garden letters

Southern Living, Feb 2005

FEBRUARY 2005

Editor's Notebook

Ever since I got caught "borrowing" flowers from the cemetery, no one has asked me to do another flower-arranging story. Yes, I was wrong, but the cemetery was my only source for rare blue plastic roses. Anyway, I'd like to make amends by lauding an old-timey shrub that's both great for arrangements and perfectly legal to acquire. Pussy willow (Salix discolor) gets its name from the soft, silky flowers, called catkins, that appear before the leaves on male plants in spring. Branches, which you can get from your own plant or from the local florist, are easy to force into bloom indoors now. (Pussy willow is also available from Ecolage, toll free 1-866-562-8088 orwww.ecolage.com.) Place freshly cut stems in a vase filled with water, and the catkins will puff out quickly. After they fade, leave the stems in water for a couple more weeks, and they'll sprout roots. Take pussy willows to plant swaps, and see what nifty plants you can get in return. Me, I'm holding out for blue plastic roses. -STEVE BENDER

Is it too late to plant daffodil bulbs for this spring? Can I plant the paperwhite bulbs I enjoyed indoors this winter outdoors in spring?

TAMMY STEDMAN * MOORE, SOUTH CAROLINA

February is too late for planting daffodil bulbs left over from last fall. Whether you can plant paperwhites outside in spring after they've finished blooming indoors depends on where you live. They're not winter-hardy in the Upper and Middle South but do fine in the Coastal and Tropical South, in the Lower South, they're iffy. They often wake up too early in winter there, and cold nips the flowers.

I planted hydrangeas last summer and left the old blooms on the plants all winter. How do I prune them and when?

HELEN SPEAKS

NEWARK, OHIO

It's okay to prune off the old, dried blooms of French hydrangeas (the ones with blue or pink flowers) now. But wait to prune back the woody stems until new growth starts. Fat, green buds will open and show you new flower clusters ready to expand. Prune back to just above these buds. If you'd rather not take a chance at accidentally losing new flowers, wait to prune until immediately after this year's blooms fade.

We purchased a home with a newly seeded lawn. During the winter, people walked across the grass while the ground was wet, leaving footprints. How can we correct this problem? APRIL WILLIAMS

ELKRIDGE, MARYLAND

Fill the footprints with sand. Smooth and firm the sand, and then sow grass seeds in the footprints. Use the same type as in the rest of the lawn. Barely cover seeds with sand; then water gently. As the weather warms, the seeds should sprout and fill in the footprints. If you have a similar problem with a newly sodded lawn, lift the depressed sod, fill the footprint with sand, smooth the sand, and then relay the sod.

We planted crepe myrtles right in front of our west-facing front porch for afternoon shade in summer, but the trees now need pruning. What is the proper technique?

BARBARA BENAVIDES

HOBSON, TEXAS

Choose four or five main trunks for each plant. Prune any branches growing inward toward the center, as well as spindly growth less than the thickness of a pencil. Your goal is to open up the center of each plant. To reduce the height of individual branches, use loppers, hand pruners, or pole pruners to cut them back to the desired height, always cutting back to another branch or a bud. Cut these branches to slightly different heights so the tree doesn't look flattopped.

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