Q: I need to give my bluebird houses a good fall cleaning. Squirrels have chewed enormous holes in them. What can I do to deter them? — Sandy Devitt
A: One idea is to install a metal predator guard plate over the hole in each birdhouse. The guard is attached with screws and has a 1.5-inch hole appropriate for bluebirds. Squirrels don't like to chew metal.
I’ve seen a homemade guard made from 1/4-inch hardware cloth (welded wire). The material was firmly attached to the front of the house and wire snips used to form a hole through which birds could enter but squirrels could not.
Q: My company’s building has a large atrium. We need to replace the podocarpus trees there with something else. What? — Dianne Davenport
A: Ficus trees are excellent for atriums because the different varieties vary greatly in mature size. Black olive, Bucida buceras, is also good. Both are easily pruned to keep them in bounds.
Palms are commonly used, but they cannot be pruned for size. Removing the growing tip kills the plant.
Q: A friend in coastal Georgia has a spider mite infestation on her citrus trees. She has tried liquid Sevin and insecticidal soap. Is this effective? — John Stephens, Milton
A: Using Sevin is an excellent way to get more spider mites. This insecticide kills all the beneficial insects that eat mites and partially control them.
A suffocating oil miticide/insecticide would be more effective. Try neem oil or any other horticultural oil. Spray every three weeks.
Q: Can I use black plastic rather than clear for soil solarization? I want to remove weeds from part of a pasture for a garden next spring. — Frank Grove, Macon
A: Unfortunately, black plastic will not work. The process of solarization is supposed to heat the soil enough to kill weed seed and diseases. Black plastic shades out anything growing beneath it, but it kills only annual weeds, not perennials. The shiny black color reflects a lot of sunlight so the soil underneath is not heated very much.
On the other hand, clear plastic doesn’t reflect sunlight. Heat, formed when the light hits the soil, is trapped under the plastic and heats the soil appreciably.
But your real problem is not the color of the plastic. It is simply that solarization works only during the heat of summer, not in winter.
All this doesn’t mean you won’t get some benefit by covering the ground with black plastic now. Some of the grasses and weeds will surely be killed, just not as many as true solarization would kill.
Listen to Walter Reeves from 6 to 10 Saturday mornings on WSB-AM (750). Go to www.gardeningingeorgia .com for details on his TV show or visit his Web site, www.walterreeves.com.
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