NickMendes

Up until this year, whenever I dug in my flower garden (80x20) I would always find a number of worms. This year wherever I dig there are no worms. Does anyone have any ideas why. Also how should remedy this situation. Thank you. Nick

I have a 30' colorado blue spruce tree with a top that is bending toward the west. I also have a few other CB spruces but none of them are doing this. Any ideas why and how to correct this? I was thinking about cutting back the leader and try to train a new one.

I lost my leucanthium plant over this past winter. I loved this plant because it was an "all white" daisy. My efforts to find a replacement on the web leads to only Leucanthium daisies that have yellow eyes. I may have the wrong spelling of this plant but I am pretty sure of the name. Any help replacing this plant would be greatly appreciated.. Thanks, Nick Mendes

Thanks CarolM. Sounds like a good way to experiment. I'll let you know how it comes out.

I recently read about Northern Bayberry's (Myrica pensylvanica) salt tolerance and thought about planting some around my mailbox. Being cheap (frugal), I thought I would start with seeds. The instructions seem somewhat complicated, however, and am needing some help. Here is how they go: "Soak seed for a minimum of 24 hours in warm water before stratification. The seeds need to be stratified before they will germinate." ( I am not sure what is meant by stratification in this case). Then instructions continue; Place about a cup of seed starting mix, just moistened (not wet), and the cleaned seed (remove any outer purple coating by soaking in hot soapy water) in a plastic zip-lock bag. Place the bag in the refrigerator for at least 90 days or until you are ready to grow the seedlings. (I keep my "frig" at around 33, is this too cold?). OR, you can plant them directly in the ground in the fall for germination next Spring. I have extra seeds so I would like to try to germinate them now and if I fail I can resort to the fall planting option. WOW!! Isn't this website and forum just GREAT!

Sorry it has taken so long to mail to you Steve, but I do want to to give you a thanks for your great pictures and test for the various budding plants. I won't tell you my score as it wasn't all that great but iyou pictures will sure get me to look at plants much much closer to see the great sights of nature you do. I also liked the great winter pictures you posted on this forum.

How timely. I just purchased some of the same seeds and am looking for advise. I may try some different placements in the garden and see what happens.

I just started spending some time in the Forum and enjoy it very much. I intend to review all of the postings eventually and try to keep up to date. You and Janet are the best.

When we built our house 28 years ago there was a large apple tree in our back yard. The kids who already lived next door had nailed some boards into the tree trunk and may have had a "tree house" at one time. Not sure. The tree seemed to do fine for a number of years but then I found it was infested with carpenter ants and eventually it came down in a wind storm. I do not know if the nails had anything to do with the carpenter ants but otherwise the tree didn't seem affected by the nails. Nails, however, are a GREAT pain if you are eventually cutting up wood for a fireplace. Good way to ruin a chain saw and maybe hurt yourself. If there is any question about this, puschasing a metal detector made for this purpose would be a good idea.

I just read an article by Marie Iannotti on "about.com" that advises to reduce rose black spot to soak your rose mulch for an hour in a mixture of 1 oz. bleach to 1 gal water. I hadn't heard this before but will sure try it this year.