Easy Gardener • Pat Howell
	Surveying gardeners How are plants doing in this extra-rainy season?

Plants are having reactions to our wet year, and different gardeners are seeing different reactions, even amongst the same plants.

Easy Gardener recently asked Karen Rexrode, proprietor of Windy Hill Plant Farm in Aldie, Va., the premier local supplier for the highest quality perennials and shrubs (and annuals), about successes and failures she has seen this summer.

Karen said the successes include daylilies ("blooming forever"); hostas, particularly the Plantagineas, with their very fragrant summer flowers; hardy lobelia, both cardinalis (red) and siphilitica (blue); hydrangeas ("so lush"); caryopteris, joe-pye (Eupatorium maculatum "gateway"); the fragrant sweet pepper bush (clethra), favorite source of nectar for bees, butterflies and moths; all the fothergillas ("their fall color should be amazing"); Virginia sweetspire (itea); and all hollies. Common winterberry holly (Ilex verticillata), one of the stars of winter, will certainly be "just laden with fat berries later this year."

Plants that are struggling include: most, if not all, lavenders; heaths and heathers; and the ornamental grass miscanthus "morning light," which has a fungus, indicated by red dotting and dark striping.

A local wholesale nursery reports that all crape myrtles at the site are beginning to show some fungus–namely root rot, indicated by the tips of the leaves turning brownish-black. Also, there is a lack of heavy flower sets compared to past years. Fungus gnats are evident when the trees are being pruned. Those in the home gardens planted on a slope seem to have avoided the fungus, while those in flat areas may be struggling. All should recover by next year.

Most conifers, particularly the pines and spruces, are exhibiting root rot on their new growth, visible on the candles. Root rot is not considered to be fatal; the pines and the crape myrtles will likely recover by next year. Leyland cypress, too, are beginning to indicate some root rot.

Hemlocks are fortunately in short supply. "If the deer have not gotten them, the wooly adelgid has." Because hemlocks in the mid-Atlantic are being killed off by the cursed wooly adelgid, they are no longer being planted and therefore not being found in local garden centers and nurseries.

Chamaecyparis species seem to be enjoying the rain and are thriving.

All the evergreen magnolias are looking fantastic, as are the nandinas and aucuba, although the latter are not looking as good in containers as in the ground.

We would like to know your experiences with this weather. If you will leave a message at 301-270-4456 about your failures and successes, Easy Gardener will report on this local "survey" in a future article. Operators are standing by.

Pat Howell is a Takoma Park gardener and landscape designer/garden-builder, and welcomes comments, advice, suggestions, complaints. She is available for hand-holding and answering questions through Deephaven Landscapers.