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Several days ago someone tossed me an interesting question. He had bought a fancy gourd some place and had saved the seeds. On two tries he had gotten nice plants but no fruit. His question was, "what was going on?"

My first inquiry was about pollinating insects. My second question was, does the plant have excess fertility? Both questions were answered to suggest that the problem was more elusive.

When I told my daughter about the conversation, I got a quick lesson in genetics. Let's start by saying that hybrids are common today because of their superior characteristics.

To get a hybrid, you must bring pollen from one plant to the flower of another. This can get laborious since most plants are self-pollinating and any self-pollination would destroy the hybridization process. You have all heard about the gangs of youths hired to de-tassel corn.

Plant breeders have developed male sterile lines of plants to facilitate the production of hybrid seeds with a lot less labor. Unfortunately, hybrid seeds produced with a male sterile parent will produce plants that produce sterile seeds. Flowers formed on such plants would not have the ability to produce male pollen and thus no fruit forms.

This may be the cause of the fancy gourd with seeds that will produce plants but no fruit. The solution would be to introduce a pollinator, but then who knows what the fruits would look like. In other words, if you plant seeds from a hybrid plant you can't predict what characteristics the offspring will display. They will vary greatly.

I also got a related question about how to get seed for a seedless watermelon. The temptation was to suggest, go to a seed store but that one too has an interesting explanation.

Most plants are diploids meaning that the plant cells have matched pairs of chromosomes, which divide in reproduction or seed production, producing another diploid plant. Plant breeders using either X-rays or a chemical process can produce plants with four matched chromosomes. These are called tetraploids. A lot of fancy large flowered daylilies are tetraploids. As in the last paragraph you will guess that when you cross tetraploids the matched chromosomes divide evenly, forming another tetraploids.

Seedless watermelons result when you cross a diploid watermelon with a tetraploid watermelon. The resulting offspring have three matched chromosomes and thus are unable to divide evenly resulting in sterility or the production of no seeds.

You can buy seed for seedless watermelons. In fact there are a lot of seedless varieties available. They remain much more expensive than seeds for a traditional seeded melon. Also, you must plant a separate pollinator with the seedless varieties.

It's amazing what the plant breeders are doing. Saving our garden seeds isn't predictable like it was when grandma and I gardened. Hybrids have created a whole new plant world. We will continue our visit to seeds next week.

Many years ago, when I was way too small to remember anything, we had a neighbor who was a respected journalist for one of the Lancaster papers. He also was Lancaster County's acknowledged leading woolly bear prophet.

If you don't know about the woolly bear, welcome to the country. It's time you found out. It's that fuzzy, but bristly, little (maybe two inches long) caterpillar that seems to be everywhere in the fall. Color ranges from light tan to totally black or a mixture thereof. The color is where the prophecy begins. Black indicates a cold winter. Tan or brown indicates a mild winter. With that information it not too hard to figure out that if it's black on both ends and brown in the middle the winter starts and ends cold with a mild stretch in between.

My childhood prophet had no trouble with the fact that there are some of both colors every season. He was quite content to accept the majority opinion offered by the colors after viewing lots of woolly bears.

The woolly bear really is the larvae of the rather insignificant Isabella moth, which often flutters unnoticed toward our outdoor lighting from April to August. There are two generations, one in May and one in August. I'll come back to that.

Young caterpillars feed on a number of weeds like nettles, plantain and dandelions. Other favored food plants are grass, asters, sunflowers, and birch, elm and maple trees.

I threw in the last paragraph because it's true not because it really matters. No one will ever notice any damage.

Without a bit of research I would never have realized that there was a spring generation. The May hatch lives its full life cycle that year. The fall hatch over-winters wherever they can find cover, wake up in the spring and continue the cycle.

My belief is that we see tons of them in the fall, but only a few survive to produce the spring generation. Those few that make it to moths produce enough eggs to produce a large population in the fall.This little critter has no importance and appears quite fragile. However, it is well known and probably is the most visible of many insect species that are out there but seldom recognized, Caterpillars are near the top of things easy to kill with chemicals.

My message is that before you spray, give it some thought and target the problem rather than being indiscriminate killing dozens, if not hundreds and probably thousands of little critters that are of little significance other than that they exist.

By the way, research indicates that the age of the caterpillar and the level of moisture in its environment determine its color. Don't you just hate it when research interferes with what you have always known?

I'm fearful that if I mention the word arborvitae in the first sentence I may be creating the least read column I have ever written. Perhaps you may want to venture on at least a few more paragraphs.

Not all arborvitae are created equal. First let's differentiate by bringing in the Latin. Arborvitae are Thuja. I know of three species. The common arborvitaes are Thuja occidentalis and Thuja plicata.

The plicata species solves one of the common problems facing arborvitae. Deer love the occidentals but not the plicata species. They seem not to be bothered.

One of my favorite shrub catalogs offers 31 different arborvitae ranging from pyramids reaching 30 feet to a little round two-foot ball with unusual foliage with lots of variation in between. With little effort I am sure you could identify many more selections or cultivars.

The tall one is a recent introduction called Green Giant. It is one of the fastest growing evergreens out there. I planted several 18-inch plants in June 2004 and now they are almost twice as tall as I am.

Interestingly, they just sat there most of 2004 making me wonder if they were the fast growing miracle that the literature suggested. I guess I was just too impatient. Once they started growing I can easily agree that they add three feet of new growth a year. I suspect they will be narrow with a width probably not exceeding five or six feet.

Digressing, I question the wisdom of planting large plants unless you demand an instant final look. I have watched smaller perennials and shrubs repeatedly overtake their larger counterparts in a very short time.

