Q. Please advise which vines can be planted in Lahore, to cover our front terrace and balcony. Also advise which flowering trees give shade but do not kill the grass. Our garden gets plenty of sun.

A. Passion flower vines grow rapidly and flower profusely for a reasonably long period of time when happy. Wisteria is another fast growing vine that smothers itself in delicately perfumed bloom during the spring, and honeysuckle, with its trademark fragrance, can flower on and off throughout the year. Then there are the well-known trumpet vine (Tecoma grandiflora) — with terracotta, pink or yellow blooms — Beaumontia grandiflora and Bignonia varieties, climbing jasmine and the ever-popular Bougainvillea, amongst others. Grass needs at least six hours of direct sunlight to thrive, so will not do well beneath any type of shaded tree; the larger and shadier the tree, the less grass will grow. With the aforementioned factors in mind, I suggest that you choose only small-sized trees, such as Melia azadarach (Persian lilac), Lagerstroemia or Ochnaceae squarrosa (ochna).

Q. I sowed Turkish tomato seeds this year. The plants are healthy. They flowered once but didn’t set any fruit. I am still waiting for them to flower again. Do they need any special nutrients? My garden is in the Karsaz area of Karachi.

All your gardening queries answered here

A. Tomato vines are very heavy feeders and require an uninterrupted supply of nutrients and regular watering to perform well. A seaweed-based, preferably organic, liquid plant food is ideal for already established plants. Dilute this as per specifications on the bottle and feed the plants once a week from now on until the plants surrender and die back. In future, mix lots of old, well-rotted, organic manure and compost into the soil before planting your tomato vines. This will get them off to a good start and help ensure that they are adequately fed.

Q. I’m not much of a gardener and recently moved from Karachi to Islamabad where my new home has a nice sized garden to maintain. I’m looking for some pretty flowering plants to grow in pot as well as in the garden. Other than Marigolds, which I recently acquired, what can I grow at this time of year?

A. Please refer to issues of the magazine published on the first Sunday of each month, easily found on the internet. These provide planting guides for the month to come.

Q. About 10 years ago I planted an Ajwa date seed which has slowly grown into a flower producing tree. The problem is that the flowers drop without setting fruit. I sought advice from various places and was told that the flowers needed to be hand pollinated but I haven’t found anyone who can do this for me. The tree is well-fed and three years ago it produced many new plants from its roots. The mali said that if these new plants were removed the tree would fruit, so we did that but it still didn’t fruit. About four years ago, I planted another Ajwa date seed and that grew well and the resultant small tree flowered and set fruit this year but someone took the fruit before it was ripe. How come this small tree set fruit when the much larger, older, tree still hasn’t done? My wife wants me to have the big tree cut down now and replace it with something else but I don’t want to do this. How can it be encouraged to fruit?

A. There needs to be both a male and a female date palm for fruit to set. The male palm produces flowers containing the pollen necessary to pollinate the flowers on the female tree. This pollination of the female flowers is often done by hand to improve fruiting possibility but the wind can also perform this necessary function. It sounds like your larger, older palm tree is a male and the younger, smaller one, a female. Both are needed for the female tree to bear fruit so do not, under any circumstances, cut down the male tree.

Q. Can olive trees be cultivated in Haripur? If the answer is positive, where can I find a suitable variety of olive sapling?

A. Yes they can. Please check with your local agricultural department for details of which variety of olive is best for your location and for information on where to purchase them.

Q. I’m facing problems with the germination of petunias, phlox and rudbeckia seeds. They rot rather than sprouting. Can you please guide me?

A. You are overwatering the seed trays/seed bed. These seeds need to be started off in a good quality, humus-rich soil and compost-mix and the seed trays/seed bed must be well-drained. Standing water or overly wet soil causes seeds to rot away. Good drainage is important. More seeds, seedlings and plants are killed by overwatering than by pests and diseases.

Please continue sending your gardening queries to zahrahnasir@hotmail.com. Remember to include your location. The writer does not respond directly by email. Emails with attachments will not be opened.

Published in Dawn, EOS, October 27th, 2019