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Questions and Answers:Q. I loved my grandmother’s gardenia bush when I was a child. The smell of gardenia blooms brings me back to my childhood, and I love to see a gardenia in bloom. However, I don’t have any luck growing gardenias. Any tips? A. If you can get past the nostalgia factor, you will remember that your grandmother’s gardenia spent a lot of time covered with black sooty mold or “honeydew” caused by whiteflies or aphids. Because the soil on the coast and in East Texas is acidic and moist, the plants can usually fend off the annual attack of the difficult to control whiteflies. If you want to try a gardenia, follow the same guidelines as growing azaleas and camellias. That would include adding sphagnum moss to the backfill and adding iron and soil acidifier regularly during the year. They don’t do well in alkaline soil. In addition, they need lots of mulch and compost, and a steady supply of moisture. Four to five hours of sun is about right in Central Texas. Prune off freeze damage in early spring. To control nematodes, add granulated molasses, available at your local feed store, to the soil around them. Nematodes live in sandy soil. You may have them and your neighbor may not be affected. That is why your neighbor may have a beautiful gardenia bush and you can never get them to grow. Since you are having trouble growing them in the ground, you can try growing a dwarf variety such as “Radicans” or “Veitchii” in a large pot. Q. I can’t seem to make my Rose of Sharon happy, what am I doing wrong? A. Although Rose of Sharon or Althea bloom best in full sun, protect it from afternoon sun by planting on the east side of a larger shrub or tree, unless you are willing to water it every other day during the summer. Mine always come out strong but fade as the real heat begins in July and August. Rich garden soil amended with and organic fertilizer and lots of mulch will keep them happy. Keep mulch about an inch or so away from the trunk as they are susceptible to fungus problems around their base. Water regularly, but don’t get the foliage wet during the process. The single bloom variety works best for me. Q. I heard somewhere that our eastern red cedar trees are like snowflakes, no two are alike, is that true? A. Once confined to river bottoms and places wildfires couldn’t reach, the eastern red cedar is gobbling up our forests and grasslands. They are great for cutting and making brush piles for wildlife. You can also cut halfway through the tree, knock it over and it will stay alive and make a good wildlife shelter that continues to grow. I cut several of them that way that are close together and collapse them toward each other and make a nice living shelter for the wildlife. Birds consume the berries and then spread the seed under oak trees. They grow up beside the oak trees and will eventually kill the oak. If you cut a large cedar down next to an old oak, the remaining roots of the cedar will consume all the nitrogen in the soil and still kill the oak, so if you have a huge cedar growing next to an old oak, there isn’t much you can do. I’ve had some luck bulldozing or pulling the cedar from under the oak, but it severely damaged the oak’s roots. As you can tell, I’m no friend of eastern red cedars due to their invasive nature, however, the answer to your question is that yes, they are all unique, as each one adapts specifically to the site where it is growing.
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