June Ramble: String Trimmers, Supermarket Plants

This week, a true confession from yours truly just to prove that I, too, can kill plants. Also, some shopping advice on string trimmers and a great sprinkler that’s become my favorite. Here’s a bit of a June ramble.String trimmers, also known as weed whackers, are not one of my favorite garden tools. They can be noisy, dangerous and when not properly used they can do great damage to trees, shrubs and fence posts. But if you’ve got any acreage at all you’re not about to use an old-fashioned grass shears to do your trimming and edging.

Five or six years ago, my son bought me a battery-operated string trimmer that had potential but just couldn’t handle the variety of trimming any 1-acre property might have. So since then I’ve been using an Echo SRM 225 two-cycle trimmer that weighs in at 12 pounds. It’s about as much as my back can handle and at just under $200 it didn’t break my back or bank account. It’s got enough torque and RPMs to handle my acre of mixed borders, beds, trees and shrubs, and as long as I keep fresh fuel in it the machine starts each time I need it—and it’s needed no maintenance in four years.

So, for what it is, I give it four stars. If it weighed 2 or 3 pounds less it would be five stars.

Then I saw an ad for a Ryobi (Home Depot) 40-volt, lithium battery string trimmer that claimed gas-like power." Hmmmm, my day to be a sucker? It was on sale for $149 and at just over 11 pounds I thought I’d give it a try. A 40-volt power system should mean plenty of power, and power that would last so I could do my entire property. The big plus, though, is the Ryobi doesn't require fuel mixing as the Echo or any two-cycle trimmer does. There’s also the plus that with an electric trimmer you’re not spewing exhaust pollution in to the air each time you trim.

The machine came in several easy-to-put-together parts and the battery charged in less than an hour and I was ready to trim. It did nearly as well as my Echo … though there are a few issues. Yes, the Ryobi (RY40220) can handle the work, and it is slightly lighter and shorter than the Echo and a good deal quieter.

However, the trimming head does not spin as fast as the Echo, and this means that when you are cutting tall grasses the taller material can wind around the head instead of being thrown off as with the Echo. Owners also report that re-stringing the head can be an ordeal and getting warranty work done can be a nightmare. On the plus side (maybe), there are a number of other attachments that the 40-volt battery pack will work on, including a hedge trimmer and leaf blower.

Also consider a hidden cost. The Ryobi will cost you 50 bucks less than the Echo. But if you need to replace the battery, which should last about two years with normal use, you’ll have to ante up another hundred bucks. Also remember that lithium batteries need some special care, so make sure you know how to maintain and store the battery.

I’m still on the fence, though, and I want to work with the Ryobi through the summer before I decide if my trimmer will be battery-operated or two-cycle gas. If one of them could keep their current performance profile and weigh 5 pounds less it would be a no-brainer. And if you’ve got more than an acre you may find that neither one of these will do and you may want to look at the Echo 266T, which goes for about $340. My groundsmen have used this model for several years and put hours and hours on them each week without issues … but it’s heavier at nearly 14 pounds, unstoppable and meant for commercial or large-acreage work.

It looks like it may be a hot and dry summer. Don’t wait until local garden centers and hardware stores run out of the good hoses and sprinklers. Several years ago I picked up an oscillating sprinkler that’s been my absolute favorite. It’s well made, easy to clean, and can be set to an infinite number of rectangular patterns.

The one I picked up is from the Do It Best hardware chain, but you can also get it from them online. It’s about $40 and should give you five or more years of good service. It has two clean-out plugs to keep the nozzles clear and a metal base that keeps it nice and stable. There are lots of oscillators on the market and some look strikingly similar, but this one has really done the job. It’ll cover 4,000 square feet or less, and it's their model number DIB7900MV.

Successes and failures: Just before Christmas I bought some plants to liven up the living room before my in-laws arrived from Georgia. A grocery/garden center that I visit weekly had some great-looking plants on sale, so I did what I tell you never to do, I bought live plants from a supermarket.

The Dracaena marginata was in a 6-inch pot, cost about four bucks and it starred in a March column on repotting. It’s doing very well but didn’t appreciate it when I dropped it and smashed the terra-cotta pot.

At the same time, I picked up three blooming cyclamens. I’d never grown the florist-type cyclamens before, and at $2.99 I couldn’t resist getting three of them. They’ve done spectacularly well with little to no care, but more on them in a few months.

I also picked up a Dieffenbachia or dumb cane. This is a really reliable tropical foliage plant that’s easy to grow and needs only moderate light. It was in a 6-inch pot just like the Dracaena but while the Dracaena just couldn’t be happier my $3.99 dumb cane looked great for weeks then simply failed to thrive. It just wasn’t growing, but I watered it as needed until late April, when I thought it odd that it just hadn’t grown and was looking a bit "off." My words of caution about supermarket and big box plants suddenly came back to haunt me.

I wanted to pull the plant out of the pot and examine the roots, thinking that maybe it was simply pot-bound. I grabbed the plant with one hand, the pot with the other, and before I could take the plant out of the pot my hand on the plant felt sticky. In the indoor plant world that can only mean one thing—it’s euphemistically called "honeydew," but in reality it’s insect excrement. Insects feed on the plant juices and excrete the sugars … honeydew. A closer look and, damn, the plant was covered with mealybugs in every single crack and crevice.

How could this happen to a horticulturist who’s been growing plants for half a century? Simple … I bought a supermarket, discount plant. All it took was a mealybug or two at the cut-rate nursery in Florida or up in Canada where the plant got started, and one became two, two became four, and on and on and on. Luckily, the Dieffenbachia foliage never came into contact with any of my other plants, and mealybugs can only be spread by contact, so my loss was limited—but not my shame.

My age-old advice to my loyal readers—do as I say, not as I do, and beware of plant deals that seem too good to be true. Keep growing.

"