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The only garden question that may beat out, "Why did my plant die?" for the most asked award is "What should I do to improve my lousy dirt?"

If you want a quick answer or have a short attention span, my response is to do nothing. If you want more details, I will fill more lines before basically reaching the same conclusion.

I'd start by asking if it is new or old construction. If the house is over five or 10 years, I would again strongly suggest doing nothing. Maybe I would budge a little if you convinced me that you had a heavy clay soil. Most in southern Lancaster County don't.

I'll return to that in a few lines.

Single lot new construction is seldom a problem. Larger subdivisions may be a different story. Often the developer will remove and stockpile the topsoil. When the house is built he will then spread a thin layer of topsoil across the disturbed landscape and sell whatever is left in the pile.

This practice often results in a rather skimpy layer of topsoil and a major disruption of the interaction between the topsoil and subsoil. Compost, tillage and time will gradually heal this problem.

Any soil, especially heavy clay, can benefit from compost. My first choice would be straw laden manure. Beyond that, any organic material will be fine if used properly. I have no problem with peat moss for addressing smaller areas.

Grass clippings often find their way to my garden. The caution here is that their decomposition will use nitrogen from the soil and you may need to address fertility issues on a regular basis. Here, as in any garden situation, a regular soil test is a wise investment. Wood mulches, depending how well cured they are, will have the same but a lesser effect as grass clippings.

For the energetic, make your own compost. Talk to your local extension service or go on line for suggestions. Many gardening magazines and local hardware stores offer gizmos to simplify compost making. A good shovel or fork and a strong back can make a conventional compost pile a fun and worthwhile project.

Well-aged mushroom soil is also a good source of compost. The big red flag here is if it is not well aged it will be red hot with nutrients and will kill plants better than any weed killer I know. Maybe that exaggerates a bit, but beware.

Now let's have a few words about the biggest sin in gardening. Thou shalt not make a special hole for the plant. Anything you add will have a different moisture holding capacity than the surrounding soil.

To keep the drier component moist, the rest is too wet. Repeating, part of the root zone is either too wet or too dry all the time. No plant likes that.

The bottom line is that if you are going to add anything beyond a light coat of mulch it must be mixed into the existing soil very well to be a benefit. Otherwise do nothing.

There seems to be a constant stream of new plants. Visiting your local nursery and especially reading the garden press causes us to make decisions about the new offerings. Some are exciting and, unfortunately, some are disappointing.

One is reminded of the old wag about the old-timer who was marveling at the thermos. He knew that it would keep things hot or it would keep things cold. He just couldn't figure out how it knew which was which.

Until a plant has flourished for several years in a given area, one does not know for sure what the results will be. That is complicated, because plants that flourish in the morning sun may do poorly in full afternoon sun. Moisture, soil and wind exposure too, require consideration.

Some say that by the time you have killed a given plant three times you should know how to grow it. That can be nasty to one's garden budget. Others suggest you watch the plant and relocate it if it doesn't look happy. Unfortunately, occasionally there are plants released that are just flops.

Before a plant gets to the nursery or your garden, it is tested. The companies that release plants run tests. The question is at how many locations and for how long. Recently I heard that a major plant company was increasing the time it would trial because of the problem.

A number of universities around the country run trial gardens. One of the best is at Landisville just northwest of Lancaster. If you have never visited there it would be worth your time. Unfortunately, they concentrate mostly on annuals when most of the nightmare tales I hear concern shrubs and perennials.

One of my favorite perennials (I only have hundreds of favorites) is baptista. They used to come only in a blue-purple. Now there are additions of bi-colors and even a yellow one. At first the yellow one was weak. In my garden now the yellow one is fine but is still less vigorous than the others.

It seems that the marketplace is being flooded with new hydrangeas. Let me start by saying that I think we are on the northern edge of where you can grow many of the colored mop-heads and lace-caps. In other words, always seek a rather protected area for starters.

I recently was asked for an explanation about a new series of dwarf hydrangeas. The person had planted a number of varieties from this series together. In two seasons one had never bloomed while the others had lived up to expectations. After exhausting the common problems of untimely pruning and wind I admitted that I had no clue.

