It’s a great time for gardening in Middle Tennessee

Flowers are blooming, seedlings are sprouting: May is prime-time in the garden.

Coleus and mint make a colorful summer arrangement in a container outdoors.

Now that the weather is reliably warm, it’s finally time to plant those summer garden favorites that need a little heat: tomatoes, peppers, basil, dill, squash, okra.

Here are other ways to celebrate this first week of May in the garden:

* Plant perennials in new or existing garden beds. Water them well, and to make sure they get enough moisture to survive their first season, consider using soaker hoses throughout the beds, for easier, more efficient watering.

* Set out bedding plants: petunias, salvia, begonias, impatiens and other favorites.

* If you need to prune the azaleas, now is the time to do it. Use clean pruning shears to avoid spreading diseases. Cut branches back to a side branch that is growing in the desired direction. Cut close to the branch without leaving a stub. Info: azaleas.org.

* Some houseplants enjoy a summer vacation outdoors. Place them in a shady, protected spot to acclimate them to their temporary outdoor home.

* Plant bright flowers to bring butterflies and hummingbirds to your garden: Bee balm, salvia, cardinal flower and zinnias are easy-to-grow favorites.

Make room in your schedule for two great garden events next Saturday, May 7:

* Herb Fair, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville, 1808 Woodmont Blvd., 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.Dozens of varieties of herb plants for sale, along with gift items, baked goods and more. www.firstuunashville.org

* Middle Tennessee Hosta Society hosta sale, in the parking lot of Maryland Farms YMCA, 5101 Maryland Wayin Brentwood, 8:30 am. – 2 p.m.More than 250 varieties of hostas available. www.mths-hosta.com.

Look for the May Landscape & Garden Calendar, with suggestions for ways to enjoy the rest of the month in the garden, in next Saturday’s Tennessean and online at Tennessean.com.

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At Turning Toward the Sun: A Garden Journal – The focus in on gardening in West End IB World School’s new outdoor classroom.

Azaleas: What happened to the flowers?

Healthy azaleas, but few flowers.

Question: Last year I planted two azaleas that I found on sale. Both were covered in blooms when I bought them, and both seemed to do well over the summer. But this year, only one of them is blooming, and it has just a few flowers. The other one, nothing. Here’s a picture. What’s going on?

One more thing to ask: Did the new azaleas get enough water during the summer last year? Information I found at the Web site of the Azalea Society of America suggests that one reason an azalea doesn’t bloom is because it didn’t get enough moisture to grow flowers (what they say, specifically, is “lack of moisture during the late spring and summer reduces bud formation.”).

Remember that azaleas bloom on last year’s growth, so the effects of what happened last summer would show up this spring. Also remember that after the floodwater dried up last year, we had a pretty dry summer here in Middle Tennessee.

In general, here’s what azaleas need to grow well: Light shade (but some varieties do well in full sun), slightly acid soil (pH 5.5 to 6 is best), good drainage, adequate water – especially the first few years they’re in the ground. An infrequent deep soaking is more effective than superficial sprinkling, say the experts at Azaleas.org.

Established azaleas don’t need fertilizer. And of course, if you find you have to prune them, do the job shortly after they bloom, because they start forming next year’s flower buds this summer; later pruning will likely cut those flowers off.

Daylily day

The Middle Tennessee Daylily Society is planning its spring daylily sale next Saturday (April 30) at the Mall at Green Hills. The sale starts at10 a.m.on the lower level, near the inside entrance to the new Nordstrom. MTDS will sell bare-root daylilies in groups of at least two daylilies together, and most groups will sell for $5. Gardeners who get there early get the best selection.

Kids and gardens: Start young

That’s what the Davidson County Master Gardeners like to do, so each year they introduce kids to gardens in a Junior Master Gardeners Day Camp for ages 9 – 14. The campers learn about planting and growing, design basics, bugs, birds and the joy of nurturing a garden.

This year’s camp is June 13 – 17,9 a.m. – 3 p.m., at Ellington Agricultural Center. To register or get more information, call the U.T. Davidson County Extension Office, 862-5995. Twenty campers, max, so call soon.

