An Ignoble Experiment: ArcaMax Gardening Daily Tips for Tuesday April 12, 2011

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Gardening Daily Tips
For Indiana
Tuesday April 12, 2011

Pansy (Viola x wittrockiana)
Q&A: Zinnia Transplanting
Q&A: Row Covers vs. Landscape Fabric
Q&A: Pinched-back Flowers Not Growing
Tip: Plant a Shade Garden
Tip: Grow Drought-Tolerant Flowers
Submit Your Gardening Pics
Reader Photos

Pansy (Viola x wittrockiana)

Today's Featured Plant
Pansy (Viola x wittrockiana)

Read the full profile of this plant at ArcaMax.com.

Interested in reading about other plants? Search through hundreds of plant profiles and helpful articles by keyword.

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Q&A: Zinnia Transplanting

Question: I am growing zinnias from seed in cell packs and they are about 2-3 inches tall. Should I transplant them into larger containers until I can set them outside?

Answer: Your zinnias can't be planted outside until after the danger of frost is past, so you will probably need to move them into larger containers, possible individual 2-inch pots. Move them up a size when the roots have filled the soil mix and before they become pot-bound.

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Q&A: Row Covers vs. Landscape Fabric

Question: What is the difference between row covers and landscape fabrics?

Answer: Row covers are intened to be used over plants to protect them from cold or to exclude pests. There are different weights of fabric depending on the need -- heavy fabrics offer the best protection from the cold, while light ones are best for insect control so the plants don't heat up too much underneath. Landscape fabric is intended to be used on the soil surface to block weeds. Although I suppose that, in a pinch, you could swap uses, it's probably best to purchase the correct material in the first place. For example, black landscape fabric used as a row cover might cause the plants underneath to overheat.

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Q&A: Pinched-back Flowers Not Growing

Question: I started foxglove indoors. The seeds germinated great, and I pinched them back after the secondary leaves appeared. Now nothing seems to be happening. The plants are not growing but they are not wilting either. What should I do?

Answer: I believe you pinched off the only growing bud on the plant. Foxgloves can produce multiple rows of bloom on each stem, but can't be forced to produce multiple stems by pinching. You can successfully pinch back snapdragons after they form 4-6 sets of leaves to promote branching, but not so with foxgloves. I'm sorry for the bad news.

Pefore pinching back any seedling, make sure that type of plants is amenable to pinching back, and always wait until seedlings have several sets of leaves before pinching back, as the axillary buds (side-buds) are on the stem where the leaves attach. Hope this helps!

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Tip: Plant a Shade Garden

Instead of struggling to grow grass in shady spots, create a shade garden filled with hostas, bleeding hearts, astilbe, and other shade-loving plants.

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Tip: Grow Drought-Tolerant Flowers

If your flower bed has light soil that stays dry in summer and you can't water frequently, try growing drought-tolerant flowers such as alyssum, salvia, gloriosa daisy, marigold, petunia, and portulaca.

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Submit Your Gardening Pics

As your garden wakes up with the warmer weather, start taking photos and sending them in to the Gardening Photo Gallery!

Share pictures with fellow readers, and vote on your favorites to make them the most popular for the month.

If you have more photos to submit, send them in to the Travel, Pet, and Baby photo galleries.

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-- From the ArcaMax editors

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Sincerely,
ArcaMax Editors