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Re: [SHADEGARDENS] to rake or not to rake?

Amber,

My advice is to rake off as many as you can without tearing out the vinca
(AKA myrtle), as wet mats will kill the leaves of the vinca.  You don't
have to clean out every leaf, just get the mats off the foliage.  I've got
one patch of v. minor that has daffs growing up through it and it's always
a fight when the daff foliage starts to die down as I have to leave it, but
it wants to completely smother the vinca and the vinca leaves rot if I
don't keep shifting the dying daff foliage -- one of those royal pain in
the derrière garden tasks :-)  Just mention this as an illustration from
practical experience.

This is the time of year I have generally gotten the worst of the winter
leaf cover off my newly emerging plants.  But the weather has been so
freakish I haven't even started yet, plus, it's managed to rain most every
weekend and when it didn't I had to work :-(

So flex those rake muscles :-)

Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@clark.net
Editor:  Gardening in Shade
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----------
> From: AMBER A. SPAIN, COLLEGE RELATIONS ASSOCIATE
> Date: Friday, March 20, 1998 3:08 PM
>
> Do I need to rake the leaves out of my myrtle or will the myrtle cover
the
> leaves? Right now it is sort of half and half but I don't want patches of
> myrtle  -- I want a blanket. The leaves are matted down and wet.
>
> Thanks in advance for advice.
> -Amber
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