By Tamara Galbraith

Looking to add a bit of tall, tropical flavor to your landscape? Consider cannas.

These willowy beauties will add both height and drama to your garden. The reds, yellows, oranges and pinks of the floppy flowers are occasionally rivaled by startlingly gorgeous banana-like foliage that comes in wild stripes, deep burgundies or creamy variations.

Feel free to plant cannas in the ground or in a large container, as they do well in either culture. (There are also aquatic cannas that, as the name suggests, prefer boggy pond conditions.)

No matter what type of canna you favor, moisture is a big factor, as is soil fertility. Keep them well-watered. If they're planted in the ground, feed monthly with a 5-10-5 fertilizer like Dr. Earth Organic 8 Bud & Bloom. If you're keeping your cannas in pots, use a the same fertilizer at about half-strength and feed weekly.

Sun and heat are also must-haves for cannas - remember, these are tropical plants, so the more you can create a Florida-like atmosphere, the better.

In our area you won't have to remove your canna bulbs from the ground each season. In fact, if you do plant the bulbs in the ground and leave them, prepare to watch them spread all over the place!

Given the right conditions, cannas provide tall, supermodel looks - gorgeous hot colors on tall, curvy foliage - with only a fraction of the high-maintenance attitude.

Plant warm-season lawns and tall fescue this month. St. Augustine, Bermuda, and dichondra get off to a fast start when planted in May.  (Hold off until June to plant zoysia). Salt-tolerant Adalayd grass can also be planted this month. It's too late to plant most cool-season grasses from seed, but tall fescues can be planted from sod. (Note that tall fescues use much more water than Bermuda or zoysia.)

Lawns can be planted in several ways: sown from seeds, plugged in from flats, or rolled out from sod like an instant carpet. Bermuda, zoysia, and Adalayd can also be planted from stolons. Whichever method you use, be sure to prepare the ground properly. Before beginning, decide whether to plant a warm- or cool-season lawn and choose a variety appropriate for your lawn needs.

Select the best variety for you. When you research grass types be sure to consult with successful neighborhood gardeners and the University of California Cooperative Extension Office. Consider these factors: St. Augustine is better adapted to shade than other lawn grasses but needs a lot of water. Dichondra is best used as a design element in small areas only. If you live close to a Bermuda golf course it will seed itself eventually into any cool-season lawn, making it look ratty. To minimize this, plant a hybrid or selected strain of Bermuda for your own lawn in the first place. As mentioned before, don't plant such troublemakers as bentgrass or Kentucky bluegrass-they'll die in the first drought. Common Bermuda and Santa Ana hybrid Bermuda grass are the two most drought-resistant choices.

Fertilize lawns. Continue to feed warm-season grasses with Bradfield Organics Luscious Lawn. this month, and in coastal zones apply fertilizer to cool-season lawns once more this month at the same rate as you have used during the winter. We recommend Dr. Earth Super Natural Lawn Food. But in interior zones stop feeding cool-season lawns now, other than an occasional light application (one-fourth to one-half the normal dosage) applied only when necessary to maintain a healthy green color. Tests done by the University of California Division of Agriculture show that heavy feeding of cool-season grasses such as ryegrass, bluegrass, and fescue during the warm season of the year subjects them to unnecessary stress.

Check Dichondra for flea beetles. Control flea beetles before they damage dichondra. These tiny black 1/25 inch long insects skeletonize leaves and cause brown areas that often are confused with dry spots or fertilizer burn. To look for the culprits get down on your hands and knees, and put a piece of white paper on the lawn, and tap it. The beetles will jump on top and you'll be able to see them. Control them with a pesticide-containing fertilizer or spray with a product containing diazinon or chlorpyrifos.

Tomato hornworms are the larvae of a large sphinx moth that is about the size of a hummingbird. In spring the moth lays eggs on the underside of tomato leaves, and the hornworm is quite small when it first emerges. However, they are big eaters (mostly tomato, eggplant, pepper, and potato leaves) and grow very quickly. Usually, you won't even discover this fellow until it is large--about 2 inches long and fat! They are quite distinctive, actually handsome with their diagonal white stripes and horns on the rear.

Don't be afraid of the hornworms. They look more frightening than they are. They don't bite or sting, just try to look big and ferocious. When they are younger and smaller, use Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) as an effective management technique. When they get large, you can easily handpick to remove from your tomato plant and just throw them into a bucket of soapy water (if you can stand it). If you really can't stand handpicking them, trim off the branch they are on and dump that into the bucket--you'll lose some production that way, though.

Some gardeners have a different approach to the tomato hornworm. While handpicking a hornworm, look to see if you find little white cocoons attached to its back. If you do see this, that cocoon is a pupating braconid wasp, which is a "garden friend" predator. Capture the hornworm and keep it (or all of them) in a container, feeding them tomato leaves. You are creating a nursery for the braconid wasps that can be released into your garden! These wasps will control the hornworm population.

Other natural predators are birds and the larvae of the green lacewing. Simply putting a birdbath by your tomato plants can work wonders! In short, plant your garden to create an inviting habitat for all of these natural predators, and you'll control this voracious eater of your tomato leaves. Luckily, they don't eat the tomato!