Fertilizer

Not sure what the strange vine that's taking over your garden is or how to get your grass looking green without drowning it in chemicals? Can't figure out what the odd splotches are on the holly tree or where they came from? If you have garden and landscape questions such as these, you're in luck. The Home and Garden Information Center in Ellicott City, part of the University of Maryland Cooperative Extension, offers personalized solutions to quandaries about pests, plants and landscaping.

NEW YORK -- Two years of Maggie Gyllenhaal's work are flooding the cineplex around the time of her first child's birth. Talk about labor. If delivering movies were the same as babies, Gyllenhaal would need a double epidural. The release Friday of Trust the Man, a romantic comedy, follows on the heels of the July release of World Trade Center. Then, also this month, in limited release, comes Sherrybaby, marking her second film as the lead. Another supporting role follows in the Will Ferrell vehicle Stranger Than Fiction, having its premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and opening in November.

ON THE POCOMOKE RIVER -- Joseph Fehrer Jr. paddled through dirt-black water and past islands of gnarled roots to an ancient cypress tree. On one side of the colossus stretched 1,000 acres of farmland where a developer plans to build 2,170 homes, a grocery store, a movie theater and shops that would triple the population of Snow Hill. On the other side of the tree, across the Pocomoke River, sits a 9,300-acre nature preserve that Fehrer's father helped create to protect this rare and vanishing cypress swamp.

TORONTO -- Seventeen people believed to have been inspired by al-Qaida were arrested and a large amount of explosives seized in raids that Canadian authorities said yesterday prevented terror attacks against targets in southern Ontario. Authorities said they recovered three tons of the commonly used fertilizer ammonia nitrate, about three times the amount used in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people in 1995. Police are treating the case as a "homegrown plot by homegrown terrorists," said Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokeswoman Michelle Paradis.

It seems that the anxiety associated with a trip to fill up the tank has never been higher. But imagine pulling up to a gas station and pumping 200 gallons of fuel. That is what farmers do routinely. For example, a tractor big enough to pull a 30-foot, 12-row seeder will burn 15 gallons of diesel fuel in an hour, said Melvin Baile Jr., who farms about 750 acres near New Windsor in Carroll County. "It is like getting hit with a hammer, and it is making our lives very, very difficult," Baile said.

HOW CAN I GET RID OF SKUNK CABBAGE? Skunk cabbage is a native perennial that provides flowers for pollinators in early spring when few other sources are available. (And since many honeybees are dying of disease, we need all the pollinators we can get.) Consider leaving a few in your garden. Skunk cabbage resembles hosta but goes dormant midseason, so interplant them with another perennial for a full season of bloom. To remove them, dig them up or use a total-vegetation herbicide. Glyphosate is a good choice because it breaks down quickly so you can replant in that area.

I've never seen flies so little and fuzzy in my house. How do I get rid of them? Drain flies may be found near any household drain, appearing as tiny 1/16- to 1/4 -inch triangles of pale brown, gray or black. Their larvae live in the gelatinous film, or slime, of drains and traps, feeding on algae, bacteria and fungi. They may also breed near sewer leaks, backups, dirty garbage cans, saucers under potted plants and condenser pans under refrigerators and air conditioners. Adult flies can live up to two weeks.

Eclectic jazz/soul sextet Fertile Ground will play a Hurricane Katrina benefit tomorrow at 9:30 Club, 815 V St. N.W., Washington. Tickets are $18 and can be purchased at tickets.com or by calling 800-955-5566. All proceeds will directly benefit Habitat for Humanity.

In what probably will be reassuring to many couples considering fertility treatments, new research suggests that babies conceived with a little help from science are no more likely to have birth defects or chromosomal abnormalities than babies made the old-fashioned way. But women who become pregnant through in vitro fertilization may experience more complications during their pregnancy, the scientists cautioned. Multiple births are also much more common - and represent the single greatest health risk to babies conceived in that manner.

With the sun still an hour away from rising on a recent weekday morning, a police task force prepared to swarm the Edgewood apartments of five people accused of having ties to the notorious drug-running gang the Bloods. Before daybreak, they had arrested two people, seized dozens of bags of crack and $2,900 in cash, and - they hope - derailed the gang's local operations. In the past few years, police say, the Bloods have been sending "generals" from New York City to take control and organize the local drug game - an unlikely presence amid the community's townhouses and winding, leafy roads.