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Author: JESSIE KEITH

Plants are the lens Jessie views the world through because they’re all-sustaining. (“They feed, clothe, house and heal us. They produce the air we breathe and even make us smell pretty.”) She’s a garden writer and photographer with degrees in both horticulture and plant biology from Purdue and Michigan State Universities. Her degrees were bolstered by internships at Longwood Gardens and the American Horticultural Society. She has since worked for many horticultural institutions and companies and now manages communications for Sun Gro Horticulture, the parent company of Black Gold. Her joy is sharing all things green and lovely with her two daughters.

What Are the Best House Plants for Low Light?

Chinese evergreen (Agleonema spp.) is one of many great low-light house plants.

“What are the best house plants for low light?” Question from Vesta of Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia

Answer: All house plants need some filtered light, but many will tolerate low to moderate filtered light from windows. I tend to go for shade-loving house plants with bold, colorful leaves. Here are a few of my favorites for small and large spaces.

Low-light House Plants for Small Spaces

Chinese Evergreen: The brilliant leaves of Chinese evergreen (Agleonema spp.) are boldly colorful and shade-loving. These low, lush plants originate from the humid tropics and subtropics of Asia where they survive in the forest understory. Two of my favorites for color include ‘Two Tone Moonstone’, with its pink and white leaves speckled with green, and the poinsettia-like ‘Red Zircon’, which has crimson-red leaves edged in green.

Snake Plant (Sansevieria trifasciata): This super tough house plant can tolerate both low water and low light. Some varieties are tall and upright while others are compact and pretty. I like the little ‘Gold Hahnii’, which has gold-striped pale green leaves. It is part of the Costa Farms Plants of Steel collection.

Tricolored Prayer Plant (Stromanthe hybrids): As the name suggests, the low-growing tricolor prayer plant (Stromanthe ‘Triostar’) has three-colored, lance-shaped leaves with bold markings of cream, rosy purple, and green. It originates from Brazilian rain forests and requires low to moderate light and sufficient moisture and humidity for good growth.

Rattlesnake Plant (Calathea lancifolia): This easy-to-grow house plant is very attractive with its elongated, dark green speckled leaves with purple undersides. Give it average moisture and low to moderate light. This is one of many attractive Calathea. Click here to view more of these shade-loving house plants.

Devil’s Ivy (Epipremnum aureum): Is a trailing house plant best grown in a hanging basket or on a mantle where it can trail beautifully. It has heart-shaped leaves and is very hard to kill.

Low-light House Plants for Open Spaces

Variegated Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa ‘Albo Variegata’): This rainforest trailer and climber has very large leaves with decorative holes, hence the common name. The variegated form is extra pretty and grows a little more slowly.

Fiddle-leaf fig (Ficus lyrata): The unusual, shiny fiddle-shaped leaves of this large house plant add textural beauty to homes. It is also a rainforest plant adapted to lower light.

Parlor palm (Chamaedorea elegans). The common parlor palm makes a very pretty house plant. It grows in low light and looks elegant in large spaces in the home. Be sure not to over water it.

Cutleaf Philodendron (Philodendron ‘Xanadu’ ™): There are lots of beautiful philodendron that grow well in low light, but the cutleaf form looks extra attractive. Click here to view it and other attractive philodendron.

Care

Aside from filtered light, warmth, and humidity, most of these tropicals need plenty of rich, moisture-holding soil to dig their roots into. At planting time, provide them with containers that are several inches larger than their root balls. Make sure the pots have drainage holes at the bottom and deep saucers to catch excess water. Two of the best Black Gold mixes for substantial water-holding ability are Black Gold Waterhold Cocoblend Potting Mix, which is OMRI Listed and contains coconut coir, and Black Gold All Purpose Potting Mix, which is our #1 best seller for house plants of all kinds. Keep the potting mix evenly moist, never wet, and fertilize regularly with an all-purpose fertilizer.

Happy gardening!

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

I Live in California and Some of My Bulbs Didn’t Bloom This Year. Why?

Ithuriel’s Spear (Triteleia laxa)

“Some of my bulbs didn’t flower this year. Is it something I did or didn’t do? The bulbs were paperwhites and another I cannot remember the name of. ” Question from Jamie of Paso Robles, California.