A thought for today

I’ve been flipping through a new little book called Garden Rules, by Jayme Jenkins (of Eugene,Ore.) and Nashville’s own Billie Brownell. Its subtitle is “The Snappy Synopsis for the Modern Gardener” and it’s meant to appeal primarily to people who are new to gardening.

But here’s something we all – new and old gardeners – could do well to keep in mind: A Watched Garden Never Grows. We live in an always-on world, and we expect instant gratification in everything. But if you look for big, booming, instant results in a garden, you’ll be a frustrated gardener.

“The key to enjoying your time in the garden is to keep your expectations realistic,” the authors say. “Seedlings take days to sprout. Flower buds take time to develop. Perennials like hostas, peonies, bleeding hearts, and Siberian iris take a couple seasons to reach maturity. Trees will take years to provide shade.”

I gave a copy of the book to my daughter, a new gardener who is growing things in pots on the two second-floor decks of her apartment. I’ve mentioned that she should remember this:

“Nature does not operate at twenty-first-century speed, and Nature always wins.”

Garden Rules is published by Cool Springs Press in Brentwood, Tenn.

Hug your hackberry

Question: I have a hackberry tree which came up by seed and I let it grow. It’s now about 5 or 6 yrs old and very tall. This year it has not put out any leaves yet. The other hackberries in the neighborhood are putting out leaves. Could it have died? I thought they were hardy because they’re native and I’d always thought of them as “weed trees”. Do you think it’s just late or should I test it some way to see if it’s alive? It didn’t seem to have any problems last year and it’s not crowded or anything. Thank you so much. — Elaine McKee

Hackberries can have graceful branch structure.

Hackberries are hardy. Some might say, too hardy. A lot of people think of them as weed trees. They get really big and sometimes drop branches in a strong wind. Almost every tree I’ve seen on the ground or lying across a house or car after a big storm this spring has been a hackberry.

That said, I happen to like hackberries. They can have graceful branch structure, and big, bold lines against a clear blue winter sky. Even better, they are a home and food source for the hackberry butterfly, a sweet little flutterer with gold and black wings. The caterpillars feed on the leaves and tender new growth, and the adults flit about in the foliage and around nearby plants. What’s not to like?

Apparently, sometimes hackberries are slow to leaf out, so don’t give up hope. If it was healthy last year it’s probably still okay. You can check by scratching a little of the bark off a twig; if it’s fresh-looking and a little green underneath, the tree is still alive.

Here are a couple of things I learned while I was researching an answer to your question:

-Hackberries are related to elms, and similar in many details.

-The wood of hackberries is very hard and tough and resists breaking.

-Birds and other wildlife like the berries, which have a raisin/plum flavor. The branches are good for building birds’ nests, and owls and squirrels find holes in their trunks inviting.

-They sometimes grow clusters of dwarfed twigs that are called witches’-broom.

-The leaves are susceptible to nipple gall, small growths caused by a tiny insect that lays eggs in the leaves. It’s a cosmetic problem. They don’t hurt the hackberry.

Common hackberry – Celtis occidentalis. They are native from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic, from Alabama to Quebec.

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The problem with laurels: Some are dying branch by branch. Plant pathologist Alan Windham explains why in today’s Garden Club column in The Tennessean. You can find it at tennessean.com.

Garden No. 3: It’s a tiny space that I hope to fill with summer flowers. Click over to Turning Toward the Sun: A Garden Journal.

Going underground

QUESTION: I’d like to take a first stab this year at growing potatoes. When do I plant these? Is this the right time of year? Any tips or pointers? – Anne-Marie Farmer

Potatoes in bloom.

The time to plant potatoes is now. And what a great thing to try if you’ve never done it before! Freshly-dug potatoes, washed and then cooked and served with a little butter, a little salt and pepper, are a real treat. 

