| Yard and Patio |
 |
| Potato Rooters for Roses Rose bush slips will take root if you insert the stems into white potatoes. Clothespin Holder for Thorns When cutting thorny roses and other prickly plants, hold on to the stem with a spring-type clothespin to avoid pricking your fingers. Cinnamon Fights Peony Mold If you're troubled with slime mold, toadstools, or mildew around your peonies, try a light dusting of cinnamon around each plant. There is a naturally occuring fungicide in cinnamon called ortho-methoxyanna-maldehyde. Selecting Annuals Flats of annual flowers in full bloom are tempting buys in spring, but they aren't the best deal around. Those masses of flowers too often hide yellowing leaves and stunded, pot-bound roots. Select instead young, stocky plants with dark green leaves that are just forming buds or beginning to show color. They'll grow faster and bloom sooner once they're set. Edible Flowers Here are some flowers that not only add beauty to your landscape, but add pizzazz to your salads as well: carnations, chives, daylilies, marigolds, nasturtiums, pansies, roses, squash blossoms, sunflowers (for seeds), and violets. |
| Plant in the Fall When seeding a new lawn, keep in mind that grasses are cool-weather plants and grow fastest during the cool, moist months of spring and fall. In hot weather they become dormant. By planting in the fall, you'll give your grass two favorable periods of growth----fall and spring----before it has to withstand summer heat. Spring Feed Feed your lawn regularly every spring. Use a spike-tooth aerator, then spread a mixture of compost and bone meal. Rake this into the holes made by the aerator. You can use a fairly thick covering of compost, but make sure it's not so thick that it smothers the grass. When to Fertilize Applying fertilizer to speed midsummer growth can lead to lawn trouble. Young leaf blades are particularly vulnerable to fungus diseases under summer temperature and moisture conditions. But fertilizing in early spring and fall stimulates growth during seasons when the danger of disease is greatly reduced. |
 |
| Don't Water at Night Don't water your lawn late in the evening. The grass will remain wet through the night, encouraging mold and fungus growth. The best time to water is right after the sun goes down, so that water has a chance to reach the roots instead of evaporating quickly in the hot sun. Mow Long Grass in Stages If your grass has gone for a long period of time between cuttings, it is better for the appearance and vigor of the turf to cut the grass gradually in successive mowings rather than all at once. Mow Less in the Shade Grass in shady areas should be mowed less frequently and kept at a greater height than recommended for other areas. The reduced amount of light available to shaded grass makes it more difficult for the plant to produce enough food for healthy growth. Higher and less frequent mowing will permit grass to survive in many areas where it would die of cut more heavily. Directional Mowing Avoid creating patterns across your lawn by trying to mow in a slightly different direction each time. Revive an Old Lawn To renovate an old, patchy lawn, dig up the bare spots about 2-inches deep, work in plenty of finished compost, then tamp and rake well. Sow grass seed after thoroughly soaking the patches. Mixed Grasses Fight Disease The most effective way to keep turf diseases out of your lawn is to plant a mixture of grasses. Different diseases attact different varieties, so when a single grass is planted, there is little to halt the spread of a disease once it has started. But in a mixed turf, the disease organisms soon reach a species of grass that is resistant, and further progress is halted. |
 |
 |