Come back trees

By Bev Johnson | The Daily Journal

Published 02:10 p.m., July 3, 2009

If for some reason you need to cut down a tree in the willow or aspen family, you will discover that they have a trick up their sleeve or trunk. Say your willow is storm damaged to the point it looks terrible. Cut it down leaving enough trunk to prevent you from mowing it over. In a very short time, the trunk will sprout. Thin these sprouts to 3 or 4 and let them grow. When they are still small enough to cut with a clippers, cut all but the best, straightest sprout. It will shortly turn into a healthy tree. It will grow more quickly than a sapling of the same diameter as it is being fed by the root of a full grown tree. All the aspen trees know this same trick. This includes poplars and cottonwood trees.

Your flower bed really looks terrible just now with all those iris flower stalks sticking up and the big bunches of iris leaves. You are very tempted to go out and cut the whole mess down, but don’t. Cut the flower stalks down and get them out of the yard. They can contain iris borers. Leave the iris leaves to soak up food from the sun for a few weeks. About the last week in July or the first of August, you can dig them up to thin them. Cut the leaves off then to make it easier to transplant the rhizomes. Discard any rhizome that doesn’t have a fan of leaves on it. Replant with the “toes” facing out and with just enough soil on them to anchor them in the soil. Iris want their rhizomes exposed to sun and air.

This is the best time to transplant peony plants, too. Don’t move them unless you must as they don’t appreciate it. They will grow and bloom for 50 years in the same place if properly planted and cared for. Cut the plant down in the fall, fertilize a bit in the spring and leave her alone to do her own thing. One trick to prevent peonies from flopping over — lay a piece of large hole chicken wire, the same size as the plant, on top of the plant before it emerges from the soil in the spring. The wire will raise up as the peony grows and it will keep it upright. Neat huh!?!

Watch for fungus in this damp weather. Try to get ahead of it. Look for powdery mildew, like face powder on the leaves, white fibers or, on shrubs, browning and curling leaves.

Anthracnose is on oaks and ash trees now. Expect it on maples next. Small leaves, brown edges and falling leaves are diagnostic of this fungus. All you can do is pick up the leaves as they are infectious. The tree will recover.

Put your sunscreen and hat on when you go out, or better yet, grab a good book and stay inside until it cools off.

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