I am still watching a planting of what I think were six inch caliber trees made four or five years ago. From a distance, when in full leaf I can still see through them and they don't seem to be adding much size. Every time I see them I wonder if something one-third their size would have caught up by now.

Meanwhile back to the arborvitaes. Most of you will recognize the flat foliage that defines an arborvitae. That, too, isn't always a given.

The little round ball I referred to a few paragraphs back has a foliage one would never suspect to be an arborvitae. It is very soft and almost looks like a juniper, which are always a bit prickly. That one is called Teddy.

Arborvitaes have no more problems than any of the workhorse evergreens out there. In fact I have a 12 year old planting of Leland Cypress that are eating a lot of horizontal space, a trait not shared by most arborvitae.

As a workhorse, I am gaining new respect for the arborvitae when used as screens, hedges, or part of a foundation planting. The smaller ones also fill some holes in the shrub border. Most are green, but there are some variegated ones generally favoring hints of yellow.

If you got this far, congratulations. I have found that incorporating some arborvitae into your landscape is not a punishable sin.

Are they gone yet? The onslaught of Japanese Beetles this year is forcing me to consider surrendering any claims I might have of possessing a green thumb. I sprayed more than I like and they kept coming and coming.

It appears that the Japanese Beetle populations are on the upswing. My records suggest that this was the third year of increased populations. I think it was the worst I have ever seen.

They attacked an early-August ripening peach tree. I have grown this peach variety since the 1970s and have seldom seen significant damage. Populations are usually in decline by early August.

Despite spraying several times, the beetles finally won. Instead of baskets of peaches I got maybe a half dozen useable peaches. A few beetles were still clinging to them when I got them to the kitchen.

On several ornamental shrubs, and I do not grow roses, their favorite food, I killed beetles until they formed almost a solid layer on the ground. Still, some of my shrubs have a rather eaten look.

My guess is that the heavy rains of spring and early summer permitted every beetle to climb out of the ground. A second guess is that the cool spring also delayed their emergence a few days. My last guess and hope is that the current dry spell will make it more difficult for the young grubs to become established in the soil now.

A friend and neighbor put it in awful perspective. We have the menace of the beetles. Next come the grubs followed by the moles.

The grubs feed on the roots of plants and can do significant damage to yard grass if populations are high enough. My guess is that unless you were spared this year, and I have yet to find the person who was, that your grub population is high.

If you wish to treat for grubs, now is the time.

Organically, there are nematodes or the bacteria milky spore. The literature suggests both are slow acting as they build their own populations and will have limited near term impact on large populations.

Chemically, my guess is that one needs a license to get the most effective materials so hiring a professional might make sense. If you wish to do it yourself I would suggest consulting an established spray dealer or calling the Master Gardener's Hotline at 394-6851 for suggestions. The old stand-by insecticide, Sevin, is quite effective on grubs although I try to limit my use of it because it is very nasty on all insects, both friend and foe. Any chemical must find its way into the soil to be effective, so spray just ahead of a shower or water the area after application.

I'm still seeing a few adult beetles out there as the end of August nears so maybe the worst is over. Or maybe this is the first of our problems.

I remember dad telling tales of crop failure as the Japanese Beetles spread across Lancaster County in the 1930s from their point of entry. He said that they increased their range about 20 miles a year. I guess they aren't gone yet.

My wife and I spent a week in early August doing day hikes on the Appalachian and Long Trails in Vermont. We were part of a group of twelve strangers who were like-aged and like-minded. We also had a lot of fun.

The Appalachian Trail, as most of you know, runs from Georgia to Maine with a run through Pennsylvania just west of here. The Long trail, which was established before the Appalachian Trail, runs across Vermont from the Massachusetts border to the Canadian border.

We had two accomplices, a leader and a sweeper.

Fortunately the leader was our age, so the pace, though not necessarily kind, was doable. The sweeper job was to prod those who lagged in the rear, I guess. I managed to stay close to both of them on occasion.

I could wax long on the plants and critters we saw but will let it suffice to say just three things. The trail in Vermont offers a wide range of elevation and the plant life reflected the different environments this creates. Second, they do not have the deer pressure that exists in Pennsylvania and the lowland forests were much more dense. Third, the occurrence of native woodland plants exceeded even what I remember in our forests when I was a child.

What I found most interesting was that the sweeper was a Certified Organic Gardener. Her message was quite simple; if you don't want to need to spray, don't spray. I use the rest of the article to explain that last sentence.

I asked about whether she used beneficial insects. She then talked about releasing ladybugs and watching them immediately fly away. Her comments on beneficial nematodes was that taking them to the garden at 3 am when the temperature was 67 degrees and light showers were promised was not her cup of tea.

That confirmed my belief that beneficials in today's home garden is a waste of money. Maybe in the future the technology will get us there, but we're not there yet.

She claimed that most of her clients were happy with the organic approach and most were rather successful. She said her worst nightmare was a client who hired her as an organic consultant along with other consultants who sprayed regularly. Any spraying upsets the balance necessary for organic success.

Mulch and compost are also key factors in going organic. The commercialization and increased availability of compost is on the near horizon and the research overwhelmingly suggests it will change the way we garden.

When pinned down, she said her best weapon in the pursuit of an organic landscape was plant selection. Native plants, of course, played a major role, but there was also lots of room for non-natives.

The key was that plants that need constant spray are not part of an organic garden. Roses and fruit trees are two quick examples in our landscapes. There are others. If you wish to go organic the first step is to spot and eliminate the high (spray) maintenance plants.

I escaped the garden for a walk in the woods, or did I?