Plant

How can we hasten the decomposition of a tree stump? Can we buy something that helps? Expose more of the stump's surface area to decomposing organisms and oxygen by sawing a cross hatch of shallow grooves into the cut top or drilling holes. This will also help the wood stay moist. Decomposing organisms also need nitrogen to decompose wood, so lightly sprinkle a high nitrogen fertilizer onto the surface. Meanwhile, you can make your stump look purposeful by using it as a pedestal for birdbath or garden ornament.

Sweet rosemary, with its evergreen needles and pungent piney aroma, is the herb of remembrance - perfect for holiday decorating, cooking and giving away. "It's incredible with potatoes, with pork, with chicken," said Yvonne Russell, a Spring Valley, S.C., gardener known for her affection for the herb. Rosemary often is found in garden shops and specialty groceries this time of year, shaped into whimsical trees, bundled in burlap or colorful foil. For Russell, the plant's spicy aroma evokes memories of her mother's and grandmother's kitchens.

Spirea `Pink Parasols' (Spirea fritschiana) This improved spirea has more to offer than its extra-large pink "umbrellas" of flowers in early summer. At only 2 to 3 feet in height and a generous 4 to 5 feet wide, it can be grouped for a tall groundcover or used singly as a specimen plant. Its neat blue-green foliage turns vivid orange and red in fall. Put this plant in just about any soil type, give it full sun, and it will reward you with a low-maintenance shrub that is also deer-resistant.

WHITE MARSH -- Both General Motors Corp. and its workers saw the minting of the Allison Transmission plant's first hybrid transmission yesterday as much more than just a new product. It is a lifeline for both. The nation's largest automaker is producing the industry's first hybrid transmission for light trucks here in a bid to regain market share from foreign competitors such as Toyota Motor Corp. If it is a success, GM plans to expand the product line, which could mean new jobs at the plant.

General Motors Corp. said yesterday that it will keep its 64-year-old Baltimore van-assembly plant open through the fall of 2003 but will reduce the plant's work force.The news was another in a series of promises to keep the plant open. In July 1998, GM said it would keep the plant on Broening Highway operating through 2000. In June, the company extended that to 2001. Every announcement, including yesterday's, has come with the warning that the long-term future of the plant is up in the air.Because GM studies show that demand for Chevy Astros and GMC Safaris is likely to wane, officials plan to go from two shifts to one beginning next summer.

MedImmune Inc., the fast-growing Gaithersburg biotechnology company, said yesterday that it had won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for its $50 million manufacturing plant in Frederick.The plant, built with $13 million in state and county incentives, joins a small but growing list of Maryland biotechnology companies that manufacture drugs.MedImmune's 90,000-square-foot facility will be among the largest drug production plants in the state, employing 150 workers. To handle future MedImmune products, the plant was designed to produce several drugs at once.

The deal to sell Parks Sausage Co.'s Park Heights plant to a Philadelphia deli meat manufacturer is less than a week away from being signed, Parks majority owner Franco Harris said last night.The plant is scheduled to close this weekend. The price of the sale to Dietz & Watson, a privately owned company that employs about 500 and has more than $100 million in annual sales, was not disclosed.Harris, a Hall of Fame running back with the Pittsburgh Steelers, said that in the short term, the sale of the 133,000-square-foot factory on Reisterstown Road would mean the loss of 35 to 45 jobs.

Q. I recently noticed that some of the new perennials I planted in September were lying on their sides with the roots exposed. I replanted them as soon as I saw what happened. Will they survive?A. Your plants were heaved out of the ground by the freezing and thawing action of the soil they were planted in. The plants may be dead if the roots dried out. Pull some extra soil up around the crowns and gently push down on the soil around the plants to anchor them more firmly. Then cover the ground with a 3-inch layer of leaves or straw.

Red-ripe and bursting with juice, strawberries are the sweet taste of childhood. Their scent conjures lazy days, warm evenings and suppers finished with homemade strawberry shortcake, warm from the oven and topped with sliced berries and clouds of whipped cream. They are spring's first fruit, one of the joys of living.Strawberries are relatively easy to grow in your own little patch or in a strawberry jar on the patio. A strawberry jar won't produce great quantities, but it will be enough for a few blissfully decadent daiquiris.

General Motors Corp. Truck Group announced yesterday that it intends to keep open its van assembly plant on Broening Highway through at least 2001, promising another year of jobs to the plant's 2,800 workers.The company previously had said it would keep the plant -- the city's largest manufacturing employer -- open through next year, but decided to extend production because of a recent upturn in demand for the Chevy Astro and GMC Safari vans made at the plant."It's obviously a point of relief," said Charles R. Alfred, president of United Auto Workers Local 239, which represents the plant's workers.

