Frequently Asked (Gardening & Hardware) Questions:
How should I care for my roses? What works as a pre-emergent herbicide, fertilizes your lawn, and is so organic it might also be an ingredient in your pet’s food? (Ok, so this question it isn't frequently asked, but we thought you should know) |
Location, Location, Location: Where to plant your tree.
Most likely trees are the most permanent and most costly part of your landscaping. Choose their location carefully. Know the tree’s natural shape and mature size. Know its growing habits. Does it loose its leaves in the winter? How much light does it block in the summer? And think about what it will look like 5, 10, 20 years down the road as you imagine it in your yard.
Consider the tree’s location relative to your house’s architecture. Will the tree block the view to the front door, or will it frame it? Likewise, will the tree block a great view of the backyard from the living room window? Will the tree provide shade where you need it or will it deprive you of light you need? And watch how close you plant the tree to the house. Although you could put a tree with a deep root system as close as six feet from your house, we recommend planting trees at least 10 to 15 feet from your building.
Always test your tree’s location before you plant. Set the tree in its proposed location and look at it from several angles before you make the final decision.
Also--before you begin to plant, make sure you won’t hit any cable, phone, water or gas lines when you dig. If you don’t know for sure where your utility lines are, call your utility companies and they will come mark your yard for free—and it only takes a day or two.
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Dig it! How to plant your container grown tree.
There are a lot of different ways to plant a tree. Here is how we do it at Gaddy’s.
Dig a hole the same depth as the dirt in the tree’s container. Trees should not be planted any lower in the ground than the dirt in their container. (Tomato plants like to be buried deep – BUT NOT TREES. Trees will rot and will be susceptible to disease and bug problems if too much soil covers their trunk.)
Your hole should also be just a little wider than the tree’s container—about six to eight inches wider than the circumference of the top of the tree’s pot. Some people will recommend digging a much wider hole than the tree’s pot size and then adding a lot of good dirt around the tree’s roots. This is fine as long as you stake the tree well and pack the dirt firmly.
After the hole is dug, carefully remove the pot from the tree’s root ball. Set the tree in the hole and position it so it faces the desired direction. Mix some of the dirt you dug out to make the hole with some better quality dirt or soil amendments. We use a ratio of ¾ dirt from the hole to ¼ compost.
Pack the mixed dirt gently but firmly around the tree’s roots. Around the POT line build up a ring using the remaining dirt from the hole. Now you will have a little ‘moat’ to hold in water. Mulch your tree heavily.
Stake your tree well. We use three t-posts, electrical tape, and flexible tubing to protect the tree from the rope. The tree should remain staked for a year.
Water the tree thoroughly. It’s also a good idea to use a root stimulator to help your tree get a good start. We recommend waiting three months before fertilizing your newly planted tree to avoid burning the root system.
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Gaddy’s Warranty.
We spend a lot of time taking care of our trees. We’ve even known some of them since they were acorns. And if you buy a tree from us, we’ve most likely looked at it with you, talked to you about it, and loaded it into your vehicle. We believe in the good quality of the trees we sell.
However things happen. So we have a three month 50% warranty towards another tree, with proof of purchase. This means that if your tree dies within three months of its purchase, you can bring your receipt back and get 50% of the tree's purchase price toward another tree.
Of course, we’d rather that nothing happen to your tree, so if you ever suspect any problems with your tree please call us before the only thing left to do is replace it.
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Pruning Rose Bushes
Late winter is the best time to prune most rose bushes. For us in Texas, this means that when we start seeing florists advertise Valentine’s Day roses, it’s time for us to get out our pruning shears and rose food.
Bush roses like Hybrid Teas, Floribundas and others bloom only on new growth, so a good pruning job does a lot to promote successful blooming as well as to establish a healthy, well shaped bush.
Using clean, sharp pruning shears, first remove any dead or unhealthy canes from the plant. Then prune the bush back by about half. Make each cut just above buds that face away from the center of the plant. This way the new growth will grow outwards from the center of the bush, allowing for much needed light and air circulation to reach your plant.
Always angle your cuts downward. This will prevent moisture from pooling on an open spot on the cane. If you want to seal the cuts, use clear shellac or white glue, not pruning paint.
Because climbing roses bloom on old growth, wait to prune them until their spring bloom is spent, and then take them back to five or six feet from the ground. If you have Antique roses, many of them do just fine with no pruning at all.
And while you’ve got your rose gloves on, clean out the winter trash that has collected under your rose bush, give it some fertilizer to help it start the growing season and much it in real well. Continue to feed it monthly, watch out for fungus and bugs and wait for those wonderful blooms. –Kim Gaddy
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Corn Gluten
What works as a pre-emergent herbicide, fertilizes your lawn, and is so organic it might also be an ingredient in your pet’s food? It’s the hot product for gardeners this spring, and it’s nothing more than corn gluten meal, a byproduct of the wet milling process used to make ordinary corn starch.
Years before anyone even thought about spreading it in on their lawns, corn gluten meal was available to the public mostly through feed stores where people bought it as a feed supplement for cattle or chickens. Then an accidental discovery by Dr. Nick Christians of Iowa State University began to interest both gardeners and organic product manufacturers.
The discovery began with an Iowa State research project on grass and fungus. The study used corn meal as the growth medium for a fungus disease organism they wanted to test. Unfortunately, the researchers were not able to establish the fungus organism in the test plots as successfully as they wished, but they did notice something else just as interesting-- the plots treated with fresh corn meal had significantly fewer bent grass weeds than the control plots. With this piece of information, Dr. Christians’ research took a new turn.
Turns out, there is something in the corn gluten meal that stops early root formation as seeds begin to sprout. This means you can apply corn gluten meal to your yard, flowerbed or garden in the early spring to keep all those weed seeds that have been hiding all winter long from sprouting. The corn gluten meal won’t harm your grass or existing plants and you can continue to plant container plants in treated areas, but be warned, you also won’t be able to plant anything from seed where you used the corn gluten meal as long as it remains active.
The added bonus of corn gluten meal is that it is a natural source of nitrogen. Nitrogen is the component of fertilizer that boosts leaf growth and helps ‘green up’ a yard. However plants also need potassium and phosphorous as well as other nutrients, so you’ll still need to feed your lawn in other ways.
Since trying to spread corn gluten meal evenly over your yard is a little like trying to spread baby powder over a 3,000 square feet area, many manufactures have pelletized the meal to ease application. The current recommended rate of application is 20 pounds of product to per 1,000 square feet.
There are also wonderful products that use corn gluten meal in conjunction with other organic fertilizers to provide a more complete ‘weed and feed’ product. Read the package labels for application instructions for these products.