When good people give bad plants

If a guest arrives at your home with a pot full of goutweed, also called snow-on-the-mountain (Aegopodium podagraria), say thanks but no thanks. Would you accept a gift of flesh eating disease? Goutweed is sneaky, sinister and invasive. The variegated form is used as a ground cover, often in shade, but it mows down anything in its path, like trilliums and bloodroot, the gentle wildflowers of the woods. If you already have a case of goutweed, consider getting it under control. The recommended manual way to control it is to cut or mow all the leaves once it is leafed out in late spring, and cover the area with black plastic, to prevent photosynthesis. An alien plant website on www.nps.gov has additional advice for control of goutweed.

Gifts of invasive plants are the worst, but what about crimes against design? Showing up at the home of a new gardener with three mismatched perennials might set them off on a lifetime of bad decisions. Style setters always advise to plant in drifts, to avoid the "one of everything garden." But maybe giving a party pack of perennials has a hidden benefit, of leading the new gardener beyond the birch, juniper, geranium school of basic landscaping.

Then there are the dimwitted gifts, a rosebush for a person who gardens in complete shade, or a rhododendron for a person who gardens in a gravel pit.

Gardening gifts, and what to do with them produce many questions for so called gardening experts. Like the one this columnist got from the wilds of Wiarton, Ontario.

Question:

We received as a gift back in May an azalea. We have since moved it into a large pot on our deck, there are no blooms now but the plant is thriving with lots of greenery. The question is, should we put the plant in the ground now and, will it survive the winter.
   Thank you, Jim Bruce. Wiarton

Answer:

You have nothing to lose by putting the azalea in the ground, and if it lives and blooms it's a bonus. If it croaks call it compost. If you truly want an azalea to be part of your garden, search out a variety that is hardy for your area. A series called Northern Lights would be worth a try in Wiarton. They are hardy to Zone 3-4 and were developed at the University of Minnesota. All azaleas are really rhododendrons (blame it on those zany botanists) and they require thoughtful placement in the garden.

They like part shade, protection from winter winds, and good humus-rich soil that is moist but well drained. If you can keep your soil on the acidic side - that is, with a pH that is 4.5 to 6.5, they will be even happier. To help lower the pH of alkaline soil, add a mulch of pine needles or chopped oak leaves. My final advice is to plant a group of them together. If you are going to go to the trouble of building a proper bed for your azaleas/rhododendrons-then put three of four together so they will make a statement.

For more information on growing rhododendrons visit the website of the Rhododendron Society of Canada, Niagara Chapter at www.rhodoniagara.org. In addition to excellent articles, there are links to the Atlantic Canada chapter of the society and to the American Rhododendron Society.