Flowering maple would be happier in hanging pot

I have a flowering maple plant that looked beautiful in the spring but it is losing leaves and seems to be failing now. Can you suggest ways I can save it? 

Flowering Maples or Abutilon are lovely flowering plants. Their bell-shaped flowers are attractive to both hummingbirds and butterflies. They come in a dazzling array of colors. And we are lucky since they are hardy here.

While they are listed as liking full sun or partial shade, I think our recent hot weather makes them fans of a little shade. One thing they are very picky about is excellent drainage and our deluges of rainfall make hanging pots a perfect solution. Hanging pots allow the plants to drain off excess water more easily. This will also make their flowers more visible.

Try transferring yours to a hanging pot and see if it doesn’t rebound. I did it with one of my plants once and it recovered quickly. It’s not obvious how much water remains in the soil underground after we get an inch or two of rain.

Flowering Maples like a rich soil and they are healthier if they don’t dry out. If protected, they can bloom much of the year, and that’s a win for the gardener.

I have a blueberry plant that had one long stem that turned a reddish brown. I cut it out, and cleaned my cutters, but I’m sure that’s not a good sign. What is it?

Drought can turn leaves brown from the edges, but we left our drought period behind weeks ago. When the whole branch goes red brown, it is probably Botryosphaeria stem blight. It’s a major problem in the South, a fungal disease. If you check when you cut a diseased branch, you will probably find discoloration in the wood inside the stem. The disease affects both highbush and rabbiteye blueberries. Drought stress has been shown to predispose plants to the disease and we definitely had a period of drought this year.

The disease enters through wounds. It can’t be cured. It must be trimmed out. Make sure to dip your trimmers in your sanitizing solution after every cut and hold them there for 30 seconds. It’s useful to have two pairs of cutters. You can use either a 10% bleach solution to sanitize or a 10% Lysol solution.

One way we can help prevent the problem is to make sure we water well through spring. If you see browning branch tips, trim them out 12-18 inches below the discolored tissue, again being sure you sanitize your cutters every time. Even if it means trimming out part of the crop, you want to get rid of the disease.

After fruit is harvested, commercial growers spray a broad spectrum fungicide to help plants. Research shows it is helping plants avoid fungal problems. Captan is a good choice fungicide for blueberries in homeowner yards.

I brought in some crinum blooms and they made a mess of my table, leaving drops of sticky sap on the table. I think the sap dripped out of the flowers. How does that happen?

It’s an interesting process that happens with both leaves and flowers. It’s called guttation and I liken it to the plant lacking a stop valve. It simply fails to stop taking up water when it has had enough. The excess water has nowhere to go but out, and it drips out the tips of the leaves or the flowers, along with some of the sugars the plant has produced. It is messy, but very water soluble, and so it’s not too hard to clean up. People sometimes call it plant tears. I don’t think your flowers are crying, but you should probably keep important papers out from under the dripline.

I accidentally broke off one of my tomato stems on my Juliet tomato plant. On a whim, I put it in water and it is starting to grow roots. Can I plant it once it has lots of roots?

Tomatoes are a root-heavy plant. When we plant them, we plant them as deep as we can because their stems will sent out roots, and the more roots, the stronger the plant will be. And as you have found, if you break a stem, you can throw in water or moist soil and it will root. You are creating a clone of the original plant, with the same characteristics of the original "Juliet" tomato plant. So, yes, feel free to go ahead and plant it.

Becky Wern is a Master Gardener Volunteer with the Duval County Extension Service and the University of Florida/IFAS. For gardening questions, call the Duval County Extension Office at (904) 255-7450 from 9 a.m. to noon and 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. and ask for a Master Gardener Volunteer.