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People often ask me how I can think of enough things to write a column every week. My usual response is that I just listen to what people are talking about and the rest is easy. Now that you know my secret I'll use it again.

A friend hobbled in several days ago. When asked about her limp she admitted that she had made the mistake of standing on the wrong side of her golf partner. She said her target knee was interfering with her other love, gardening.

To further complicate her problems, business trips had taken her away from home five of the last six or eight weekends. Then after asking about a mainstream but somewhat uncommon plant that she didn't want because the one already in her garden was growing too slowly, she confessed that her garden really looked good right now.

Her point was that she is discovering that you can create a nice garden without so much fuss. Her mainstays were free growing and not too timid plants. Her new approach was yielding good results with a lot less work. She was happy. Another convert to tough love gardening.

A few hours earlier I was hit with a question I could not really answer. I offered a few ideas but nothing definitive. Many times in nature there are no simple answers.

This gardener had planted at least eight hydrangeas. All but two, a Nikko Blue and a Variegated one were blooming. Both culprits were growing vigorously. The quick general answers to lack of bloom are too much fertilizer and water and/or too much shade. Scrap the last one here since hydrangeas like a bit of shade and protection.

With hydrangeas the other bloom robber is tip die-back from winter wind or cold or tip removal from fall or spring pruning. Most, but not all, hydrangeas bloom on the terminal buds that form in late summer and must survive until the following June.

If you are having trouble with hydrangea bloom you might look for one of the varieties that blooms on re-growth. Another thought was that generally variegated leaves make a weaker plant and possibly less reliable bloom.

She was sure that her's were sited to give adequate winter protection. I couldn't argue since Nikko Blue is one of the most widely grown and reliable varieties.

Going back to the stated vigorous growth. She said that she added whatever was necessary to make them blue or pink. My hunch is that that comes in a form of an aluminum-based fertilizer which has no business in the garden. Aluminum can be plant toxic and I suspect that it wasn't regarded as fertilizer.

In our soil, pink will happen naturally. For blue, I suggest adding straight sulfur. A little money will get you a bag big enough to last a long, long time.

There you have it. An erratic golf ball, stubborn hydrangeas and two five minute conversations and we're thinking about next week already.

This is one of my favorite times of the year. The daylilies are in bloom.

There are tens of thousands of named varieties and hundreds or thousands of different ones that could be found if you visited enough garden centers. Either number is big enough that lots of different ones look alike.

When looking at daylilies you will see words like re-bloomer, extended season, tetraploid, and evergreen to mention a few. The evergreens are evergreen further south but can be grown here. I doubt if you will notice that difference.

Tetraploids are produced by gene manipulation with radiation. Their claim to fame is their very large flowers. Extended season is just what it suggests.

Re-bloomers also are what it suggests. They will bloom for a while, take a few days or weeks off and then bloom again. If you have a large planting of reliable re-bloomers you may not notice when some of the plants are resting.

Except for the old reliables like the orange yellow Stella de Oro and the yellow Happy Returns, I have yet to be convinced that they don't re-bloom better in the picture catalogs than they do in the garden.

We are definitely talking about environmental conditions when we are gardening with the re-bloomers. One year I was trying to increase the size of some plants, so I had them on soaker hoses with fertilizer injection. I got lots of re-bloom. In normal years I get reasonable re-bloom in the garden. Last year with the drought and no extra water, I got very little.

Another problem I noticed last year, in addition to dry weather insects, was a bit of a new blight. The talking authorities didn't offer any solutions, so I did nothing. With this years abundant rain, I have yet to see evidence of the problem on plants that were troubled last year.

I guess that is just another instance where disease and insects pick on the weak. Weakness comes from stress. Stress can come from being too dry, too wet or even growing too fast in too happy conditions.

Don't forget that daylilies will take quite a bit more shade that most of us realize. Try shoving a few further from the sun. If they are unhappy they will tell you by being floppy and having less blooms.

Another daylily secret is planting depth. If you are trying to produce more plants to populate your garden, plant them as shallow as you can. Cover the roots but nothing else. If in a container, raise the planting level a half-inch or inch. If you wish to keep the plant under control, do the opposite. Sink them a bit deeper than they were.

This is a great time to enjoy and even add some daylilies to your garden. But please save some for me. The fifty or seventy five I already have need some company.

The days are getting shorter. The summer solstice is past. It seems almost ironic that our hottest weather occurs as the days begin to shorten and conversely our coldest days occur as the days are getting longer. Maybe both phenomena are meant to give us hope that more confortable weather is coming.

Anyway, in the garden, the summer solstice is the beginning of the last call to plant many of our normal spring vegetables. There is still a bit of time to add tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, melons, pumpkins, sweet corn and squash but no time to procrastinate.

Meanwhile, the last few hot days were a blessing to any of the above that found their way to the garden according to our normal planting calander. Those that survived the long cold damp spring will most likely thrive now and make up a lot of lost ground. However, I doubt we will see the bounty that we are used to, this season.