There is something courageous about the tiny crocus. Its flowers, blooming determinedly through the snow, have the power to give the gardener the boost he needs to get through the last, lingering days of winter. "I love that they are so early," said Scott Kunst, owner of Old House Gardens heirloom bulbs of Ann Arbor, Mich. "And they are among the iconic flowers: tulips, lilies and lilacs. "Winter aconite is not the stuff of legends or poetry," he said. "Crocuses are. Every elementary school kid knows what a crocus is."

Jennis Roy Galloway, a retired Union Carbide Corp. executive and decorated World War II veteran, died of cancer May 1 at Mandrin Hospice House in Harwood. He was 94. Mr. Galloway was born in Baltimore and raised on Lyndhurst Avenue. He was a 1932 graduate of Forest Park High School. After earning a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University in 1937, he went to work for National Carbon Co., a division of Union Carbide. Mr. Galloway was sent to the Dutch East Indies, where he was plant manager of the company's Eveready battery plant in Batavia.

If the 465-foot Lehigh Heidelberg Cement tower were in downtown Baltimore, it would be the fifth-tallest high- rise, an unassuming structure in a busy skyline. But the structure dominates Union Bridge, a pastoral Carroll County town of just over a thousand people that's known for its quaint antique stores. "At night, they light the tower up like Cape Canaveral," said Union Bridge Mayor Bret Grossnickle. "Opinions vary on whether it's an eyesore. It's been around so long that people are used to it."

Increased demand for some General Motors trucks has helped General Motors' Powertrain Baltimore Transmission Plant avert a weeklong shutdown that was to have started Monday, a local spokesman for the plant said yesterday. The spokesman, John Raut, had said last month that the plant was planning to shut down and temporarily lay off all of its hourly workers for the week. The plant employs 238 people. But demand for some company vehicles has improved, including the Chevy Silverado and Sierra pickup trucks, for which the Baltimore plant makes six-speed automatic transmissions, Raut said yesterday.

An international chemical company with operations in the Baltimore area plans to indefinitely halt production and lay off as many as 100 employees from its Hawkins Point plant because of decreased demand, a spokeswoman said yesterday. Millennium Inorganic Chemicals, a division of Cristal Global, will stop producing titanium dioxide at the plant near Key Bridge at the end of March, spokeswoman Amy Drusano said. "Some of our biggest customers are paint makers, and they rely heavily on the automotive and home sales markets," she said.

Giant pussy willow, Japanese pussy willow: Salix chaenomeloides It's hard not to feel fond of a plant you can pet. The furry catkins on giant pussy willow grow so large they resemble rabbit's feet. Some even sport "toes." This fun small tree reaches 15 feet to 25 feet tall at a fast rate. Its narrow, dark-green leaves are a lighter tone underneath. Perfect for winter interest in the garden, its buds swell shiny red in late winter. To enjoy it indoors, cut branches as soon as the silky rose-gray catkins emerge.

Until recently, my plant and I didn't have much to say to one another. In fact, we had nothing. I didn't talk to the vegetation and it, most certainly, didn't talk to me. But now my little croton has let me in - informing me, delighting me, even almost pestering me with frequent updates on her health, happiness and general well-being. Maybe it's got something to do with sitting next to a computer all these years, but the plant is reaching me online, with short, sweet messages sent through the cutting-edge social network Twitter.

Volvo AB of Sweden said yesterday that it is cutting production and workers at its Mack Powertrain Division plant in Hagerstown to reduce costs because sales of its trucks and buses have dropped. The Hagerstown plant will reduce production of its transmissions by a third and of its engines by 25 percent, said Ilse Ghysens, a plant spokesman. The changes are effective Jan. 25. The cuts were first reported by the Herald-Mail in Hagerstown. "There is a lower demand due to the economic downturn, and we have to adjust," Ghysens said.

Newport, Del. - For 25 years John Lewis has welded, painted and assembled cars at the vast General Motors plant in this town outside Wilmington. This month he's doing none of that. The factory is idle until Dec. 1 because of weak demand for its sporty Pontiac and Saturn roadsters, and its future seems iffy at best. Now he's counting on Congress to approve a $25 billion rescue package for the Big Three automakers - help that once-mighty GM says it needs to ensure survival, help that Lewis says is vital to saving his job and millions of others tied to the nation's auto industry.

Boatbuilder Brunswick Corp. plans to close its last Maryland plant that makes the Trophy offshore fishing boat and move the production to Tennessee, the company announced yesterday. About 115 workers will lose their jobs when the Cumberland plant closes by the end of the year. The Lake Forest, Ill.-based Brunswick said the plant closure is part of continuing plans to shrink its North American operations as it deals with the economic downturn and the impact on marine sales. "This decision is no reflection upon the Cumberland work force or product, but the result of our need to develop a more efficient manufacturing footprint," Brunswick Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dustan E. McCoy said in a statement.