from the forum: companion plants for pollination

Amy Batog

As Digital Content Editor Christine Alexander explains, pollinators play a vital role in our ecosystem and we should all be doing our part to support their populations:

The key to getting the most productive tomato plants is to plant the right companions with them. Read this article to find out which are the best Tomato Companion Plants!

Think before you allow poppies to proliferate. Poppies rob a lot of goodness from your soil.

A stroll through a boutique garden store might lead you to believe that filling a garden with happy, healthy plants is only for the well-heeled. But those very plants that have soaring price tags in the store might be yours for free if you are willing to be a little creative. If you are wondering how to get free plants, you’ve come to the right place. Read on for five tried-and-true paths that lead you to free garden plants.

READER TERRYK HAS ME STUMPED THIS WEEK with the Urgent Garden Question forum question she posed: whether a doublefile viburnum or a Kousa dogwood rated being granted the limited garden space available.

(first published in 1989; proof positive how long I have been at this garden writing thing, friends)LIKE A GRADUATING SENIOR in that pointless last week of school, I have lost all ability to concentrate. I hadn’t been sure, until I sat down to write this, exactly what was on my mind, but it is full, so very annoyingly full that I awaken every morning when it is still dark to the tape playing in my head. It is a droning, relentless list, with lots of static punctuating entry after entry of musts, to-do’s, and did-I-remember-to’s.Probably it is partly the disease of gardening that does this to a person come June. At this time of year i

I LOVE THE FORUM POSTS THAT START with “somebody ate my…” (Actually, I hate these stories, but feel better knowing that I am not alone in the Case of the Disappearing Crop.) This week in the Urgent Garden Question Forum, there was one I really loved: from member NYGardeningGal who titled her question,“Somebody Ate My Plant From Underneath the Ground?” Oh, dear.

I have grown a lot of viburnums over the years, and have pruned them at various times of year for one reason or another. Usually viburnums need relatively little pruning, assuming you planted the right cultivar in the right-sized space (for example, not ‘Mariesii’ among the doublefiles, shown, but ‘Watanabei’ if you only had a smallish area). Even the lightest form of pruning, the removal of spent flowers called deadheading, isn’t needed with most viburnums, since what you want is fruit after the flowers (unlike all that deadheading with lilacs, for instance, to prevent messiness).POOR PLANNING TO BLAMEMost of the pruning I’ve had to do on viburnums was because I didn’t leave enough room for the plant to reach its eventual size, and poor planning (meaning my impatience to have a filled-in garden) caught up with me in time. I have cut several viburnums to the ground or the

IT’S A QUESTION I DON’T HAVE AN ANSWER FOR, but maybe you can help: What’s the best way to keep track of gardening records—a format or tactic that can grow with the garden? Is it index cards; spreadsheets on the computer; a series of actual journals, such as the popular moleskine notebooks? Forum member KK asked the other day, and maybe you have the secret to record-keeping success.

FORUM MEMBER ANN HAD a good question this week: Ever eaten pea tendrils or flowers or any of the bits other than the peas themselves? Well, yes I have, I replied, offering the best variety to grow for this gourmet salad ingredient or garnish, and I wonder what you think? Do tell. Or if you have nothing to report on that score, what about this: Have you lost seedlings you started to the (dreaded fungal disease called) damping off? Let us know (or just hear our horror stories).

THIS SUBJECT ALWAYS RATTLES ME A BIT: When to move flower bulbs that you want to relocate, or divide? There are proponents of the “in the green” tactic, meaning to move them when they have their foliage on, and others who say no, no, never–do it once they ripen, or even in fall.