Garden wisdom: 10 tips

1. Do the right thing. Fewer than half the sick plants brought into Master Gardener plant clinics are insect-riddled or diseased, so drenching them with chemicals is the wrong thing. Most plant problems are cultural — drought, winter damage, lawn mover vs. tree accidents.

2. Seek first to understand. Problems often aren't remedied because gardeners use the wrong stuff at the wrong time. Understand weed and pest life cycles.

3. What's your problem? Sometimes there isn't one. Some plant parts, like the brown fuzzy stuff on some rhododendron leaves, or seasonal changes, like last year's tattered hellebore leaves, are normal.

4. No preemptive strikes. Unnecessary fertilizer can have unintended consequences — stimulating growth can attract aphids, lead to powdery mildew, require more water. Spraying pesticides willy-nilly can kill the good guys along with the bad.

5. Mixing it up. Feeding and weeding are different garden tasks, so avoid the combo products. In a home garden, it's best to go mano a mano with the weeds.

6. Don't make mountains out of molehills. Moles are insectivores and nibble little, if any, vegetation. They can improve water absorption and help mix the soil, plus they eat small slugs and cranefly larvae.

7. Be tolerant. Art Antonelli, entomologist for Washington State University Extension Service, says the cranefly may be the most oversprayed insect pest in Western Washington and that healthy lawns can have as many as 40 cranefly larvae per square foot. Besides, by the time their damage is visible, it may be too late — they may have stopped feeding. Don't spray in revenge.

8. Read the fine print. You may need a magnifying glass, but pesticide/herbicide labels can be illuminating. For example, the antidote for one popular rose product is atropine. Yikes. That's also the antidote for nerve gas.

9. Keep current. Recent research has shown that the planting hole for a new tree or shrub should be backfilled with native, not amended, soil. Hold the fertilizer, and don't stake a new tree unless the site is windy.

10. Right plant, right place. If your aim is trouble-free gardening, improve the soil, select disease- and pest-resistant plants best-suited to your climate and site them according to their need for light and water.

Mary Rothschild