badmonkey

Looking forward to buying some of the plants that you are selling. It is nice to know that these were grown here in DuBois. I'll see you at the sale!

I have around 50 pounds of fresh rabbit droppings in the trunk of my car right now. Someone gave this to me today. What do you think, is it a good idea to spread this over my garden. The droppings came from rabbits that were in a pen and have been fed rabbit food and corn. I don't think that I have to worry about clover and such growing as a result of the seeds being present in the droppings.  

I hear that we might have a frost Tuesday night. Most of my lilac bushes are already budding. With any luck they won't be far enough along for the frost to kill the flowers.

I planted three dozen tulips in the fall of 2006. They grew and bloomed nicely last spring. This year they are growing like crazy and there are three or four flowers per plant this spring. Should I dig them up this fall and split them apart or just let them go?

Moonflowers are great! You can actually watch the flowers open over a two hour period around dusk. They are by far some of the most fragrant flowers I have ever grown.

Maybe this explains why one of my trees hasn't produced yet. I have always cut off almost all of the vertical limbs. I will try to leave 2/3 of the canopy in tact this year.

You can summer prune apple trees but it is used only to thin out new growth. You should wait until the tree just begins to put out leaves. Prune in late winter to get old apple trees under control and spread out serious pruning over several years never removing more than a third of the canopy.

Check out this link for the section on summer pruning or just google it. http://hgic.clemson.edu/factsheets/hgic1351.htm

I usually trim mine in the fall. This year I am trying spring. I cut off nearly anything that is growing vertically. I have one tree that was grown from a seed from The DuBois orchard. It hasn't produced any apples yet. Last year was the first year that it had flowers. I am hoping that it will do better this year.  

Christamas=Christmas...*smile*

I took part in the Christamas bird count back in '84 and enjoyed it. I haven't done it since. I want to do it again this year but can't remember how to register. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I have an established feeder and get lots of birds year round.

I took part in the Christamas bird count back in '84 and enjoyed it. I haven't done it since. I want to do it again this year but can't remember how to register. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I have an established feeder and get lots of birds year round.

I did this a while back with Geraniums and had great luck until late January. I'll let you know how the Petunias grow.

We treat petunias as annuals because they will not come through our winters but they are probably good for many seasons in their native climate. I suspect that they don't go completely dormant where ever they are native something like pansies. Cutting them back will rejuvenate them for another blooming session. It may be difficult to give them enough sun indoors to keep them growing nicely but you should be able to enjoy them for quite some time.

If you do get them through the winter cut them back and stick them outside for the summer and they will come back.

I've never tried this with petunias but I've had some luck with other hanging baskets full of so called annuals.

Based on the date of your posting, it is probably too late for this info but, every year, I plant around four dozen tomato plants. Only six of them are plated outside of a fence. Each year I find that deer (tracks present in the dirt) eat the tops off of my plants that are growing outside the fence. They also reach over the fence and eat the tops off of the plants growing closest to the fence.

I trimed one of my wave petunia hanging baskets back to three inch stems about four weeks ago. To my surprise, they grew back nicely and I had a bloom on the new growth this week. This basket is to  nice to let die in the cold winter air. I think that I will move it inside  before the next frost and see how long I can keep it alive in my kitchen!