox (Zaluzianskya capensis), and night-scented stock (Matthiola longipetala). For a more comprehensive list read The Evening Garden: Flowers and Fragrance from Dusk till Dawn by Asheville, North Carolina, garden writer Peter Loewer.
Lelia Scott Kelly, Ph.D., writes Garden Tips weekly and is a Horticulture Specialist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service. Her office is in the North Mississippi Research & Extension Center, Verona.