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Q I have about five large spaghetti squash. I know they won’t have time to ripen outdoors. Should I pull them now and have them ripen in a basement cold room or leave them outside? I’m scared of an early frost.

A This is really a tough call but I’ll share what I know. You can ripen squash indoors if they are far enough along in ripening. This simply means that if you knock on the squash and it makes a hollow sound it is mature enough to finish ripening indoors. The more mature it is the better the chances are of getting it to ripen.

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Once you bring it indoors keep it in a warm sunny location. If there are green spots on the squash make sure you turn those towards the sun. You may also want to rotate the squash on a regular basis as it ripens.

Q My wife Joyce has what she thinks was a Sherbet rose now planted in our south-side garden between us and the neighbour. We have a reasonable space between the houses and the garden gets ‘fair-to-middlin’ sunlight in the daytime. This rose plant was previously in our east-facing front garden. The rose has great green growth and yet it has never flowered once. My wife is ready to pull it and be done with it. I said I would see if I could find some help! Any suggestions or ideas why no bloom, or how to get it to bloom?

A The first thing that jumps out at me is the fact that you’re getting great green growth and yet no blooms. To me this says the plant is getting too much nitrogen fertilizer. High nitrogen levels will cause the symptoms you have described — lush green growth and inhibition of bloom. If you are fertilizing with a high-nitrogen fertilizer, stop.

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Other things to consider are lack of sunlight. I’m not sure what ‘fair to middlin’ means in terms of hours of sun but the rose should be getting at least six hours of sun a day. Pruning at the wrong time of the year is another possibility. Spring is the best time to prune right after the last frost. If it’s me, I’m telling my wife to hold off on the spade of death until I try these suggestions.

Q In 2006 I planted seven towering aspens of which six continue to grow and are healthy. However, with the middle one, I am on the fifth tree in the same spot and this one has now died too. This one appears to have suffered “red leaf” which one or two others looked to have died from, but that’s just my own opinion. Replacement trees have come from different nurseries and have been planted in same hole. Yet within four to five years go dead.

A I believe the disease you’re referring to is bronze leaf disease, and while this is a possibility I believe it can be ruled out. The reason being, this fungus spreads quickly through airborne spores and would have likely infected the other trees as well. The plant detective in me suspects this might be related to a problem in or under the soil.

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I recall an issue I was called out to investigate where trees kept dying in the same spot. It turned out to be a cracked sewer line that was leaking Drano that the owner was using to treat a chronic clogged drain. I’m not saying this is your problem but I might dig down and check to see if there is another unseen issue. It might even be something like buried construction debris. I would also have the soil analyzed to rule out chemical contamination.

Every week, Growing Things Outdoors runs online at edmontonjournal.com or, if you prefer an epaper format, epaper.edmontonjournal.com.

Learn more by emailing your questions to [email protected], reading past columns at edmontonjournal.com or my book, Just Ask Jerry. You can also follow me on X/Twitter @justaskjerry01.

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