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Calendar identifies plant invaders
It’s an alien invasion: plants hitching rides on shoes, animals, even clothing. They find Colorado to their liking and take over, killing off natives or more passive flora. Colorado basically has put out wanted posters on these outlaws, preferring them dead. To help you identify them, Colorado Big Country – one of eight Resource Conservation and Development organizations in the state – publishes a calendar of some of the most wanted. The 2006 calendar goes on sale this month. To get it for a $3 donation, call Connie Knuth at 970-945-5494, ext. 4. Besides images and bios, you’ll find information on Colorado’s Noxious Weed Act (or visit ag.state.co.us and click on the noxious weed link), links and a list of county weed managers. Plants on the A-list, designated for eradication, are African rue (Peganum harmala), Camelthorn (Alhagi pseudalhagi), Common crupina (Crupina vulgaris), Cypress spurge (Euphorbia cyparissias), Dyer’s woad (Isatis tinctoria), Giant salvinia (Salvinia molesta), Hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata), Meadow knapweed (Centaurea pratensis), Mediterranean sage (Salvia aethiopis), Medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae), Myrtle spurge (Euphorbia myrsinites), Orange hawkweed (Hieracium aurantiacum), Purple loosestrife (Lythrum salicaria), Rush skeletonweed (Chondrilla juncea), Sericea lespedeza (Lespedeza cuneata), Squarrose knapweed (Centaurea virgata), Tansy ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) and Yellow starthistle (Centaurea solstitialis).
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Enhance roses with other plants
Stephen Scanniello used to grow roses just the way his grandfather did – in their own formal beds, with no other plants allowed in to mar the composition. He has since changed his ways. Scanniello, a garden-design consultant and former curator at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, now advocates mixing it up in the garden by combining roses with other plants that accent their beauty and camouflage their flaws. He gives guidance for doing that in “Rose Companions: Growing Annuals, Perennials, Bulbs, Shrubs, and Vines with Roses” (Cool Springs Press, $22.99), a book he has written for rose grower Jackson & Perkins.
The book isn’t intended to be a rose guide, but it contains plenty of information on selecting and growing roses. What makes it different, though, are his ideas and tips for plant combinations, including a directory of plants that serve well as companions to roses.
– Knight Ridder Newspapers
READER’S TIP
Stake houseplants with branches
Here’s a wonderful way to bring the outdoors inside. While pruning bushes, I noticed that some of the twigs were pretty and sturdy. Taking each main limb of the dogwood, spirea and butterfly bush trimmings, I cut off the side branches at 1-2 inches and use them to stake houseplants or those potted outdoors.
– Susan Bilo, Lakewood
