The Garden Writers’ symposium in Pittsburgh was a great event but I must admit that I’m always glad to get back home. We saw some wonderful gardens but I realize that I have been doing this too long. I think I have become a bit jaded after seeing so many different gardens over the years and it takes something pretty special to get me to raise my camera. A quick look says that I only managed to take about 250 pictures over the four days of touring. Many of those are just lazy record keeping; take the picture of the plant and then take a picture of the label next to it, that avoids the use of pencil and paper. That’s one of the joys of digital photography, the minuscule cost per picture. I showed you the Tillandsia arches at the Phipps Conservatory last week and there was much more to see there. They have the typical large Palm house that you enter through and then a wide variety of smaller, themed glasshouses. One of their main contributions is their efforts to make their whole operation energy efficient.
That’s difficult with a greenhouse but they try. Deep holes in the ground are a source of cool air that they pump through their main glasshouses in the summer and that is quite effective and much cheaper then trying to use conventional cooling systems. They recycle most of the rain water that falls on their buildings and their newest building even has a waste water recycling system through a series of created wetlands. The plant that attracted most attention from our group was outside covering some steep slopes with a mass of bright yellow flowers and some very delicate foliage. Eventually we found one of our group that identified it as Partridge Pea, Cassia chamaecrista a native of the area that is an important plant for erosion control and whose seeds are a major source of food for groundbirds such as partridge and grouse. 350+ garden writers looking at acres of exotics and a local wild flower caught the attention of many of them.

Now it’s time to answer a few of my reader’s questions. Don’t forget to check the front page of the Website for frequent short ideas for current gardening activities.

Richard Asks? A short question this afternoon. As I was walking around my Rose of Sharon and my small climbing rose bush, I noticed a brown/green type beetle (some on top of each other!) in the flower eating the petals!!! What to do????

Ken Answers! It sounds like the nasty Japanese Beetle has discovered your garden as it has mine in the past couple of weeks. Constant vigilance and hand picking are the best deterrents. There is very little we can spray that has much effect. There are traps that catch yours and attract your neighbours as well. I will be looking for other ideas now that I also have them and will publish as I learn.

Sandy Asks? I have a question about a worm that is hidden in a hard shell under the leaf of a rose bush in clusters small hard pea size balls. They can be pulled off and when you split them there is a a little worm inside there could be ten in a cluster along the branches. This rose bush is in Oakville and has not spread to the other 24 bushes yet.

Ken Answers! Your description leads me to two possibilities. There are a few Scale insects that attack roses and one of them sounds similar in shape. There is also a rose gall that develops into little round balls. Try looking those up to see if any look like your problem or send me as close up a picture as you can.