MOTHER’S DAY Page 6
Call us for all of
your real estate
needs whether
buying or selling
We are a full service Real Estate
Office where (Home Matters)!
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REAL ESTATE COMPANY
Betsy Franzoni
Broker
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up two feet and be two feet in
diameter later this summer.
They are available at E.C.
Brown Nursery.
I am reluctant to recommend
buying a tree or shrub as a gift
unless I know the recipient has
asked for it. After all, shrubs
take up more space than flow-
ers and generally last longer.
But you know Mom best, and if
she likes flowering shrubs and
has space for more, think about
getting the early-blooming
azalea ‘Cornell Pink’ (Rhodo-
dendron mucronulatum).
This shrub blooms before
most others (except February
Daphne). As the name implies,
the blossoms are pink. A nice
pink, not garish at all. Its only
liability is that it blooms so
early that some years a hard
frost can ruin the buds, I’m
told. It’s never happened to me,
or to anyone I know, but the
literature always warns about it.
The shrub can get large — eight
feet tall and wide, or larger — if
not pruned.
If you’d rather not buy plants,
think about other things useful
to a gardener. A CobraHead
weeder (www.cobrahead.com),
some nice garden gloves or per-
haps a colorful tubtrug. Trugs,
as I call them, are handy bucket
substitutes. Unlike the standard
five-gallon pail, these are flex-
ible, with two soft handles. Easy
to pick up with one hand, they
come in sizes from very small
to quite large (11 gallons).
Available at Gardeners Supply
(www.gardeners.com), or your
local garden center.
Mom, if you’re watching me,
I planted some pansies this
week. I hope you like them.
Henry Homeyer is a garden
consultant and author of five
books who lives in Cornish
Flat, New Hampshire. You may
email questions to him at henry.
[email protected]. His web-
site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.
LAWN CARE Page 13
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thestovedepot.com
kill clover. So what have they
done? They have declared
clover a weed.
Clover is not a weed. It is
a beneficial plant that actu-
ally takes nitrogen from the
atmosphere and fixes it in the
soil, essentially giving you free
fertilizer. The seeds are tiny, so
a little in a mix goes a long way.
If you get an organic fertilizer,
it has no herbicides. And when
you buy a bag of conservation
mix, you may want to turn
it upside down and shake it
a little. Clover seeds tend to
migrate toward the bottom of
the bag, potentially giving an
uneven distribution.
A conservation mix has the
advantage of biodiversity. If
a pest or disease attacks one
grass, another might not be
affected. Kentucky blue grass,
for example, is lush and gor-
geous, but susceptible to many
diseases. A little is better than a
lot in a mix. Unless your lawn
is right on the edge of a stream
or lake, you probably will not be
causing any problems by fertil-
izing your lawn a little. Lawn is
a great filter and will generally
prevent the migration of fertil-
izer into water bodies. And,
there are organic fertilizers that
have no phosphates at all: North
Country Organics has a 6-0-6
called Natural No-Phos.
I know that some gardeners
remove their lawns and put
plants everywhere. But before
you do that, remember that
lawn is the easiest of all plant-
ings to maintain. A little work
now, some mowing as needed,
and it looks good. Especially
if, like me, you are not worried
too much about the presence
of a few dandelions.
Read Henry’s twice-weekly
blog at https://dailyuv.com/gar-
deningguy His e-mail is henry.
[email protected] and
his snail mail is P.O. Box 364,
Cornish Flat, NH 03746. Please
include a SASE if asking for a
mailed response to a question.
Spring Vermont Home, Garden & Auto 2018 • 17