Horticulturalist Erica Jo Shaffer with gardening and growing tips

• Scott LaMar
  BioRecent Stories

  

  Scott LaMar has worked in both radio and television for more than four decades.
  
  Currently, LaMar is the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
  
  Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
  
  In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
  
  LaMar often emcees or moderates local events and has gone as far as California to emcee a national event.
  
  The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
  
  LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
  
  A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.

Small townhouse garden with patio furniture amidst blooming lavender.

Aired April 30, 2024

Pockets of frost last week and near record-breaking high temperatures this week. Pennsylvania weather in that mid-spring roller coaster phase. it can create some uncertainty about gardening and growing.

However, the outdoors is bursting with colors from the bright green grass to flowers and trees.

Those with green thumbs are itching to get dirt on their hands if they haven’t already.

Horticulturalist Eric Jo Shaffer was on The Spark Tuesday and talked about container gardens for those who decide to grow their plants or flowers in containers,”If you’re growing it in a container. And so then it’s like what is the container like. You know some things like terracotta, which is the more old fashioned traditional is going to dry out faster than plastic, which is also more lightweight. And you know, the ceramics can be more pretty and you can do wooden. But was it treated? If you’re doing pressure treated wood with your vegetables, that’s not cool because that’s leaching into your soil.

Scott LaMar: So what do you recommend?

Erica: It kind of depends on what you’re going to grow and how good of a waterer you are. Because if you’re somebody who’s going to remember to water, then you can have a larger selection of what you’re going to choose from. But if you’re going to forget to water, actually plastic dries out slower. Then of course you have to make sure you have drainage holes. Always, always you must have drainage holes.

Scott: So this is the one time you’d recommend plastic?

Erica: Yes. And hopefully recycle.

Scott: How big?

Erica: It depends on what you’re trying to achieve. Like if you’re doing a tomato, tomatoes in containers, there’s two different types of tomatoes. One is called a determinate and one is called an indeterminate. The indeterminate ones keep growing and keep growing and keep growing. So if you start with some small tomato plant in some small pot, you’re going to have to start watering two or three times a day and your tomatoes are going to be awful. So, when you do a container garden, think about how big each is going to be in August or September, so that you’ve given it enough space to achieve what you want.

Scott: What about soil?

Erica: For potting soil. If you use cheap, heavy like it’s heavy to put it in the car and it’s only a small bag that’s cheap, awful. And you’re going to get cheap, awful results. It’s not going to drain well. You can usually reuse your potting soil like once or twice, but you need to take it back out of the pot and re fluff it because potting soil goes bad, so to speak, is because the air spaces collapse and then the roots rot and they won’t grow as well. So if you’re using the same potting soil used for 4 or 5 years and you’re like, my plants don’t grow as good as I used to, you need some fresh potting soil.

Erica also addressed growing and maintaining roses,”I have 16 rose plants in my garden, and none of them are sprayed — ever. So I want to say, as far as roses go, it’s a really great idea to prune them in March. And you’re a little bit late now, of course, but prune them down to knee high because they flower on new wood. So you want as much new what is possible? You want to fertilize them with organic fertilizer. I like to put about a half or a third of a bag of compost to cow manure. Just dump it right at the base, and then every time it rains or whatever, it just keeps saturating the root system. And then a lot of people don’t know that.  The American Rose society rates roses from 0 to 10 on how well they do. So if you buy a rose, it’s like, you know, the kid that always has the snotty nose kind of a thing. You know, you’re going to have to keep spraying. You’re going to have to keep doing things to it. And the closer you get up after, like, I’d like to get roses that are rated 8.0 or better. So again, with that many roses in my garden, I don’t ever have to spray. They like a lot of sun, six hours or more.”