Dear Helen: I read your tips on gathering peony-flowered poppy seeds. You didn鈥檛 mention when to sow the seeds. F.L.
Sow the seeds outdoors in March, weather and soil conditions permitting. Store the seeds over the winter in a labelled envelope placed in a dry, dark, uniformly cool place. I use the cupboard beside my north-facing front door, where temperatures stay cool.
Dear Helen: Are Burdock plants aggressive weeds? On walks through my rural Saanich neighbourhood I鈥檝e noticed a patch of the plants, now grown about 120 cm tall and starting to flower. Should I be concerned about them?
M.B.
Burdock is invasive. It is listed as a noxious weed in several interior areas of the British Columbia mainland where the plants have become troublesome. They grow up to two metres tall, with erect, branched stems and large, heart-shaped, wavy-edged leaves.
Burdock is a biennial, meaning that the plants flower and set seed in their second year, but they can live for up to four years. The plants produce lavender-purple flowers from July to October, followed by round, bristly, clinging burs. Every plant can produce up to 16,000 seeds over its lifetime.
The key to preventing burdock from spreading is to cut the plants down before they flower, so that no seeds can be produced. The seeds spread easily as hooked spines on the burs (seed capsules) cling fast to clothing and to passing animals
It is thought that burdock was introduced from its native Eurasia in the 1700s, as food and medicine. The entire plant is edible. Young leaves are used like spinach, the flower stalks like celery, tender first year taproots in soups and stews.
Dear Helen: Honeysuckle has always been one of my favourite flowers, but my small yard has no room or suitable site for it to grow well. Can honeysuckle be grown and maintained successfully in a container?
B.B.
Almost any plant can be grown in a container if the container is large enough, but honeysuckle will not grow as well in a pot as in the open garden. If you decide to try, use the largest pot or tub possible. Keep the plant well watered, and fertilize regularly. Pruning helps to confine the plant, with a main pruning in late winter.
Though most honeysuckle vines are fairly rampant, one of the newer ones, called Peaches and Cream, is more compact than most. I came across this variety quite by chance. A gardener I鈥檇 helped with some advice came by one day with a Peaches and Cream plant she鈥檇 just bought. She asked me to do prune it back for her before she planted it.
A rooted cutting made from a pruned stem gave me a plant, which has proven to be very easy-care. I keep stems with faded flowers cut back, and prune it back almost to the framework stems in late winter or early spring. It produces highly scented, dark purple-red and cream flowers through spring and summer. I notice that Monrovia, a major supplier of plants to our local garden centres, recommends Peaches and Cream for growing in containers.
Consider contacting a few of your local garden centres to see which ones stock this plant. Honeysuckle can be planted in either early spring or early autumn, but for growing in a container I would opt for a spring planting. A newly potted plant might not fare well in a cold winter. Plant as early as possible in the spring to give the plant time to root well while the weather remains cool.
Dear Helen: In Europe, covering gardens in rocks to reduce work and the need to water 鈥� a practice seen often in gardens here 鈥� is discouraged as people are urged to plant pollinator flowers in any space they have. Crop yields here and throughout North America have been limited by a lack of bees and other pollinating insects. Do you agree that stone gardens should be discouraged?
H.C.
I agree with environmental groups and gardening organizations that everyone who can should consider seeding patches of 鈥減ollinator鈥� flowers to help expand populations of the insects upon which much of our food supply depends.
I think encouragement, with an emphasis on the beauty, easy care, and urgent importance of such plantings is the best path to increasing the presence of pollinator-friendly flowers in our gardens.