Potatoes grow best in soil that drains well, so if you need to improve the drainage in your garden bed, add organic matter in the form of compost or rotted manure and till it in. In their book Guide to Tennessee Vegetable Gardening, garden experts Felder Rushing and Walter Reeves suggest spreading a complete fertilizer (1 pound of 10-10-10 per square foot). Till or spade the bed to a depth of 6 or 8 inches, remove any roots and rocks and break up any clods.

You probably already know that what you plant is not seeds, but seed pieces – sections of potatoes cut in such a way that each piece contains one or two “eyes.” Be sure to use certified seed potatoes, not potatoes from the grocery store (which have been treated with inhibitors that keep them from sprouting too soon).  If the seed potato has already sprouted, you have a head start. Cut the tuber into pieces and spread them out to dry a couple of days before you plant them.

When you plant in rows, place the seed pieces 12 to 15 inches apart, with 24 inches between rows. In a bed, space the pieces 18 to 24 inches apart. Plant them 2 to 3 inches deep with the eyes up, and cover them with soil.

Now here’s where a little care and attention pays off: When the sprouts reach about 6 inches, pile soil from between the rows up around the plants. Potatoes develop in the dark, and this covers the tubers growing underground. The hills of soil should end up being about 6 inches high. If we don’t get regular rain, provide about an inch of water a week to the potato bed because dry weather hampers potato production.

Eventually, the plants will open pretty little flowers, and small potatoes are usually ready when those first flowers appear. You’ll find them 4 to 6 inches below the top of the soil, so dig carefully to find those little gems. When the vines begin to turn yellow, dig the potatoes that are left in the ground.

There are other potato growing methods that are more unusual. If your soil is poor, you can grow potatoes above ground by pushing them into the soil surface and covering them with 6 inches of clean straw. The seed pieces will root into the soil, but the potatoes will grow at the soil surface. Add more straw as the tubers develop.

There are also potato-growing containers available. Gardener’s Supply Company has polypropylene grow bags that they say make it possible to grow potatoes in any sunny location. (A side note: I tried two grow bags for potatoes last year, but had better luck growing potatoes in the ground).

There are dozens of potato varieties available. The advantage of growing your own, of course, is that you can try varieties that you won’t normally find in the grocery store.

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Potatoes – Solanum tuberosum

Shut down the bunny buffet

Question: Do rabbits eat strawberry plants?

This, dear Readers, is a question from my own garden, because I noticed that the strawberry patch that has been growing like gangbusters for the past couple of years is

Cute? Most gardeners won't think so.

looking a little, um, sparse. New leaves are coming out from under the pine straw, but what the heck happened to that thick mat of foliage that was there when I came inside for the winter?

The answer to the question about whether rabbits eat strawberry plants, I found out, is: Rabbits eat just about anything they find that tastes good, foliage-wise. So, probably. And I saw at least a couple of rabbits out in the back yard this winter.

The University of Tennessee Extension has a booklet called Managing Nuisance Animals and Associated Damage Around the Home (find it at https://utextension.tennessee.edu/publications/Documents/pb1624.pdf), and here’s what they say about rabbits and gardens: “Most people consider viewing rabbits pleasurable; however, that cute bunny quickly becomes a @#&% rabbit when the vegetable garden or flower garden begins to suffer! Rabbits can cause a considerable amount of damage to ornamental flowers and tree seedlings as well.” Really?

They suggest building a tall chicken wire fence to keep rabbits out, buried in the ground because rabbits burrow, too. They say you can trap them, but they breed like, well, like rabbits so even if you catch one, there are more where that one came from. Most wild rabbits only live about a year, but a pair of rabbits can produce up to six litters a year, with two or three bunnies per litter.  

Here’s what I found that seems to keep the rabbits off: A stinky but effective product called Liquid Fence. Spray it on the leaves, and the rabbits leave them alone. Some garden forums suggest that blood meal sprinkled in the bed also will keep them away. The problem with both those ideas is that they only work until rainwater or sprinkler spray washes them away.

But if I want to save the strawberries, I should do something — and fast, before those @#&% rabbits drop in for dinner.

Getting the Garden Ready: Not a how-to, but a poet’s reflection on the change of seasons. Click over to Turning Toward the Sun.