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Making the most of your summer garden

This is the season of the collective sigh. The stitch in the solar plexus releases and shoulders drop as gardeners let go of the bad memory that was winter.

For every flower-wrangler, patio-dweller, mower-jockey and trowel-crusader, the new challenge arises: how to make the most of this favored season before shadows grow long and frost once again savages the salvias.

If your gardening chores now outpace your energy and leave you no time to enjoy your yard and garden, it might be time to rethink your gardening modus operandi. Of course, every respectable garden has some combination of trees and shrubs, but for maximum enjoyment with minimum effort, consider this radical thought: plant only annual flowers this year.

Making the most of your summer garden

This is the season of the collective sigh. The stitch in the solar plexus releases and shoulders drop as gardeners let go of the bad memory that was winter.

Spruces prone to stress-related diseases

Question: The blue spruce trees in my yard look like they are dying. Part of the needles and some entire branches are brown. The trees are about 20 years old and seemed to be doing OK before last summer. I noticed many other evergreens seem to be dying, too. Is this because of the drought last year? Is there anything I can do? D.E., L.W. and others

Answer: The severe to extreme drought of 2012 killed a large number of moisture-loving arborvitae by the end of summer. The effects of the drought will continue to appear over the next few years in other types of evergreen and deciduous trees. Drought can be partly, but not completely, blamed for dying spruces. In Wisconsin spruces are prone to stress-related diseases such as Cytospora canker, Rhizosphaera needle blight and spruce needle drop. Spruce spider mites can be problematic in hot, dry weather.

Cucumber leaves get sunburned

Question: I sprouted some cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes inside. They appeared to be doing fine. I started putting the tomatoes outside a few days ago. Yesterday I put the cucumbers and peppers out for the first time. Apparently I left them out too long. Some of the leaves on the cucumbers turned white. They look terrible. Is this from cold (it was in the 60s) or too much sun or what? The peppers and tomatoes seem fine.

The important question is what should I do next? So far I’ve opted to give them water and leave them inside under the fluorescent light. Any thoughts? S.L.

Weather-proof your garden

With the “interesting” weather we’ve had this spring, it’s a good time to stop and think about how to weather-proof our gardens and yards.

We can be continually frustrated at too much or not enough water, too much or not enough cold, or simply dry windy days. Or, we can do some simple planning that will help our garden plants withstand these extreme conditions, which, by the way, we can do absolutely nothing about.

Garden walls come alive with ‘living pictures’

Looking for a fresh way to liven up your garden walls? Think plants, not paintings.

Living pictures — cuttings of assorted succulents woven together in everything from picture frames to pallet boxes — have caught on among garden designers and landscapers this spring as an easy, modern way to add color and texture to an outdoor space.

Columbine sawfly larvae can defoliate plants very quickly in spring

Question: Last spring, hundreds of small green caterpillars ate my columbines. The plants looked fine one day and the next the leaves were almost completely gone. I looked up the problem and think it was the larva of columbine sawfly. Is there anything I can do to keep my columbine from being eaten this year? D.K.

Answer: Based on your description, I think you are correct in identifying the insect as columbine sawfly larvae. Although these larvae look a lot like caterpillars, they develop into a tiny non-stinging wasp instead of a moth or butterfly.