1. Remove burnt or dead fronds from ferns. This will encourage more new fronds, also known as croziers or fiddleheads, to emerge. Established ferns are extremely durable and drought tolerant due to their rhizomes. Even if a clump of established ferns is neglected for some time, it will return to its previous glory upon being cleaned up, with old growth removed, and watered. Sword fern (Nephrolepis cordifolia) is the most rampant grower among the group. It is considered invasive by some, but this depends on where it is planted and how it is maintained. It is hardy down to 25 degrees. Sword fern is one of the few ground covers that grows reliably under pine trees because pine needles fall in between its fronds without ill effect.  If it starts looking piqued, cut it down to the ground and, within no time, it will be sending up fresh fiddleheads. Giant chain fern (Woodwardia fimbriata) is a California native and the largest of American ferns with fronds reaching up to five feet tall. It grows well in sunny spots along the coast but requires shade inland. It is an excellent choice for container growing, too.

2. Control ants to keep sucking insect pests out of your woody perennials. Ants have a major interest in the success of these sapsuckers. Pests such as aphids – sometimes referred to as “ant cows” – and scales especially, but mealybugs and whiteflies, too, excrete a sticky substance called honeydew which is a food source for ants. Ants fight off the insect predators of the pests they shepherd. Ants also carry pests from one branch to another – whether on the same plant or to a neighboring specimen. Exclude ants from woody shrubs and trees by tying an old silk stocking around the trunk (or trunks) and slathering it with petroleum jelly or you can purchase a product known as Tanglefoot that serves the same purpose. The ants get trapped on the sticky substance. You may need to change the stocking on an occasional basis since an accumulation of stuck ants can serve as a bridge trod upon by other ants on their way up the trunk.

3. Eliminate undesirable fruit by spraying a product such as Florel whose active ingredient is Ethephon. Ethephon stimulates the release of ethylene, a naturally occurring plant hormone that is responsible for physiological processes such as ripening, maturation, and senescence. (If you wish to speed up the ripening of a pear or avocado, put it in a bag with a ripening, ethylene-releasing banana.) By spraying Ethophon on olive flowers, the flowers die before the fruit – a nuisance where it falls on parked cars – can form. By spraying it on liquidambar flowers, you prevent the development of those annoying spiked seed capsules; by spraying it on flowers of a volunteer loquat tree, you can prevent a crop of insipid, and often messy, loquats (named varieties are sweet), and by spraying on oak flowers you can prevent acorns. I was reminded of Ethephon upon reading an email from Grace Cashion in Arcadia as follows: “We have a dozen very large oak trees and you can imagine how many acorns and baby trees there are with which we have to contend! My question is how can we spray these trees that tower three times the height of our two-story house in order to prevent acorns from growing?” You would need a boom lift to reach the flowers and spray. Such lifts are used by landscape pest control companies, and I called three of them knowing that they sometimes spray for nuisance fruit control. However, two of them no longer do this work and the one who does will not spray oak trees because of their sensitivity to Ethephon. Another option is to utilize a dry vacuum – whether you purchase or rent one — to vacuum up the acorns when they fall.

4. The sweet potato growing process can be started now. Unlike common potatoes whose shoots grow from eyes, sweet potato shoots sprout from the end of the tuber. Sweet potatoes belong to the morning glory family as opposed to regular potatoes that are members of the nightshade family. Cut a sweet potato in half and place the two pieces in a pot of soil, cut side down, leaving the ends uncovered or balance each half potato on the rim of a jar or glass of water with toothpicks as you would an avocado seed that you wish to germinate. Eventually, you will see slips (shoots) reach six inches in length, a good size for planting. When detached from the tuber, some slips may have roots and some not. Those with roots attached may be planted in the garden while those without roots can be rooted in a glass of water prior to planting. Plant slips 12-18 inches apart in full sun and you will have large tubers in the ground sometime in the fall. There are two types of sweet potatoes: firm when cooked (white to yellow flesh) and soft when cooked (orange flesh), the latter often mistakenly referred to as yams. True yams – with rough, dark skin and white flesh – are found in specialty markets. You may want to purchase organic sweet potatoes for this process since others may be sprayed with a chemical that inhibits sprouting.

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5. In honor of Jack Christensen, plant one of the rose varieties that he hybridized. Christensen, who passed away just over a year ago, authored the “5 things to do in the garden this week” recommendations given here for 25 years. He was also an accomplished rose hybridizer, having created more than eighty varieties. Perhaps his most well-known rose is ‘Voodoo,’ a hybrid tea and All-America Rose selection in 1986. Its huge blooms are 5-6 inches in size, sporting 35 petals. Flowers emerge orange and pink, transitioning to scarlet. Foliage is a rich, glossy green. Voodoo has an outstanding fragrance, is disease resistant, and long-lasting in vase arrangements. ‘Gold Medal,’ a grandiflora rose of Christensen’s creation, is included among the “Fifty Immortal Roses” listed in “The Rose Bible,” the most authoritative, yet easy-to-read book on growing roses that I have found. The author, Rayford Reddell, regales ‘Gold Medal’ as “the best rose of the 1980s. . . The petals of its blossoms are a dazzling combination of golden yellow with tawny edges. The overall effect is simultaneously pleasing and cheerful. As if their color weren’t enough, blooms are notably fragrant, too.”

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