Answer: Paperwhites are native to Mediterranean regions and quite tender. They grow and flower best in areas with winters that don’t dip below 20°F, and summers are quite hot and dry. Unexpected cold snaps in winter and moist summers can really put a damper on their performance. Even winter temperatures nearing 20°F can harm them.

From what I have read, Paso Robles, California experienced some unusually cold weather this past winter. This could have damaged your paperwhites and impacted their flowering. Planting their bulbs deeper can help, or you could switch to bulbs better adapted to your climate.

Consider planting California native bulbs for your region. There are several really pretty options including the violet-blue camas (Camassia quamash) and a suite of Triteleia including the yellow prettyface (Triteleia ixioides) and deep violet-blue Ithuriel’s Spear (Triteleia laxa), among many others. There are also loads of Pacific Coast Iris hybrids to consider growing. Click here to view some of the prettier varieties, and click here to view some reliable sources for these irises. To learn more about outstanding bulbs for your region visit the Pacific Bulb Society.

I hope these tips help!

Happy gardening,

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

 

 

I Need Help Amending My Clay Soils!

“We have added compost, mulch, and additional black dirt, but the soil continues to be very hard and difficult to grow vegetables in. What should we do?” Question from Linda of Schererville, Indiana

Answer: I looked at the soil map for your area, and your soils are indeed very clay-rich and silty. The trouble with clayey soils is that they lack aeration, good drainage, and become very hard when dry. This disables water percolation and the fine roots of vegetables from gathering necessary air and moisture for top performance. There are several things that you can do to improve poor soils like yours for better vegetable growing.

  1. Improve and uplift your amending strategy. For amendments to be effective in clay soils, they need to be evenly incorporated in quantity. They also need to be lifted above the soil level to maximize drainage. Add amendments, like compost and rich topsoil, into your soil at a ratio of two parts rich amendments to one part ground soil, and till them in until well incorporated. Then berm your soils to lift them above the soil level. (Click here to learn more about berming.) Do not amend your soil with bark mulch. Bark binds nitrogen, keeping this essential nutrient from growing plants. Finally, add a quality fertilizer for vegetable growing to ensure your plants are getting the nutrients they need.
  2. Double dig. You can maximize the rooting potential of your vegetables by double digging. This means digging a 1- to 2-foot deep trench below your vegetable plots and amending the backfill with the same two to one ratio of amendment to soil. Fill the trenches in with the enriched backfill, and then berm with more amended soil up top to ensure excellent drainage and deep root growth for your edibles. (Click here to learn more about double digging.)
  3. Try raised bed gardening. If you continue to have trouble with vegetable garden productivity, turn to raised bed gardening. This will allow you to give your plants the best soil possible for excellent vegetable production. We recommend adding Black Gold Garden Compost Blend and Black Gold Garden Soil to raised bed plantings.

I hope that you have better luck with your vegetable garden this year!

Happy gardening,

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

How Do I Prevent Rose Black Spot?

“Please give me advice on the prevention of black spot before it occurs.” Question from Carol of Drums, Pennsylvania

Answer: Black spot (Diplocarpon rosae) is such an annoying fungal disease of roses. Here are six measures to help prevent it:

1. Clean your bushes in fall and winter. Remove all fallen leaves and any dead branches from your rose bushes. The fungus overwinters on dead, infected plant material.

2. Apply a dormant oil spray before roses leaf out in spring. Dormant oil sprays deter fungal diseases existing on the plant. (Click here to learn more about horticultural oil sprays.)

3. Prune roses to promote aeration. Moisture on the leaves helps fungal diseases, like black spot, take hold. (That’s why roses grown in dry climates have fewer disease problems.) Prune off extra branches and sprouts to open up plants and help prevent black spot. (Click here to learn more about how to prune roses.)

4. Space roses to promote aeration. Space your roses according to nursery recommendations. Overcrowding can encourage foliar moisture and subsequent fungal problems.

5. Plant roses in full sun. When you plant roses in full sun, their foliage dries faster, which creates a less favorable environment for black spot to proliferate.

6. Water roses from the bottom. Bottom water your roses to help keep their leaves dry.

I hope that these tips help!

