A. I know it's tough with ugly-looking, frost-damaged plants, but the best thing you can do for now is nothing. Everything from geraniums to agapanthus, eugenias and other evergreen plants suffered damage when temperatures dropped. Nevertheless, the dead foliage on those plants is still serving to protect plants from further damage. Wait until all danger of frost is past before cutting the damaged portions off. Most plants will start to come back with new growth in another month or so. In the meantime, you can check if plants are still alive by scratching the stem bark with your fingernail or knife. If it's still green underneath, the plant is still alive; brown means at least that portion of the plant is dead. Cut back the plant until the stems underneath are green.
Q. I planted primroses last fall and they did great throughout fall and winter. However, the primroses that have come back now have flower clusters that are quite a bit above the leaves. While I'm glad they came back, the clusters flop over and look funny. Why does this happen?
A. This is common with English primroses, which is what you planted. As the days get longer, stems that support the flower clusters will stretch. You can avoid this problem by either planting anew or going with a dwarf primrose variety like Primula acaulis. The flowers are not borne on a single stem cluster, but instead each floret is supported by its own stem from the center of the plant. They can produce such an abundance of flowers that most people do not realize the difference. There are many dwarf types available, but I've had good luck with two scented varieties: "Gemini" and "Quantum."
Q. I recently bought some houseplants. Some of them look root-bound as there are roots wrapped around the outside of the soil when I tapped the plant out of the pot. What exactly does root-bound mean? I assume that I should transplant these into larger containers.
A. A potted plant is root-bound when the roots outgrow the container as you described. Roots will wrap around the soil or grow in a cicrle inside the bottom of the pot. Symptoms of root-bound plants may be stunted growth. To overhaul a root-bound plant, you essentially have two choices. You can repot into a slightly larger container, usually two to four inches larger. Or, you can unwrap the roots and trim them back before repotting into the same size container. The latter is a litle risky in that if you trim too much, you can stunt or even kill the plant. I usually just repot into larger containers because the plant will grow bigger much faster.
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