It’s time to take a look at a few more of your emailed gardening questions, and our first Local 12 emailer asks:

“I’m getting mixed feedback.  Are Knockout roses self deadheading, or do I need to deadhead them myself?  Please help me!”

Okay, here’s your answer…yes, Knockout roses are self cleaning or self deadheading, but if you’d like, you can also deadhead them yourself!  If you have the time, feel free to nip off those spent flowers to help speed up the process, but if not, let them do their thing and clean off those dead flowers.  Every now and then you may see a rose hip start to form, and you’ll need to cut that off, but otherwise, they can take care of themselves. So, either way will work…or a combination of the two…and trust me, these Knockout roses will do their thing and keep flowering all season long!

Our next emailer asks, “You told us that bagworms have hatched, and I’ve been keeping my eyes open for them, but haven’t seen any.  Can I stop watching?”

Nope!  The hatch over a period of weeks, and when they first arrive on your evergreens, can be very small and hard to find.  Look at this grouping of weeping white pines.  They get hit almost every year with bagworms.  And at first glance, even after looking for a while, these evergreens appear clean and free of bagworms.  But keep looking closer.  There they are…only ¼ of an inch or so in size and very hard to see… and this is late June!  So don’t stop looking…as a matter of fact, now that you’ve seen these little guys, you may want to go back out and inspect your evergreens again!

If you do find bagworms, they are easy to control at this stage, by spraying with Bt.  They are susceptible to insecticides until they reach close to ¾ inch long, and then…well, it becomes all hand picking at that stage.  So if you have them, take care of them now.