Expert advice for growing healthy candytufts

Like late-season snow, candytuft brings drifts of fluffy white flowers to the spring scene. Use these tips to grow better and healthier candytufts for your garden.

• Never growing more than 30 centimetres (12 inches) tall, candytuft mixes beautifully with woodland phlox.
• It also makes a lacy skirt at the base of colourful upright bloomers, azaleas and spring-flowering shrubs.
• Candytuft is ideal for edging the front of perennial beds, flanking sidewalks or tucking into the crevices of stone walls.
• Some dwarf varieties are beautiful when allowed to tumble over the edge of a brick wall or stone planter.
• Dwarf candytufts are also handy for filling little bare spots in rock gardens.
• Choose larger varieties for edging beds. The dense foliage does a good job of discouraging weeds.
• Reblooming varieties are available for gardeners who can't get enough candytuft flowers.

• A rigorous shearing back, after the plants finish blooming in late spring, will encourage compact new growth and possibly a second flush of flowering.
• For large colonies, use manual or electric hedge trimmers. Cut the plants back by half their size.
• Lightly rake out the trimmings. Then, add a balanced organic or controlled-release fertilizer. This encourages plants to produce a bumper crop of flowers the following season.

• Candytuft needs full sun but will survive in early morning or late afternoon shade.
• It thrives in soil that has good drainage and a nearly neutral pH value.
• The plants will fill in faster if the sandy or clay soil has compost before planting.
• Compost has the added benefit of neutralizing the soil's pH.

Some varieties can be grown from seed, but it's simpler to buy plants and set them out 15 centimetres (six inches) apart in early spring. Fall planting is practical in warm-winter regions.

• Weed as needed during the first growing season to help candytuft claim its space. From then on, it's care-free.
• Animal and insect pests seldom visit candytuft, and it's remarkably disease-resistant.
• You may occasionally find leaves with greyish-white deposits of fungal powdery mildew. Simply pick off the affected leaves and dispose of them.

• Because of its talent for accenting other spring bloomers, keep a few plants in little pots. Use them to fill gaps between bulbs, or tuck into containers.
• In late spring or early fall, use a sharp knife to sever any stems that have developed roots where they touch the ground.
• Scoop up the rooted cuttings with a garden trowel and pot them up. Keep them moist and shaded for a few weeks.
• If you plan to overwinter potted plants, store them in a location where temperatures will remain around freezing. This helps prevent root damage.

Candytuft is a long favourite ground cover of gardeners for its good looks and easy maintenance. It works so well with other plants, in fact, that you may find yourself growing extra just to have around.