Then there are Echinacea or coneflowers. Another flood of new plants with as many disappoints as successes. The good ones are beginning to be identified, but my guess is that it will take several more years for all the bad ones to disappear.

Are new plants a blessing or a curse? To be safe, do your homework and lay back while others sort out the good ones. If your budget permits, jump right in knowing that the world is not perfect.

To me, the popular garden press is not necessarily the required homework. The companies you hear the most about hire professional writers to get stuff in the press, which is notoriously lazy and willing to print their press releases.

After hearing one of those front-men (writers) speak, I shook his hand and his hands didn't feel anything like mine. I was happy to retreat to my garden where you can always count on successes and failures.

I'm not sure anyone understands the complete dynamics of bird migration but I am sure that the internal calendar of many birds is boldly marked 'Visit Pennsylvania' about May 1st.

In the past week I have seen more than 30 different new arrivals. Some will stay and breed here. Others will pause briefly and continue north. If I was more knowledgeable, less deaf, had better eyes and more time to search the great outdoors, that number could easily be double.

When you are in the garden, be observant, or, if you are still feeding, watch for unexpected guests, or if you take a hike, be on the lookout for unexpected flashes of color. If you get lucky, or are patient, you may find birds that will pose for you.

In all honesty birds are creatures of habit. A recent study in the western part of the country suggested that migrating birds made the same stops each year. The claim went so far as to state that a transmitter equipped bird spent the night in the same tree on different trips.

That said, part of the strategy of finding different birds is to know where to look. I've found a lot of new birds by asking those much more knowledgeable where to look.

A recent 30-year study at a nearby state game land by a private citizen reveals that land management dictates what birds nest there. He found that some logging spawning re-growth increased the number of species visiting and nesting there.

Interestingly, one of my favorite birds, the Eastern Kingbird, was a common resident in my meadow until maybe ten years after it was restored as wetlands with more shrubs and trees. Less open ground drove the kingbird to seek a new home but brought a number of new species here.

The fear is that birds may not adjust to our changing land uses. In some cases that is true but in many others we see rapid adoption.

The Baltimore Oriole nested in Dutch elm trees before they were wiped out by blight some 50 years ago. They then picked another tree with spreading limbs, our common buttonwood or sycamore. They needed spreading limbs so that their woven hanging nests would not be bashed in windstorms.

Jokingly, there is a search on for a real bridge in Lancaster County that doesn't host a nesting pair of Eastern Phoebe. This is a dark headed, tail wagging flycatcher that nests almost exclusively on manmade structures.

When I was a kid, there was great fear that our largest, crow sized woodpecker, the Pileated, was doomed because it needed large unbroken stretches of woodland. Today there are reports of it nesting in older trees in aging suburbs and claims that it will even come to feeders. I've seen them within 100 feet of my house.

Many shore birds and lots of songbirds are just passing through. They will nest much farther north. In fact, so far north that there is almost continuous light during a short warm period. There the insects know that they have a short widow to thrive. Combine that with the very long days to gather food and the young birds will mature at something like twice the rate they do here. Amazing.

I could ramble on but I end with the suggestion that if you want to attract birds to your landscape year round you need food, water and cover. In early May you may just need to keep your eyes open.

Evergreen azaleas offer wonderful spring color unless they don't. This common, easy to grow flowering shrub does have more narrow cultural requirements than some of our garden favorites.

Let's start with lots of afternoon sun. This site is probably too hot, too dry and will face too much winter wind. Planted in full afternoon sun they think like a baseball player and don't thrive, knowing that with three strikes you are out.

Consider moisture. Soil that remains soggy for extended periods of time will smother the roots and give you an unhappy or dead plant. If we go to the other extreme we can get equal results.

We are talking about an evergreen plant. They, like conifers, are alive and breathing during the entire year. One thing I have found is that if we have an extremely dry summer and fall it is important to send them into frozen ground with good moisture.

I put a few nail holes in five gallon buckets, fill them with water and set them amongst the plants. This is also a very effective way to water any larger transplants in the garden.

