Here’s how to help your asparagus plants and lilac bushes

Q: We moved to another house and there was supposed to be asparagus planted along part of the yard. So far none has come up this spring. Does this mean that the asparagus plants are dead?

A: If you have not noticed any asparagus coming up by now, this does not look encouraging as most gardeners have made many harvests by now. You could give the asparagus a little more time, but this is probably the end of your asparagus patch. Do not try to replant new asparagus roots in this same area as something is wrong with the soil. Or the soil harbors disease(s) and there are many possibilities — Fusarium wilt, cotton root rot, verticillium wilt, and rust disease.

Q: How do I make my lilac bush produce more blooms? The bush is about six years old and has beautiful foliage, but very few flowers and that was two years ago.

A: One of the most common questions is “Why doesn’t my (fill in the blank with a name of a plant) bloom? The cause can be one of five different reasons.

First, consider the age of the plant. Most woody plants have a vegetative stage when they are quite young, which can last for two to four years on some flowering shrubs and five to 10 years on certain trees. Plants with a juvenile stage include crabapples, cherries, wisteria and nut trees. Shrubs may not have any at all depending upon if they were produced from seed or from cuttings.

Second is pruning at the wrong time. If the woody plant blooms in spring, it should be pruned right after it has finished blooming in the spring. If you prune it in late summer, fall or winter you are pruning all the floral buds off and the plant will not be able to bloom as the floral buds are missing. Sometimes with an extremely cold winter, the low temperatures can kill the shrub completely to the ground and there will not be any floral buds at all. Some winter protection may be necessary if the plant is marginally hardy in our area. Remember we are in plant zone 6.

Third, is the amount of sunlight. Location must be considered. A plant that requires full sun will flower poorly if it is planted in a shady area. Some plants blooming will be controlled by the number of hours of light and darkness that they receive each day.

Fourth, is temperature. Some plants require cold temperatures to induce flowering. A mild winter may not provide an adequate chilling period or the winter temperature may be too cold and freeze the buds. Some plants may survive the winter only to have their floral buds damaged by a late-killing frost.

Finally, nutrition can be a problem. If you fertilize your plants with too much nitrogen, this will cause the plant to produce an overabundance of leafy growth at the expense of the flower formation. Nitrogen is excellent for growing grass and lawns as we want primarily leaf growth.

However, with plants producing noticeable flowers you want to use a 12-12-12 fertilizer or a 6-10-4 fertilize to ensure that your plants will receive nutrition in the proper amounts.

If your plant does not produce a lot flowers, you have to become a detective to figure out which one of these five factors could be causing the problem.

With a lilac not producing adequate flowers, the problem will usually be either too little light or growing in the shade or too much nitrogen.

This story was originally published April 27, 2017 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Here’s how to help your asparagus plants and lilac bushes."