Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for April 03, 2014

Last year’s sapling is this year’s kindling.

“Do it but I just can’t bear to watch.”

Not having a hatchet man around, I can’t close my eyes…so I usually have to give a plant a little time before I can bear to off it myself….

Just to make sure, you know, that it really won’t make buds in a few…um… weeks….or next year…. or maybe 2016.

When it wiggles free of the dirt when I tug it, then I’m pretty sure it’s dead. I think.

On gardening shows some woman, probably wearing plaid Bermuda shorts and a yellow visor, will glare at a pot of perfectly good petunias (well except for that brown stem there, and the fact that it hasn’t bloomed since 2009) and ruthlessly dump them out to plant her new pansies.

It inspires me to go out and reassure my bedraggled nierembergia and the ancient one-armed rosebush that I’ll give them another summer.

I once had a pair of apricot trees that didn’t bear fruit for 15 years after I planted them. That is too much patience. Thankfully, the pears that replaced them are really productive.

If I didn’t know better I’d swear she was standing there p’ing.

If that’s a buddleia, you’d want to wait until the end of spring before deciding that it’s dead. There are a few trees and shrubs that don’t break dormancy until then.

@Susan Sunshine………Thank-you! I thought I was the only one who did that sort of thing…

in our area the Pecan is the last tree to bud out. we have 3 of them and all 3 have a pretty green “glow” about them where the buds are all out but not real big yet. A late freeze got some of our trees this year, didn’t kill them just stunted their flowering season.

Sometimes I start to snap off a dead twig only to discover it was playing possum. (Possums playing possum in the middle of the road is also counterproductive.)

Each spring there are some that don’t make it through the winter…Gotta let em go…

DavidHuieGreen, I notice raccoons like to sleep by the side of the road a lot….That sounds dangerous, too…..

I finally went into our yard and declared every weed a “plant” and every gopher a “pet”! Since they were the only things that would grow there, I figured I’d just go with it. I was happier, and so were they. I mowed the weeds, and we had a “lawn”.

The builder had arranged for miniature roses to bloom around our place after we moved in around 1986. I sometimes put the cut roses in a vase to decorate the breakfast/lunch/dinner table. One day I noticed that a branch that had been in the vase for several weeks still had green leaves on it. I lifted it out and roots grew underneath! I stuck it into the ground, and BOOM! It took off! (It had been in tap water, and I do not have a green thumb.)

Now the plant is straggly, having been pruned and fertilized fewer times than is optimal, but it still has little pink blooms. I call it our miracle rose, and would never part with it. Well, maybe when we have to move, one way or the other.

I have a rural, sandy location and had a volunteer wild rose pop up in my driveway. Kid Sister (Green Thumb+) came over to transplant it next to the garage. Now, I’ve runners on two sides of the building. It has very nice yellow blooms.

@Reppr: I have a friend who told me his Fuji apple tree didn’t set fruit last year; mine did, but I told him I’d seen the squirrels eating them from the moment they hit fingernail size. Not my sour-apple tree, just the sweet Fujis. His probably did set fruit just fine. The way I finally found to keep the critters off the fruit? Snap plastic produce clamshells over the apples so they can’t get at it. When they got near ripe last year, the raccoons were prying the boxes open in the night till I started taping them shut. I wanted my apples!

Scratch off a little bit of bark (using your fingernail or a knife depending on how thick the bark is). If there’s green underneath, give it a little longer. If there’s brown, play Taps.

Years ago I had planted a crabapple that definitely appeared to be a goner. I mowed over it and within 2 weeks, green shoots came up from the stubs! It is still flourishing. Well, it was last fall.