MG hotline is in the morning Tues. Thurs. AND just to clairify something soil/pH samples are sent to the Ithaca lab.

Can I plant my roses today?

How many people start seeds inside? If you do, when do you start them?

I don't any more but I used to. As for when to start them...well it depends on what plants. Organic Gardening used to have a good chart based on your growing zone. I'd check them out...but I'd imagine you could find something usable at most gardening sites.

Try this one. Little care, lots of blooms, grows fast, and really does bring in the hummers. Nice, dark green foliage, too. Since it readily sends out volunteer shoots, it will spread fast, too, so you can start with wide spacing, more cheaply. No trouble to cut the unwanted ones, though:

http://www.directgardening.com/detail.asp?pid=7306

I like that idea reilley. Thanks, we'll give that a try soon. I Hope.

Don't put in a trumpet vine unless you are prepared for it to take over. It is a very invasive plant that once planted, you will have a very hard time getting rid of it.

I really like mine. They do send out shoots, but as long as you keep an eye on the plants, and think about what you want them to do, they're easy to keep trimmed (they're easy to snap off with bare hands), and if the shoots come up where you don't want them to, you can just break or cut them off.

I tie mine to my deck rail and posts, as they grow, and let them get long and beautiful there, and it allows me to see hummers close-up. Any that sprout up away from the deck, I just mow.

One street over from me, someone has one in the front yard. In the summer, their entire front yard is nothing but shoots coming up.

Post deleted by VM Smith

This one is a very old plant. The main trunk of it is probably a foot or more in diameter. I have seen trumpet vine send out shoots underground a good 10 to 15 foot before it comes above ground.

The farthest I've seen shoots come up from my desired (climbing) locations is about 8'-10'. For me, mowing them works well, as does just yanking them while they're young and tender. Maybe that's because I don't fertilize my lawn, since I'm on the lake, and worry about phosphate run off.

When I see a runner starting to snake away over the ground, I just break it off, or tie it to the deck with string, or drive a nail for it to rest on, depending on whether I want it on a rail, 4"x4", or face board or outer joist..

I have gable windows on my house ends, with cathedral tongue and groove roof decking, and have the vines planted at the rear wall, also, so that they climb to the roof in summer, and block the west sun through the gable windows in the late afternoon. I have plywood and batten, with a batten at every stud. I like that they don't worm tendrils under the battens, but use sort of a "glue" spot to hang on. A putty knife will easily remove the "glue" spots when I paint.

In this short season climate, my preference is for things that grow luxuriantly and fast, and I don't mind the minimal amount of maintainence necessary.

The foliage stays green quite late in the fall, and when it dies off,I just yank the vines off the house, and trim them low.

Between the blossoms, and the fact that the house is marigold, I get butterflies and hummers in abundance.

To each his own, but I really like the plant. If anyone got one and didn't like it, well, there's alway topically applied spray weed killer, which will kill all vestiges of the vine fairly quickly.

Mine are younger, and the woody, older parts are probably 2 1/2' diameter. I think that if they get too thick, I can saw them off very low in the fall or early spring, and they'll come back on the same stump. or else I could just train new stalks from new shoots from the ground up.

i have tons of bee balm and some butterfly bushes i can share...

i normally start seeds 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost date ....

what is ...bee balm and I never heard of butterfly bushes ,
I am intrested , if you live between weedsport and seneca falls ,waterloo. I am game for new ....

Bee Balm is an perenniel. It grows maybe 2 feet in height. Each stem is topped with a feathery looking flower approximately an inch in diameter. It is a favorite of bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. I have it in 3 different colors: Pink, red, and purple.

Butterfly bushes are a shrub that will grow easily 6 feet tall or more. As the flower, you will get cone shaped groupings of tiny little flowers that butterflies and hummingbirds love. I have one that is a dark purple (almost black), another that is lavender, and also a white one. They have quite a bit of scent, almost like a tea smell.

Bee Balm




Butterfly Bush

I found pictures of a verigated Butterfly Bush. The clumps of flowers range from pink to yellow on the SAME stem. This just looks so pretty. I bet it would look great in a garden with bee-balm and cone flowers!
http://michiganbulb.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_71685

I may try to get one of those, see how it well it grows in this horrible soil of mine.



(You can get butterfly bushes with pink, purple,yellow, and white blooms on the same plant or just get individual colored bloms on one plant)