What about shade? It's wonderful, unless you over do it. Too much shade will cause any plant to grow leggy and bloom less. I planted maybe a dozen azaleas in a high light (not direct sun), protected area and four in rather strong shade near a porch overhang on the northeast side of my house. It may be the variety but I would bet on the shade.

Bloom has not been affected, but the plants in the most shade have a much more open habit.

Azaleas are quite tolerant of soil, but are acid loving plants. If you fertilize them lightly, use and acid based fertilizer like you would use on holly plants.

I would be remiss not to mention pine and maple tree shade here. Contending with the surface roots, dense canopy and the moisture sucking habit, few plants, including azaleas will be happy under a maple tree. Pines will be faulted only for their moisture sucking habit.

Recently I was in a garden where the owner pointed out a faltering azalea in full sun while wondering what must be done to grow them successfully. A quick glance spotted an unplanted southeast facing side of the house with some not too distant shade trees.

I pointed there and was quickly told that they had tried them there and they had failed. When I questioned when the house was built, I was told less than ten years ago. New concrete foundations and walks will bleed calcium, raising the pH, making life miserable for any acid loving plant.

My guess is that by now it would be ok to try azaleas there again.

If you study the literature carefully you might get the opinion that azaleas are targets of every insect and disease known in the plant world. In reality, I have grown azaleas for just slightly less than a zillion years and have not found that to be true.

The only insect I have seen in the garden is azalea lace bug. In one instance the plants were tightly sheared offering little chance for air movement or rainfall to disturb the insects' lifestyle. Occasionally I get other reports of lace bugs but I have few details.

Like daylilies and hostas, the plant breeders have been busy and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of different evergreen azaleas out there. I am constantly seeing interesting blooming azalea flowers that I want in my garden and plotting where to put them so that they thrive.

Sure, you can make azaleas unhappy, but it is also very easy to make them happy.

Paging through seed catalogues last summer I was struck by the amazing array of peppers available to the home gardener. While maybe not as popular as their tomato cousins, the variety of peppers available for your vegetable garden boggles my mind.

Peppers were first introduced to the European palate 500 years ago when Christopher Columbus discovered them on his quest to find a route to the Indies. Native to Central and South America, the indigenous people had domesticated four strains of the genus Capsicum. While the nomenclature gets a bit convoluted, this early breeding work gave us the pungent chili peppers, the hot habenero and Thai types, the sweet bells and the non-pungent wax banana type peppers.

After Columbus brought them back to Spain, this humble American fruit traveled the trade routes with the Portuguese as far as Asia, Africa and the Middle East. While so common in Asian and Indian cooking, they are New World natives.

The traditional bell or sweet peppers all start out green and ripen to red, yellow, orange or purple depending on the cultivar. The flavor gets milder as the color matures. These are great for salads, roasting, stuffing, or slicing for stir-frys.

The "heat" in peppers is from the chemical capsaicin. The amount of heat in a given pepper is measured in Scoville units(SU). This peculiar measurement refers to the amount of water needed to dilute the capsaicin to be undetectable by a taste tester. An odd way of measuring, if you ask me, but no one asked me.

The hottest types are the cultivars of Capsicum chinense. These are the small habeneros (200,000 SU), and Scotch bonnet types. These are good in small amounts for sauces, pickling, or stir-frys.

Long, red, spicy cayenne peppers (30,000 SU) are widely dried and used as a spice, but also are good fresh. Poblano peppers, a type of green chili, are relatively mild and are good fried. When dried, they are referred to as anchos and used as a spice.

Jalepenos, a staple of Tex-Mex cooking, are widely used in picante sauces and salsas. They can also be pickled or eaten raw. While less hot than many chilis at 8,000 Scoville units, they still can pack a punch.

If you are going to grow peppers in your garden this year, pick a sunny location. They are in the nightshade family with tomatoes and eggplants. To avoid diseases, don't grow them in the same place the tomatoes were last year. Peppers are slower growing than tomatoes and like warm soil, so wait until Mother's Day to plant them.