A plant with bold four-inch across magenta-rose flowers; petals horizontal, not pendulous. Excellent summer and fall cut flower. Outstanding for attracting butterflies. Perennial. Full sun. Fast grower to 3 feet tall, clump forming. Named 1998 Perennial Plant of the Year!

Dainty, lilac-pink flowers marked with purple veining held above lacy, gray green foliage from spring into summer. Plus you get red foliage in fall on this outstanding, long-blooming addition to borders or rock gardens. Herbaceous perennial. Full to partial sun. Spreading mound 6 to 8 inches tall, 12 to 15 inches wide. Cutting grown.

Snails and slugs are a real challenge to a gardener's patience, but there are many choices for dealing with them which you might not have been aware of. The good news is that many of these solutions to the snail & slug problem are non-toxic!

Remember the IPM (Integrated Pest Management) approach of starting with the least toxic?
Here are some ideas:

1. Hand-pick and dispose of them by your choice of methods. These would include stomping them, throwing them in the street, dropping them in a bucket of salt water, and so forth!
2. Coax them out of the flowerbed by laying a flat board on the ground. They will crawl under it to get away from the heat of the sun, then you just swish them off into the trash.
3. Put out a saucer of stale beer- They are attracted to the scent of it and will crawl in and drown!
4. Apply a copper band around flower pots. Snails cannot tolerate copper and they will not cross it. These are available commercially, or you can make your own.
5. Put down scratchy things (snails don't like doing the equivalent of walking across broken glass in bare feet). Finely crushed eggshells and diatomaceous earth (this will need replacing if it gets wet) work well.
6. Get friendly with the larger neighborhood predators. Possums, ducks, turtles, tortoises, rats, some birds, and snakes (and even my former neighbor's springer spaniel) will prey on snails and slugs.
7. Try snails that like other snails for dinner. The predatory snail Rumina decollata (decollate snail) will feed on young snails and may be worth a try but also may nibble on young plants on occasion . It takes a little time to get them established but many people have been pleased with the results.
8. Don't forget the predacious beetle Calosma, which also feeds on snails and slugs.
9. If these fail, try a pet-safe snail bait such as Monterey Sluggo or Bonide Slug Magic; in areas where you don't need to worry about pets or friendly wildlife, try Metro That's It or Deadline (these are not pet-safe).

Use baits weekly for at least three weeks to get all generations.

A word of caution if you have been using a pelleted form of snail bait- it can be dangerous around pets as it looks like food to them. The finer granule type is much safer - but please be careful; read the label and use as directed.

Some epiphyllums are still in bloom, so it's not too late to choose these undemanding and dramatic plants at nurseries. After they finish blooming, prune off diseased and desiccated branches and feed them occasionally with a weak balanced formula such as 8-8-8 or fish emulsion. Keep them in semishade.

Prune off ungainly branches and root them to make new plants. For a faster start, root four cuttings of the same variety in one 6 inch plastic container. (Never mix two varieties in the same container. The more vigorous one will soon crowd out the other, and you'll lose a prized color.)

Pruning stimulates growth more than fertilizer alone, so if you desire to hasten growth of a sluggish variety cut off all unsightly branches and feed it often. If you want to keep plants the same size, however, don't prune them too much and never overfeed with nitrogen.

This Week's Trivia Question:

Why might a gardener put bowls of beer out in the garden?

This Week's Prize:

A houseplant of the winner's choice (up to $21.99)

We at Blue Hills Nursery News wish you all a very happy — and safe — Independence Day!

We will be closed on Monday, July 4th.