Who needs a florist?

We made it! Finally got past May 15 and can plant away. The stores are full of annual flowering plants, vegetable starts and perennials. Also lots of trees and shrubs. You name it; they've got it. Just be careful when you're buying perennials. Read the labels to be sure the plant is hardy for our zone 5 area. Big box stores are notorious for bringing in tropical plants and palming them off onto unsuspecting gardeners. These might look good for the summer, but once the first killing frost hits next fall, they are never seen again... not even one little leaf. Save your money and your heartache. Buy from the local greenhouses.

You should be able to safely plant out those pepper and tomato plants this week. But, just to be sure, always check the forecast. If the low for the night is down to 40 or below, wait for warmer weather.

Remember to place tomato plants deep in the planting hole. Cover that bare stem up to their bottom leaves. Roots will develop all along that stem and you will get a much stronger root system.

If your transplants have been grown in peat pots, go ahead and plant them pots and all. Be sure to cover the whole pot. If you leave part of it sticking out of the soil, the whole thing will dry out. Transplants grown in papier-mche pots need to have the entire pots peeled away before planting as the roots don't grow through paper mache like they do peat.

I don't know about you, but I love to plant containers with colorful annuals. There are some perennials that work well too. In my large containers, I plant a wide variety of heuchera, (coral bells.) These winter over just fine. Then, when I add a few nice petunias, lobelias or other flowers, the container doesn't have that bare, just planted look. Creeping jenny works great for this too. In fact, that's the only place I use them as they really spread when planted in the ground.

If you are fond of the perennial grasses, avoid Japanese Ribbon grass. It's very pretty with green and white stripes, sometimes with pink. This grass is notoriously invasive. Others I'm seeing for sale that you'll want to avoid are Chinese Lanterns, any variety of mint, and sweet woodruff. If you must have some of these, only plant them in containers.

Now lets talk about cherry trees and the cherry fruit fly. The adults lay dormant in the soil over winter and come out in spring. When the fruit has formed, about the end of May, the fruit fly pierces each tiny cherry and lays eggs. Remember, you won't be able to see the tiny hole in the cherry.

You will need to spray every 10 days - about 3 times starting around the end of May until two weeks before harvesting. Nothing else works. The only kind of spray available to the home gardener for killing these flies is Fruit and Berry spray. These little critters are not killed by dormant oil spraying.

These flies are much too small to be kept out with netting as they are smaller than a housefly. Sticky yellow pheromone traps do help, but won't get most of them.

We must spray. Otherwise, we will get a nasty surprise when we bite into that yummy looking cherry and there is a tiny worm. Worse yet, a piece of a tiny worm!

Elaine Cerny has gardened most of her life, starting as a kid in 4-H. Since then, she has always kept a garden of some sort, growing everything from fruits and vegetables to flowers and house plants. She has belonged to garden clubs in three states. She is an active member of the River City Gardeners Club in Post Falls.