Date: Fri 24-Apr-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: JUDYC

Quick Words:

Troublesome-Plants-Gardener

Full Text:

SUBURBAN GARDENER: Troublesome Plants Altogether

"If only one were as good a gardener in practice as in theory, what a garden

one could create."

--Vita Sackville West

By Anthony C. Bleach

Norway maple, introduced from Europe, has got such shallow roots and dense

canopy it is very hard to grow anything underneath. Moreover the variety

`Crimson King' is so overused that it is enough already! Acertruncatum

(Shantung maple), A. ginnala (Amur maple) and A. triflorum are three worth

considering. However, if you wanted a fast screen, as I did ten years ago, A.

platanoides , Norway maple is a good choice.

Everyone despises the Silver maple. You would be a lunatic to have it on your

property, as it shatters in the first ice storm. I would not plant it near to

my house, but it is tolerant of flooding and has bright green leaves that are

silvery beneath.

When you buy the majestic Ginkgo, make sure it is a male. This tree is

dioecious and the female bears abundant and foul smelling fruit. I once walked

under one, and thought I was slipping on cow pats.

No one should buy the Gray birch because of its susceptibility to leaf miner.

My neighbor's is defoliated every spring with boring regularity. You can

prevent this by spraying in April, but who wants the bother when you can buy

the healthy, creamy barked, Betula nigra `Heritage.' Also beware of B.

pendula, the popular European birch.

The Colorado spruce is very well loved. Its blue needles are unmatched by any

other conifer. In Colorado it thrives on calcarious soils and low rainfall.

The acid soils and high rainfall here put it under great stress and it is

prone to such disfiguring problems as Cytospora canker, spruce gall adelgid

and spruce budworm. Consider Serbian spruce and white fir as alternatives.

Crabapples suffer from three serious diseases: fireblight, cedar apple rust

and apple scab. Check with your nursery for cultivar recommendations.

Sometimes the delectable looking ones offered by mail order are the most

disease prone.

It is very important to search for new cultivars of Bradford pear. The old

ones have acute, narrow crotch angles which split easily in storms. They are

beautiful but fragile. I lost all the branches on one side of our Bradford in

one April ice storm.

The Japanese euonymus ( E. japonica ) quickly became very popular because it

was so versatile. It would climb walls, cover the ground or stand as a

specimen. However it is highly susceptible to crown gall, aphids, powdery

mildew, and is devastated by scale. Although you can control many of these

with horticultural oil, this one needs constant monitoring and periodic

control measures. Spreading euonymus ( E. kiautschovica ) would be a good

alternative.

`Bar Harbor' juniper (J. horizontalis) has been a favorite ever since

`Andorra' juniper was discarded because it was such friends with spider mite.

It now seems that `Bar Harbor' is very friendly with Phomopsis tip blight in

the spring and Kabatina blight in mid-summer. Our summers are too humid for it

to thrive here. The drying winds and salt spray of the coast of Maine is the

ideal habitat. Use instead one of the cultivars of J. chinensis which are

resistant to these diseases.

(Anthony C. Bleach coordinates the horticulture degree program at Naugatuck

Valley College in Waterbury.)