Happy rose growing,

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

How Do I Manage Black Vine Weevils?

“How do I get rid of vine weevils in the garden without using expensive nematodes?” Question from Kathy of Sparks, Nevada

Answer: The greatest damage done to vines, like hops and grapes, and shrubs, like rhododendron and hydrangea, is caused by adult black vine weevils. The adults are also the most vulnerable to treatment. The larvae do chew on the roots of host plants, but their damage is minimal unless their populations are very high. Either way, I will offer management solutions for both life stages. None will involve the use of beneficial nematodes.

Black Vine Weevil Larvae Management

Black vine weevil adults emerge in April, and the females will start laying eggs at the base of host plants around two to three weeks after emergence and continue for another two and a half months. One female can lay up to 500 eggs. The eggs hatch shortly after and the larvae feed on roots for 10 months until the following spring season.

Cultivating the soil around the base of plants in early to mid-spring can damage some larvae and pupating adults. A soluble Neem oil drench can also be helpful in managing these weevils at the larval stage. Choose an OMRI Listed product that is approved for organic gardening, if you are an organic gardener. Some also claim that applying a thick layer of diatomaceous earth at the base of infested plants can also help.

Black Vine Weevil Adult Management

The adults can be very damaging, attacking host plant flower buds and blooms as well as foliage. They chew half-circle notches in leaf edges, making their damage easy to spot. It is easiest to manage the adults when they are emerging from the soil in spring. The University of California recommends you begin by monitoring emerging populations using cardboard tree wrap traps around the base of vines or shrubs. Neem oil and pyrethrin sprays can be used to kill the adults. Spinosad sprays have also been shown to be helpful. You can also pick them off by hand to manage smaller infestations.

I hope that these tips help! to learn more, please visit the Missouri Botanical Garden’s page on black vine weevil.

Happy gardening!

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

What is Chewing on My Brugmansia Leaves?

“I have a Brugmansia, and something is eating at the leaves. I have tried soapy water with oil, and I have tried broad-spectrum herbicides. Please Help!” Question from Lizzy of Ocala, Florida

Answer: Your pictures came through! The damage is caused by chewing pests and there are several that will attack Brugmansia. Cabbage moth caterpillars (cabbage loopers), snails, and slugs will all chew on Brugmansia. Tomato hornworms will too, but this looks more like slug or cabbage looper damage.

Cabbage Looper Inspection and Management

Start by checking the plants from top to bottom for little green caterpillars. If you find them, these are cabbage loopers. You might also see little white moths flittering around your plants. These are cabbage looper moths. The easiest way to get rid of loopers is to simply remove them by hand and put them in soapy water. If you find loopers, also check for clusters of small, round, yellowish eggs on the bottom of leaves. These are looper eggs and must be scraped off. To further manage loopers, you can sprinkle the plants with BT, which is approved for organic gardening and only harms the caterpillars chewing on your plants.

Slug or Snail Inspection and Management

Slugs or snails like to hang out beneath or just below the soil line of pots, so this is the first place to check for them. They come out at night to do their damage. There are several organic ways to keep them away from your Brugmansia. I would purchase some diatomaceous earth and sprinkle it liberally on the surface of your potting soil. To us, it feels like coarse sand, but to slugs, it is very damaging. It cuts their soft exteriors and keeps them away. You could also apply a thick layer of perlite on the top of your potting soil. Slugs don’t like it either.

Brugmansias grow so quickly that pretty soon a little chewing damage won’t do them any harm. In fact, I would upgrade your plant in a larger pot as soon as it bursts forth. In just a few months a plant can grow as much as three feet and eventually reach huge proportions (15-feet or more unless yours is a dwarf variety). I recommend planting in Black Gold® Moisture Supreme Container Mix. Also be sure to add extra flower fertilizer because they are really heavy feeders.

I hope these tips help. Happy gardening!

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

Can I Make Seedling Soil Blocks With Black Gold?

“I realize that you sell several potting soils. The one that I want to use to make soil blocks is your organic potting mix.  Do I need to add anything besides water to it to act as a binder?” Ken from Washington State

Answer: Black Gold Natural & Organic Potting Mix is perfect for seedling block making.  All you need to do is fully moisten the soil, gather it in a pile, and punch it down with a soil block maker. The compacted blocks should be firm and stay together when handled. Then place them in leakproof flats with no bottom drainage holes. No extra binder is needed. This method is nice because it offers a plastic-pot-free way of starting seedlings.