There are other things happening out there. One critter that loved this spring is the slugs. I'm seeing more of those telltale smooth round chewings than I would like. But I guess a slimy slug would have felt exhilarated by this spring. If you are plagued with them there is bait, or the buried coffee can beer party or providing a board for night time lodging followed by assisted suicide in the morning. Scrape them into a bucket of salt water.

Another nasty that needs attention now is the bagworm. It can and will defoliate a conifer (evergreen) quite quickly. Re-growth is never perfect.

Their life story goes something like this. They are moths, so they have the four stages of development, including the resting pupa over winter. That pupa recently hatched and the adults have laid eggs. The eggs are now hatching. These worms will eat and grow rapidly. They build their bag as they eat and quickly form the pupa.

Control in small areas can be accomplished by picking the bags. If that wasn't done and you see many bags or you have large trees you may need to spray. The only stage that can easily be controlled are the worms, and that is now.

I do not want to make specific chemical recommendations but will say that they are easy to kill.

For specific recommendations or any gardening question I highly recommend the Master Gardener's Hotline at 717-394-6851. The master gardeners are coordinated by the Penn State Extension Service and have the latest university information. They seem easiest to find weekdays from 9 to 12 am.

Given our weather I must pinch myself to remember that June is over. A lot of plants have thrived this spring and a lot haven't. But one can say that at some point most years. The secret is to keep trying and keep learning.

Gardeners frequently ask the right question. How far apart do I plant these? Unfortunately they usually don't want the answer to that question. What they really want to know is: How close can I plant these?

If you're confused, read on. I have spent a lifetime planting perennials and shrubs too close together. That makes the pick, the shovel and a log chain gardening tools at my place. I'm not too worried about annuals because, mercifully, frost will intervene before jungle conditions set in.

About twelve years ago when I moved to a new house I selected eight plants to anchor the front door. I picked two of the tall skinny bluish junipers, four of the not too tall not two short green junipers, and two tall ornamental grasses.

It looked pretty good, even a bit sparse for several years, but about year seven the grasses were removed. At year, maybe nine, it was decided that it would be really better if two of the green junipers left. The other two green ones left last summer and the two tall ones recently spotted the log chain on the tractor.

I confess the decision on the last two was greatly helped by the snow load last winter, which gave them a different look. Anyway I'm back to ground zero. Maybe twelve years isn't a bad life span for that part on the landscape that grows from your knees to just over the top of your head. Probably I could have done better.

Also in the last several days I was pulling weeds. When I finished that I started pulling flowers. Some perennials will run wild if left alone. I rescued some oriental lilies from the black eyed susans. Seems in my garden there are lots of plants that need rescued from the black eyed susans.

I love the plant but it will take over. I wonder what it would do with fertilizer, water and good soil. My garden gets none of those. Of course I don't deadhead. I leave the seed heads for the birds and the birds seem too miss several zillion seeds.

What solutions do I offer? One is to look at enough gardens and/or ask enough questions before you plant and identify the perennials and shrubs that are tame and those that are not so tame. I'm starting to think in terms of having two types of gardens; one garden for the well behaved and one where the plants have plenty of space to roam.

Another thought would be to study the suggested spacings and use the long one with a plant in between that will be removed in a few years. Young gardens are also a great place to plug the holes with annuals.

I doubt that the statement, I am tired of planting annuals every year so I will plant perennials, is the best approach. Build the garden slowly. The alternative is to keep the log chain with the garden tools.

The old nursery rhyme asks, "How does your garden grow?" My guess is that with all the gray weather we have had we are seeing problems and successes that surprise us.

With a string of sun appearances last week I saw significant changes and suspect that things will soon swing back to normal. I won't fall into the trap of trying to define normal. One of the joys and challenges of gardening is that each season is different.

Growing in containers has presented a significant challenge this year. How do you keep them dry enough to prevent root damage or stem rots? It was a real test of your selected soil medium.

For what it is worth I have some containerized plants that I put outside in March and have yet to water them. Add in that I use a well drained soil mix that is unbelievable. That has never happened before.

My conversations suggest that perennials are faring much better than annuals so far this growing season. I think that can be explained logically.

Most of our annuals are derived from plants that are perennial in the tropics, or at least in a warmer climate. They expect warm soil, plenty of sunshine and plenty of moisture. They got only the latter so far. Plants like vinca, melons, cucumbers and peppers are really unhappy.

Our perennials are selections of plants that grow somewhere in the world in climates similar to ours. In fact, one problem with many of the perennials is that our springs warm too quickly. That didn't happen this year.

Rabbits also seem to be an extra problem this spring. Right now there is little we can do to discourage them. As we wrote before, rabbits can be easily live trapped in the winter when they are hungry but seldom frequent our traps in picnic season.

Many of the rabbit complaints claim that the rabbits single out new plantings and ignore existing plants. It's kind of like going back for seconds at a picnic. We target the dishes of the late arriving picnicers since they weren't there the first time.

Since the only effective defense against rabbits now is a barrier or fence a thought might be to protect new plantings initially. I can't guarantee success, but that it is a thought. That's about all we can offer in the battle against rabbits at this time of year.

The biggest plus is that we are having an extended planting season. Annuals planted now may quickly catch those planted in May that have struggled with the unusual weather. Perennials can be planted anytime, depending on moisture.