Garden Titration.

6-2-12 SHORT HILLS: It’s back to spring weather, in the seventies, after a storm last night that dumped 0.7 inches of rain and blew a bunch of dead branches out of the trees. All the indoor plants have escaped to the yard for summer vacation.

Today I did an hours worth of pruning and weeding, sprayed the mildew again, and re-fed a half-dozen shrubs that look tired with yellowish leaves. The process reminds me of titration in Chemistry Class. 

That lab procedure consists of adding known amounts of acid or alkali to a solution to neutralize it. The amount you add tells you the exact strenght of the original solution. Anyway, the plants respond to the first or second treatment or require further feedings before looking better, or dying. You need to give them a month or so before deciding that the response was adequate or inadequate.

New blooms: sweetspire.

Sweetspire.

Sweetspire, a compact shrub, tolerant of low light, with bottle-brush flowers.