Ed Hume Answers Your Gardening Questions
Ed Hume cannot answer all of the garden questions he receives, but questions
of general interest will be answered here every month. Email your questions
to HumeSeeds@aol.com. Please
note: we do not accept attachments.
Before submitting a question, be sure to check the index
of previous questions and answers or search our
site using key words. Many questions have already been answered
here on the site.
Other October Links
 We are having a bad time with
earwigs here, and they are all but destroying the leaves on my sunflowers.
Is there anything I can do, aside from using pesticides, to prevent them
from eating my sunflowers. I've tried traps of vegetable oil/water and every
night I go out and try to kill as many as I can with sunlight disliquid mixed
with water. What else can I do?
 Earwigs are tough insects to
control. Sometimes moist newspapers spread the base of plants will draw them,
then collect the newspapers and destroy them. The English, put a coffee can
upside down on a stake attached to the plant, then collect the earwigs the
next morning.
Our roses have aphids and
black spot. The leaves are dull and not healthy looking. Please tell me how
to prepare for next years roses. Deadheading now and cutting the diseased
roses and leaves?
Probably not much to do now.
However, at the end of October, cut the bush type roses back to waist height.
Pick-off all the old leaves and gather any leaves that have fallen to the
ground and discard them. Do not add them to the compost pile, send them away
with the garbage man. It sounds like they are suffering so I would suggest
you dormant spray them with 'lime-sulfur and oil, in November, again in December
and the third time in mid February. Feed them with a 'Rose' fertilizer in
mid-February or early March.
I have a bed with Sweet Williams,
and other wildflowers that come back every year. Now I have grass going through
the bed and it's really had to pull out. Can I use a grass killer on that
bed and not kill the perennials?
Most grass killers will also
kill the plants. If you can once get the weeds and grasses out, you can use
Preen or Weed Prevention Plus to keep the seeds from germinating. The problem
is that it would also keep the seeds of the Sweet Williams and other perennials
and biennials from reseeding.
I have planted a couple hundred
shrubs and trees in quite a large area and put paths weaving in and out.
Our numerous weeping willows have branched out so much and I'm wondering
what would happen if I trimmed them back a lot. If I cut back on the branches
at the bottom that only have leaves at the very end, will they again leaf
up? They are so pretty in this area and I hate to cut them down.
Weeping willows will take
pruning and shaping very well. I think the key (of what I just said) is shaping.
In a natural setting you don't want to give them a haircut, by boxing or
rounding them….it just wouldn't look natural. The best time to prune
would be during the winter dormant season months November to early March.
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