Q: This year our azaleas are green and healthy with beautiful foliage but few blooms. The blooms that do appear are in the middle of the plants. We pruned them severely after they bloomed last spring. Catherine Grieves, Cobb County
A: I think the severe pruning could explain what happened. After an azalea is pruned deeply, it puts out lots of new growth. These new twigs are characterized as "juvenile growth," and they do not produce many flowers. It takes about a year for the juvenile branches to mature and be capable of making flower buds. If you don't have flowers or any unopened buds on the top half of your azaleas, it would be fine to prune them now by hand to a foot or so lower than where you want blooms to appear next year.
Q: Why don't you recommend using Dawn dish soap to help kill bugs and weeds? Tony Walker, email
A: The number one reason I don't mention Dawn for garden use is that it doesn't have a pesticide label that permits it. Strictly speaking, I'd be breaking the law if I recommended it to kill insects or weeds. Remember that Dawn is a detergent, not a soap, and the difference is major. Commercial insecticidal and herbicidal soaps are made of specific ingredients that work fine if used as directed. I'd rather recommend a product that's been tested and shown to work as promised before I promote a folk recipe that might be more harm than help.
Q: I have a row of Green Giant arborvitae; two years old, four feet tall. Back then, I read they should be spaced five feet apart. This seemed close so I spaced them 10 feet apart. Are my trees still too close? Bryan Payne, Coweta County
A: I think you are smart to space them the way you did. All I would recommend for maintenance in the future, as they grow larger, is to go out in spring when new growth is appearing and shear the limb tips between adjacent plants to make a slight gap. Don't let the limbs grow together. If limb tips are allowed to become entangled, they eventually die and lower limbs will turn brown.
Q: I would like to make a bed to plant perennials and annual flowers. The area has a lot of tree roots. My husband suggested using Roundup to kill the grass in the area before adding soil. Jane Bishop, email
A: You'll be taking a gamble by spraying glyphosate (Roundup) weedkiller on the roots of a tree. Typically tree roots don't absorb much of the chemical but I'd hate for your tree to be hurt. It would be safest to just pull the weeds by hand. You could also choose to wipe herbicide onto the grass using a foam paintbrush. The soil in the new bed needs to be at least six inches deep. If you use one of the bagged garden soil (not topsoil) products, that depth of material should not hurt the tree roots.
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