As summer closes and fall settles in, you may notice insect pests are settling in your greenhouse, too. Vegetation in your greenhouse provides an appetizing alternative to the outside garden. Aphids are a common greenhouse problem, and not the easiest to combat.

Keep them out! – Carefully monitoring plants you bring into your greenhouse is the first step in dealing with aphids. Choose healthy and vigorous plants, and spray them down with your garden hose to knock off any hitchhikers before you bring them into your greenhouse. If the plant has an obvious insect infestation, do not bring it into your greenhouse. Period. If you must, spray it with an insect control spray, or enclose it with a plastic bag in which you place an insecticide strip for two or three days. Hose your plant down after taking it out of the treatment bag, before transplanting it to your greenhouse.

Although the Almanac says spring is supposed to last from March 21 to June 21, here in the South it is usually a much shorter season. A freeze may come as late as the last week in March, as it did last year, and by May summer weather has arrived. March is the time to do all those things we could not do in winter and which must be done before hot weather bears down upon us.

Dividing perennials – Even though gardening authorities tell us that late fall is a good time to divide and reset many of the perennials, most of us wait until spring. Daisies, eupatorium, golden-glow, phlox, physostegia, salvia and others which have already produced 3 or 4 inches of new growth can be divided and reset. It is these early growers which should have attention first.

While you can sometimes grow good garden chrysanthemums from plant divisions, it is much safer to start them from cuttings. When the plants have made 3 or 4 inches of new growth, take cuttings about 3 inches long and root them in the medium youve found best. I usually use coarse sand. In taking cuttings you run less risk of bringing disease into your planting than in using divisions of old plants. It is usually the base of the plant that carries disease, so, unless your cuttings were taken too low, they should be relatively disease-free.