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Earlier in July I was on a vacation to Alberta and British Columbia. We drove from Edmonton through the Interior, landing in Vancouver for a few days before continuing on to Victoria. We stayed there with my niece, who has moved into a cute little house with practically no garden around it yet. What a wonderful opportunity for her to discover the joys of perennial gardening -- and she is real keen on the idea but has no idea where to start. So, what is a plant-geek uncle to do but head to the best local nursery and load up on all kinds of nifty plants for her, as a sort of house-warming gift? Now, shopping for plants for somebody else is tricky at the best of times. It's sort of like buying art: you have no idea whether this new painting will appeal to the person, clash with the sofa and all the rest. At least with art, you hang it on the wall and it doesn't die on you. And it doesn't need mulching, watering, cutting back or any of the other things that perennial plants demand to have done to them.

I bought plants that could never possibly survive for me here in southern Ontario; strange things I had only read about or seen in coastal gardens. Call it gardening by proxy, perhaps. I hope to return some day and see these unfamiliar plants thriving and flowering in their new home.

During the process of shopping I realized that purchasing plants is one of my favourite things to do. In some ways it's even more fun than planting and growing the things. And I don't think that I'm alone in this addiction. Many times, when visiting other private gardens, I've noticed a curious patch of not-yet-planted containers, usually a treasure trove of rare discoveries waiting for just the right spot in the garden before they eventually get placed into the ground. Those of us with this habit tend to be collectors, and this is especially obvious when you see us wandering around aimlessly with a pot in our hands, looking for some vacant spot to squeeze the thing in among all of the rest. It's not a particularly practical approach to garden design, but nevertheless it probably is the truth for a good number of us gardeners/collectors out there.

If this happens to describe you, my advice is to give in to your collecting instinct, but to also force yourself on occasion to evaluate the plants in your garden in a ruthless manner. Yank out those ones that have proven to be poor performers. Banish the plants that have sat there and done nothing after five years, or those that have taken over a half acre of much-needed space. Get rid of them! Give them away if you have to. In the long run you won't miss them, and just think of all that extra room to plant even better new treasures!

-- John Valleau, editor.

The spores of powdery mildew spend the winter on the dead foliage from last year. Spores are easily splashed around during spring rains, during watering and they also can travel by wind. Once they land on the leaves, they germinate and enter the plant tissue, becoming that visible white powder after a time and continuing their life cycle. Fungicides can be used as a PREVENTATIVE approach, staring in late spring or early summer and continuing throughout the rest of the season. Generally applications every two weeks will give the best control. There are a variety of products sold at garden centers for this purpose, including some organic types that usually contain sulphur. Read the label carefully. Make sure the product is registered for control of powdery mildew on ornamental plants. Follow the rate and label directions, especially anything it says about NOT spraying during periods of high temperatures. Certain products can burn foliage if used at the wrong time.

Many gardeners make use of baking soda -- 1 tsp. plus a few drops of liquid soap in a pint of water is the usual rate -- but I've always found this leaves a white powdery residue, then you might as well just do nothing and look at mildew instead. Powdery Mildew of Landscape Ornamentals from the University of Nebraska has a detailed guide to mildew symptoms and control. Here are a few general tips:

• Pick off and discard infected leaves as you notice them. Don't throw them in the compost pile.
• Do a thorough cleanup under infected plants in the fall, picking up any dead leaves and discarding them. Cut infected perennials right back to ground level and discard the tops.
• Start fungicidal sprays in late spring and continue regularly through the rest of the season.
• When available, choose more mildew-resistant selections of plants, such as Phlox paniculata 'David' (pictured above) and Monarda 'Jacob Cline'
• Keep Phlox, Asters, Beebalm and Rudbeckia regularly watered during the summer months. All of these become more susceptible to mildew infections if the plants are stressed. They may be less susceptible if grown in full sun conditions and with space around the plants for good air circulation.
• Using a mulch of bark chips or other organic matter may help to reduce spore splashing. A mulch will also help to keep the soil more evenly moist, reducing plant stress.

QUESTION: I have Rudbeckia 'Goldsturm' (Goldsturm Coneflower) in a full sun location. I noticed that some of my plants have black spots on the leaves. What should I do? Fabiola -- Massachusetts

Plants of Coastal British Columbia and Plants of Southern Interior British Columbia turned out to be two extremely useful books on my trip, both published by Lone Pine Publishing. These are readily available at tourist-type gift stores as well as regular book stores. It turns out that Lone Pine has published a whole series of similar native plant guide books for other regions of North America. As a botany-geek, I really appreciate the handy reference keys. These offer the user a way to look at the characteristics of a plant and they eventually lead you to the identity of each species through the simple process of elimination. Well, maybe not so simple for beginners, but there are plenty of color pictures and the books are exceptionally well organized and indexed. These are just the right size to slip into your backback or hurl into the back seat without injuring anybody.