Q: I have a friend from England who swears you can raise koi outdoors in Georgia, near Athens. I said it is too cold. He is usually right about everything, but is he is right about this? — Andrea Bradford, email
A: Your friend wins! The 150 members of the Atlanta Koi Club ("Sharing the joy of keeping koi," atlantakoiclub.org) would love to welcome you to their ranks. They have regular meetings and a big koi show and sale in October.
Q: Do bumblebees make honey? They are all over my lavender, and I'm sure that would make good honey. — Arnold Richins, Cumming
A: Bumblebees don't make honey because they don't have perennial nests. Like yellow jackets and hornets, all the bumblebee workers die in early winter and a young queen finds a rotten log in which to hibernate. She starts a new colony in spring. Honeybee colonies survive from year to year by making and storing honey to feed the colony in winter.
Q: I have monkey grass growing next to my lawn and it is invading via underground runners. How deep should I bury a barrier to control this? — Art Geist, email
A: I think a barrier buried 6 inches deep would be fine. I use landscape edging from a home improvement store. There are two kinds of monkey grass found in landscapes. Spreading liriope, Liriope spicata, has spikes of inconspicuous white flowers in July. The more common kind, Liriope muscari, which spreads more slowly, has more obvious flowers, typically some shade of blue.
Q: We have a major invasion of ants. I have tried most ant remedies, but nothing seems to work. — Paul Schlitz, email
A: A friend had lots of ants crawling around the sink in her kitchen. She used a commercial ant bait applied by a syringe, placing little "dabs" in out-of-the-way corners underneath the sink and around the room. After about a week, there were few ants left. Ant baits are my favorite, but I admit they can be slow to show effect. An insect spray will kill a small percentage of the ants, but will repel others without killing them, so long-term control with sprays is not as good.
Q: How can I prevent the massive leaf growth at the bottom of my crape myrtles? — Bob Barringer, McDonough
A: Severe winter pruning is almost always the problem. When you remove the top of a crape myrtle, it automatically tries to make new growth at the base. You have to choose whether to stop winter pruning or prune away the basal sprouts each year.
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