Question:
My friend has a big rosemary bush in her backyard that she doesn't want to keep. She doesn't want to kill it either. How can I move it without killing it? Can I start a new, young rosemary from her bush?
Mi Vuong, Vancouver
Answer:
An old rosemary doesn't transplant well. Because a rosemary's native home is on rocky Mediterranean cliffs, it develops long, far-ranging roots. The best way to move a rosemary is to dig up the biggest rootball you can. Do try - you may be lucky. If you take several cuttings first, you'll have covered all bases.
Each cutting should be five to 12 centimetres long and include a shoot cluster with several leaves. This shoot should be removed along with any leaves that would end up in the soil.
The raw place left from shoot removal and the whole bottom end of each cutting should be dipped in rooting hormone. Roots start where the hormone contacts the raw areas.
Rooting hormone comes in gel or in powder form. The gel sticks better.
Potting mix for the cuttings should include perlite or grit and vermiculite or a little peat. Rosemary likes to be very well-drained. But give the cuttings a little water, then cover with a transparent plastic bag. Keep them slightly moist but not wet.
Question:
Is there any way to revitalize a 45-year-old snowball bush? This year's blooms were very tiny and brown.
On closer inspection, the leaves were full of tiny holes and covered in black aphids.
Caroline Moore, via email
Answer:
The viburnum leaf beetle is attacking your shrub.
You'll need to prune back and garbage all the twigs infested with eggs. These eggs contain the larvae that will begin eating the leaves later. Infested twigs have lines of little dark brown bumps.
It's best to remove these in the late fall or winter after the leaves have fallen. Once the larvae hatch in May, they scatter.
Insecticidal soap will kill any larvae or beetles it contacts, but this is an awful lot of spraying if the whole bush is infested.
Around June, these larvae crawl down the bush to pupate in the soil. These transform into beetles by the end of July and lay the eggs in twigs.
It's hard to control the adults because they can just fly away.
In practice, you'd be unlikely to ever get an infection as large as your current one providing you prune your own bush every fall. Also an infection from a neighbourhood viburnum should be fairly small anyway, since the neighbour's beetles would have their own tree close at hand to munch on.
