Answers to your gardening questions (by those in the know!)

lol Be careful - you may get what you ask for by simply scattering the seeds around in a sunny spot in your yard. They're nice, though, for a period setting around a rural home.

a tad late now, though; I'd scatter the seeds about early spring when the thaw is under way.

Here's how poppies are usually presented:

Poppy seeds like a bit of cold treatment, so try sowing onto the last snow before spring, or set the seeds in ice cubes for a few days before scattering the cubes where you want poppies to grow.

Has anyone else lost a mature silver maple this year, 2013. Where I live (Mid SW) Silver Maples everywhere all have the same symptoms. ..they didn't bud any leaves or budded a few, just a few. Some have cut theirs to the ground. Mine is 90 feet tall and hanging over the aluminum shed. What a disaster in the making if it is truly dead.

Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear this. Is it some kind of disease? If it is, I sure hope it's at least limited to silver maples. Hickory is almost a species of the past due to some kind of disease, and now silver maples.

Silver maple is fast-growing... And can live up to 130 years in the right conditions. Also known as 'soft maple' - It is also commonly cultivated outside its native range, showing tolerance of a wide range of climates, growing successfully as far north as central Norway and south to Florida. It can thrive in a Mediterranean climate and is grown in temperate parts of the Southern Hemisphere. However, urban plantings have declined in recent years because its brittle branches break off easily in storms (Leaving it exposed for several types of maple diseases-some serious, some not so much), and the shallow, fibrous roots easily invade septic fields and old drain pipes, and can crack sidewalks and foundations. It's not uncommon these days for silver maples to live shorter lives in rural and urban landscapes.
I hear people talking about silver maples like a water oak, beautiful and dangerous. I've also heard investment in a stronger more slow growing tree may be the best closure. Slow growing may be a turn off for some but strength leaves a legacy.

I bought 5 huge flats of wave petunias that were apparently excess for selling. (I got each flat of 24 plants for less than a dollar per flat) The plants are root bound and Im gonna plant them in msses this evening. I am considering really tearing up the bound roots nd hoping for the bet. (just keep em watered until they take)
Should I do anything else like root em with some vitmin B1 or some plant food?)

I never did any of that b1 stuff, tough love y'know. I cut off (or pull down, as the case may be) the bottom crust of the bound roots and made some slits up the sides (if there are sides, which doesn't happen in flats except at the edges..) and stick them in the presumed good soil with a nod and some water. On the other hand, I'm not much of an annuals person so may not be versed on their particular needs. Dys was, the man loved petunias and marigolds and so on, happy making.

I need to transplant the Caesalpinia gilliesii (bird of paradise bush), something I've liked since my california days, from the back yard to the front. I waited too long, the heat came too fast this year, and I'm a lazy bum in the early mornings and a weary soul at twilight, at least re digging and planting. My soil is really just sand, and I plant with stuff that will live in it - but the Caesalpinia doesn't mind that (famous last words).

thanks , sounds like cutting the roots back and good drinks of water are the ticket.

You can always call the nursery (but you know that). To me there are nurseries and nurseries, some of them staffed by smiling idiots and some owned and staffed by very smart people (there are fewer of those). If a bit of plant food would be good, it can be added as you go.