If you’ve followed my writing career for long, you know the phrase I most often like to quote is from the Beatles song “The Inner Light.” The expression “the farther one travels, the less one knows” has proven true time and time again.
After two recent trips, I came home with information that would seem to fall into the too-good-to-be-true category. One item, a cure for “dog spot” disease on lawns, came from my appearance on a panel of gardening “experts” in Dayton, Ohio. After I confidently proclaimed to a roomful of listeners that no real cure existed other than training your pet to keep off the lawn, a member of the audience politely took me aside to tell me I was wrong. When I got home and researched her solution, it now appears she was right. A safe cure for dog spot does exist: It’s a cactus that comes in the form of an edible dog treat. Something in the plant neutralizes the ammonia in dog urine, preventing the brown patches that often appear after female dogs squat to relieve themselves.
The second bit of new knowledge comes from Michigan, where a vocal 82-year-old gardener has boldly proclaimed hydrogen peroxide as a miracle garden cure-all. By applying H2O2 in proper dosages on seeds, soil and plants, this gardener is achieving better yields and faster germination, with few if any insect pests around his yard. Further research has shown that these findings really do have merit, and I can’t wait to try hydrogen peroxide on my own lawn and gardens this spring.
By now you’re probably itching for more details about these two discoveries, or at least I hope you are. By the time the next issue of People, Places & Plants goes to press in early April, I will have fully researched both topics and will publish detailed articles. Be sure to pick up the Early Summer issue on the newsstand, or subscribe now and we’ll happily mail the magazine to your doorstep. I know this is a bit of a tease, but I’m still in a playful mood after my nine-day vacation, and still a bit giddy about the news that our company was named Horticultural Communicator of the Year by the American Horticultural Society. By next week, I’ll be down off my cloud, I’m sure.
In the meantime, here are few seasonal tips to remember:
1. It’s time to start all of your seeds, even your tomatoes.
2. Have your soil tested at your local Cooperative Extension Service as soon as the ground thaws enough to dig.
3. Avoid excessive walking on the lawn and garden as they thaw, because this will compact the soil.
4. If the lawn is sufficiently dry (not overly spongy), then get out and begin raking, preferably with a bamboo rake to give the soil surface a good scratching.
5. Check your local garden centers for early arrivals of trees, shrubs and perennials; these can go into the ground as soon as the soil can be worked.
6. Be wary of purchasing trees and shrubs that have leafed out well ahead of the local season; it’s a strong indicator that the plants were either grown in a southern climate or that they have been forced in a greenhouse. These plants could be easily shocked by cold spring nights in most areas of the Northeast.
-Paul Tukey
People, Places & Plants
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