Flowers

Q. I know I'm probably a little overprotective, but several flowers have fallen off my three tomato plants. Is it an insect that clips them off without eating them? If so, I want to know how to kill this insect. A. Whoa -- too many of our gardening problems are unfairly blamed on insects. Blossom drop is a common malady, usually caused by stress that prevents pollination and fertilization of flowers -- too hot, too dry, too cold, too windy, too much nitrogen fertilizer and so on. It can also be caused by diseases -- botrytis is one. Blossom drop is not a persistent or serious problem.

YOU KNOW HOW a lot of women are going around these days shaking their heads and muttering: "Boy, men just don't get it, do they?"I'll tell you something men really don't get. Flowers. Men simply don't understand what all the fuss is about.A woman will look at a dozen roses and see something grand: beauty in its starkest form, reaffirmation, a sign that she is special, a gesture from the heart.A man will look at a dozen roses and see . . . well, a dozen roses. If he even sees that.I know men who -- and I probably shouldn't be telling you this -- will automatically dial a florist the minute they screw up around a woman.

Margaret Carver Flowers, a reading specialist and authority on English gardens, died Friday of cancer at her Chancery Road home. She was 89. Beginning in the early 1960s, Mrs. Flowers was a reading specialist in Baltimore public and private schools, helping dyslexic children learn to read. She tutored children in her home and in reading clinics and retired in the 1990s. Mrs. Flowers was an accomplished gardener who "combined an artistic sensitivity to design with pragmatic skills," said her daughter, Margaret Flowers Sobel of Baltimore.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- When Gennifer Flowers first wrote to Gov. Bill Clinton to ask for help in landing a state job in 1986, he treated her the same as thousands of others who have made similar requests, a Clinton spokesman said yesterday.But when Ms. Flowers finally did get a $17,500-a-year state job -- five years and several failed attempts after first trying -- it took a favorable change in a job classification by a gubernatorial appointee to clear the way.Apart from that twist, state files and Ms. Flowers' own correspondence seem to support the assertion by Mr. Clinton's press secretary, Michael Gauldin, that she received no special treatment.

Norman A. Holt, who sold flowers from a small wooden cart on a vacant lot in Northwest Baltimore and later became one of the city's best-known florists, died Sunday of cancer at the Lorien Frankfort Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Northeast Baltimore. He was 86.For more than 40 years, Mr. Holt owned, operated and designed elaborate floral displays at his business, the Norman A. Holt Florist Shop in the 3000 block of Liberty Heights Ave."He had a knack, a built-in ability to work with flowers," said Richard Traversari, a longtime friend.

When it comes to battling the squash vine borers, you win a few and you lose a few. This year, the borers won big. They stomped me. If these critters get into your garden, they live up to their name. The larvae bore their way into the vines of your squash and zucchini plants and suck out the juice of the plants faster than barflies toss down margaritas at happy hour. Every year, I match wits with squash vine borers. I play hide-and-seek by planting the vines in different spots in the garden.

Sierra Hurtt came to hear the jazz. Jean Brown came to check out the hanging plants and flowers. Others wandered over to Westminster's Flower and Jazz Festival after watching a national bicycle race.The city's Flower and Jazz Festival attracted more than 4,000 people to downtown Westminster yesterday, and fair organizers, vendors and musicians deemed the event a success.Celebrating jazz and flowers may have given some pause, but organizers said the combination worked out well."People really like the combination," said Carol Donovan, one of the fair's organizers and Westminster's recreation director.

Frank Foehrkolb has been selling flowers at the same Highlandtown intersection -- just blocks from his childhood home -- for more than 40 years' worth of Easters.The 69-year-old sells hyacinths, lilies, tulips, azaleas, chrysanthemums and all types of artificial arrangements. He's paid a few dollars for each one, but he says his wealth comes from smiles, handshakes and memories."I come back and go down memory lane," says the Essex man, a retired postal worker. "We had a lot of fun on these corners."

Mary Greenfield's garden began as a patch of love for her mother. She planted some flowers near her mailbox on Old Joppa Road, across from her home in Wilna so her mother could look out the window and enjoy the beauty.That was 22 years ago. Today Mrs. Greenfield's garden stretches for nearly 1,000 feet along Old Joppa Road -- a rainbow of daffodils, tulips, azaleas, blue irises, larkspur, daisies, black-eyed Susans, day lilies and zinnia. There are many more varieties, too numerous to list.

When people think of autumn color, they look to the trees. But, too often, the burden of carrying a whole season's beauty rests upon their strong branches.Chrysanthemums, of course, share the glory. In eye-catching colors of golden yellows, sparkling purples and mellow reds, potted chrysanthemums purchased at garden centers provide the easiest and quickest way to give your front steps or flower beds the look of autumn.Yet there is more to autumn in the garden than just colorful foliage and gorgeous chrysanthemums.