A. You are correct in not wanting to spray Roundup on suckers coming up throughout your lawn. Instead, use a product called : Sucker Stopper.” I kid you not, there is a real product called this! It is sold online by Monterey Lawn and Garden Products at www.montereylawngarden.com. Sucker Stopper is a growth regulator that is sprayed on the young shoots to stop growth. Unlike Roundup, it will not kill the surrounding grass, too.
Q. My daughter is fascinated with our state flower, the California golden poppy. She noticed clumps blooming recently on hillsides, vacant lots and next to freeways. She asked if poppies come in other colors besides the golden orange. Occasionally, I will see cream-colored poppies, but not often. What other colors do these poppies come in? A. Eschescholzia californica, or the California poppy, is indeed our state flower. And while the California golden poppy is the one we’re all familiar with, there are also garden forms with blooms of yellow, pink, rose, flame orange, red, cream and white. Sunset strain has single flowers, while Mission Bells have semi-double flowers and Ballerina semi-double flowers with frilled and fluted petals. And even among California golden poppies, there are numerous variations on the shade of orange. Check out mail-order seed catalogs, such as Park, Burpee, Stokes and Liberty for variations of our state flower. Q. I’ve noticed that the shells of black-oil sunflower seeds left over from our bird feeder kills the plants underneath the feeder. Why is this? Are the hulls actually that poisonous?
A. Sunflowers are allelopathic, meaning they secrete toxins that inhibit the growth of plants growing under and around them. Black walnut trees are the best-known allelopathic plants. Scientists haven’t yet identified the exact compounds in sunflowers that cause allelopathy, and the jury is still out as far as using sunflower residues as a weed killer in the garden.
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