Happy gardening,

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

How Do I Kill Trumpet Vine?

“I am having the hardest time killing trumpet vines & they have taken over my yard. I use roundup every year, but it’s not killing the root system.” Question from Rosie of Wichita, Kansas

Answer: Red trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) is a beautiful native vine with giant, trumpet-shaped, orange-red flowers loved by hummingbirds, but as you have discovered,  it is best left for roadside fencelines and natural areas. The vine becomes monstrous and just takes over home landscapes and gardens. Glyphosate, or any other home chemical means, won’t kill it. It requires the toughest measures and a lot of elbow grease to remove.

Trumpet vine is big and woody like a tree, so you have to remove it like a tree. If the vine is still too big, use loppers, and/or pruners to cut it all back. If it’s just popping up everywhere in your lawn, and/or still has a large stump, take a sharp spade and/or mattock and start digging. You’ll have to pull up all the roots, stems, and runners, but it will be a job well worth it. Once you have it all up, you won’t have to deal with it again, hopefully. The occasional sprout may pop up here and there,  in which case dig, don’t spray.

A gentler rambling perennial vine with just as much hummingbird attraction is red honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens). It is easily cut back and kept in place. Check out the extra-beautiful variety ‘Major Wheeler’.

Happy gardening!

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist

 

How Do I Manage Grasshoppers Organically?

“What’s the best way to deal with grasshoppers in the garden organically?” Question from Chamisa or Ramona, California

Answer: Grasshoppers (Melanoplus spp.) are severe garden pests in most parts of the United States and difficult to manage. Populations tend to boom in eight- to ten-year cycles, and when they are bad, they are bad. Their swarms are very overwhelming, but there is hope. It’s just a matter of understanding their limitations and our limitations as gardeners.

Grasshopper Life Cycle

Grasshopper females lay their eggs two inches down in the soil in the late summer or fall. They tend to lay eggs in undisturbed natural areas rather than garden soils, which disables gardeners from managing them in their home turf. Each egg case may contain 20 to 100 grasshoppers waiting to hatch. In spring, once the soil warms, they emerge.

Grasshoppers are chewing insects that will feed on just about anything green, but they tend to prefer new, tender garden edibles and plants, such as carrots, lettuce, corn, and annual flowers. As they grow to adulthood they become more and more damaging and can consume whole plants quickly. Out West, they do the most damage for about a month in early summer when wildland plants start to dry up in the arid weather.

Grasshopper Management Challenges

Pesticides, organic or non-organic, are not that effective on grasshoppers, so don’t waste your time with them. Crop covers can be effective, but very hungry grasshoppers can chew through plastic covers if they are hungry enough. Overall, when populations are high, gardeners are limited in what they can do to protect all their tender edibles.

Grasshopper Management Options

Here are several options for managing grasshoppers in the garden.

  1. Plant crops that grasshoppers are more likely to avoid. Like deer, they will eat just about anything when they are swarming and hungry, but in lower populations, they are reported to avoid cilantro, squash, zucchini, watermelon, peas, and the leaves of tomatoes and eggplants. Tough, armored ornamental succulents, like agave and cacti, are also resistant.
  2. Cover tender plants with thick window screening until the grasshoppers are gone. Grasshoppers can chew through most standard row covers, but they can’t chew through metal window screenings. Just be sure to secure the edges well, so they can’t get around the cover.
  3. Plant trap crops. Grasshoppers favor tender grasses, so if you nurture a nice swath of tall grass away from your garden, they will be attracted to it and more likely to avoid your garden plants.
  4. Handpick them in years when they are few.
  5. Set baits containing the protozoan Nosema locustae. This protozoan bait is OMRI Listed and kills grasshoppers but does not harm humans.
  6. Keep chickens and guinea fowl. If you have space and inclination, farm fowl will happily eat away at your grasshopper populations.

I hope that these tips help.

Happy gardening,

Jessie Keith

Black Gold Horticulturist