susan749

LOVE your columns!!

Hedgehogs? I realize that Fine Gardening probably has readers in countries other than the US, but we really don't have any hedgehogs in the US. Did you mean groundhogs?

While I agree, it is harder than it seems to create these. I love your columns, by the way.

I am more interested in trials of roses that seek to determine the best roses for the average grower in different parts of the country. Perhaps you can blog about the results of some of these. I live in Michigan so I am especially interested in roses that can tolerate our cold winters and humid summers and (this is a big one) resist predation by Japanese beetles and rose chafers. I am digging up and giving away my climber, "Show Garden" because it gets decimated by the beetles and looks terrible, despite being a very hardy and vigorous grower. I have a red Knock Out rose that makes lovely roses despite some predation by the beetles. I also have one pink Rugosa that also seems less attractive to the beetles. Of course, I hope it isn't just that the climber was the beetles' favorite and now they will decimate the other two!

My husband and I are retired and we have been pulling garlic mustard for weeks. I plan to try and do some every possible day. We have 10 acres and the garlic mustard is the worst this year. We work at it every year. On the positive side, where I have worked the longest at getting after it, I can really see the difference: there is way less than other places where we haven't gone after it. We do spray with Round-up in the densest areas of garlic mustard in the early spring before any of the native plants are up.

I would love to grow a good paste-type tomato for canning that is resistant to the blights and leaf spots. Here in Michigan, I had a really bad tomato year last year. Hoping for a better one this year.

This is the best explanation and demonstration of how to prune raspberries that I have seen. I had read a number of descriptions of how to do it and they never really made any sense. I mean, how would I know if the cane had produced fruit or if it was new or old! This video explains and shows how to do it. Thanks!

My local botanical garden, the Matthaei Botanical Garden in Ann Arbor, Michigan has displays in the gardens of several different lawn alternatives that work here in Michigan. I would think that other public and botanic gardens in other parts of the country have the same.

Another reason I found not to use bone meal is that my dogs love it. I planted some bulbs following that advice about bone meal for bulbs (which you have now made me question) and the next day every hole was dug up by the dogs. Same thing happened with the 1" diameter pellet of ? sent to me by a plant nursery with a shrub order. I assume the pellet must have contained bone meal and perhaps fish meal; at any rate, the dogs loved it. No more bone meal for me!

I got 100%. I thought it was pretty easy. There was one plant I didn't know (Rock rose) but I guessed it by the process of elimination. Thanks, fun!

So many of the prairie or meadows I have seen in yards around the Ann Arbor area where I live are just too large and wild for a city lot. The photos in this book show meadows that looks so lovely and appropriate to their settings. I live at the edge of town and have been wanting to grow more native plants in a natural looking garden. This book would be a big help.