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A. Prepare the beds before planting by mixing in compost. You’ll have much better success if you don’t put a $5 plant in a $1 hole!

Compost benefits both the plant and the soil. If you prepare the soil first with compost, you’ll have healthier, more productive plants and reduce your need for fertilizer.

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Coral Honeysuckle (Lonicera sempervirens)
Coral honeysuckle is a versatile plant with many great attributes. Less rampant that some of the other honeysuckles on the market, this native Texas vine is very suitable for a porch post or small trellis.

You’ll need to help it get started by tying the vines to the post or trellis as the
vines lacks tendrils or other means of attachment.

It is tolerant of a fairly wide variety of soils and will grow in sun or a bright shade.

Coral honeysuckle may also be sheared periodically into a mounding shrub form. It puts on its best show in early spring, but will continue to bloom sporadically until late fall. The long tubular blooms attract hummingbirds and butterflies, and birds prize the red fruits that follow. The common form sports beautiful clusters of coral/orange/red blooms, but a yellow
form is also available.

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• Finish pruning, but avoid pruning roses that bloom only once, as well as spring-bloomers like quince.
• It’s really too late to prune oaks, but if you must, seal the wound immediately after cutting, and between cuts.
• We’re still too early to safely plant tomatoes. The best thing to do is pot them up in containers to set out when we’re past the last freeze.

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