Here's my take on the agricultural sulphur/ferrous sulphate and iron chelate. Agricultural or elemental sulphur will provide more acidifying power per pound of material applied, however the soil microbes have to convert it from the sulphur form to oxides of sulphur, which can then act to acidify the soil. It takes time for the acidification to work and it will occur over a period of time, you have to get the sulphur into the ground for the microbes to attack, and the effect will be a bit longer acting. The larger the sulphur particles you spread, the slower the process. Elemental sulphur is relatively cheap so is often used agriculturally. We generally use sulphur strictly as a fertilizer to replace what the crops are removing from the soil, being leached away, or tied up into mineralized compounds, plus it is relatively low volume. As a fertilizer, we often apply it at 30 lbs/acre. Another option is to use gypsum, calcium sulphate, which is commonly used to treat highly alkaline/saline soils as it is quite cheap, acidifying, and provides additional calcium. (In moister climates where soils are more acidic, they do the opposite, applying lime -- calcium carbonate-- to raise the pH). When applying gypsum, we would apply it on the order of 1000-2000 lbs/acre or more. With ferrous sulphate, you have moved up a step in cost but you are providing sulphate ions (or is it anions?) that will provide the acidifying effect, and because it is already converted to a soluble and ionic form, it will work quite quickly. At the same time, you are providing free iron that the plants can take up and the acidifying effect of the sulphate slows the process of tying the iron up in the soil. Many soils, particularly in alkaline areas, have plenty of iron, but it is tied up in the soil and unavailable to plants, and that is the situation here. We have a lot of red soils, the red coming from oxidized iron (rust). There is no deficiency of iron but it is mineralized and unavailable. Combine that with a pH of around 8 or higher and there are a lot of plants that will die of iron deficiency. Conifers, golden willows (lost a row of them in the cemetery to that, and nearly lost the spruce trees), petunias, raspberries, and even kentucky blue grass where the lawn is only sprinkler irrigated, for example. With iron chelate, you have a form of iron that is more available to plants, however it is relatively much more expensive. The chelate can be absorbed into the leaves if used as a foliar spray, though too strong a solution will burn. Because it can be pretty well directly absorbed by the plants, it can have an almost immediate effect on new growth. I've seen it recommended to water the ground with the iron chelate, but I think it tends to get tied up in the alkaline soil fairly quickly (I think the chelate breaks down fairly quickly, then the high pH ties up the iron again, and you need large quantities which become quite expensive. I had always had recommendations from the extension service to use iron chelate for iron deficiency, but later I was advised to use the ferrous sulphate by a professor for the combined free iron/acidifying properties. When I used the iron chelate, I never had much in the way of results unless I sprayed weekly at least, and that just doesn't happen with me. With the ferrous sulphate, I could spread it once and see lasting effects for anywhere from the remainder of the summer to several years. Part of my lawn is watered with a sprinkler using well water which is very high in lime. Gradually it turns yellow and thin with iron chlorosis. Fertilizing with nitrogen had no effect. Add some ferrous sulphate and in a week it was turning green, growing like it was badly overfertilized, and the stand thickens up. One year my supplier stopped carrying the ferrous sulphate but had ferrous gluconate and said it was much easier to use and worked the same--so I wondered but tried it. Think I still have most of the bag. It showed no effect on the plants, smelled like molasses and had no irritating dust so I found a new supplier for the ferrous sulphate (I'm not going to apply it if I don't get results). I don't fully remember my chemistry from school, acids/bases, oxidizers/reducers, strong vs. weak acids & bases & the chemical reactions that take place when these chemicals are placed in solution and I'm sure there are those out there that can more than adequately cover the subject (not that I'd want to learn it all over again, though!) I mainly try to cover some of the principles and describe what has worked from experience. Plus, I've never tried to grow blueberries as trying to provide an acid environment in my soil seems like too high a maintenance. Overall, what is being dealt with here is that in drier climates, the soils tend to have a large reservoir of lime and an alkaline pH. Acid loving plants may not need acid to live, however they consume quantities of minerals which are mineralized and unavailable at high pH, but become readily available at lower pH and blueberries have adapted to soils where these minerals are readily available. Trying to lower the pH of the soil to create an acid one suitable for blueberries is very hard, because to make the soil acid you have to essentially eliminate the alkaline lime in the soil, and it will take tons of amendments to do that. To compensate, you remove the soil, replace it with organic matter which is naturally acidic, then work to counteract the ongoing process of your climate and geology from turning the new acidic, organic soil back into an alkaline, mineralized soil and add a few of the more important nutrients the plants need so that they are readily available, even if the pH is a little higher than the plant desires. One last caveat--in acidic soils, NEVER add ferrous sulphate for an iron deficiency. You don't need more acid (unless you actually want a more acidic soil). Use iron chelate or the ferrous gluconate. Sorry this is much too long, but hopefully it explains the basis of my thoughts so you can judge for yourselves what is best in your situation.

How To Clean Rock Landscaping Stones (removing unwanted iron stains & mineral deposits) (IMPORTANT: When using any rock cleaning methods, safety comes first! Where applicable, always wear approved protective safety glasses and rubber gloves where appropriate. And of course, using common sense is a must). Here are useful tips and guidelines on several simple enhancing techniques to clean unsightly stains or stubborn crust material from landscaping rocks before placement in your garden. (Note: Be sure to first thoroughly scrub and wash off all caked-on dirt, sand, and lose mineral deposits from stones using a brass bristle brush while continually rinsing with water using a garden hose with spray-nozzle to removing such debris by water pressure): -- Using Oxalic Acid ( A slow but effective process) Anything that has the word "acid" sounds ominous. But oxalic acid is easy to find, use and the safest cleaning agent. In fact it is found in many vegetables including spinach. It is used to dissolve the iron oxide (brown or red) stain on all types of stones. Rock specimens collected at Phoenixville, Ellenville, Case Quarry, NH smoky quartz and many others clean up beautifully with oxalic acid. However, some stones may not respond as well, so its best to test beforehand on small specimens to see how they react to this type of cleaning agent. To make this as simple as possible here is an effective four step process - do not take any shortcuts or make substitutions. 1. Purchase a one pound box of Oxalic Acid (OA) powder at your local hardware store in the paint department or at a paint store. It is used as wood bleach and will be labeled as such. The most common commercial brand is "Rainbow". 2. Fill a plastic one gallon container 3/4 full with hot tap water. Pour in the OA crystals and stir for five minutes. Be careful not to inhale any powder when adding the OA crystals. Once they fully dissolved in the water top off the container with more hot water to a full gallon. For safety sake, label the container and put out of reach of children or pets. 3. When ready to use this stone cleaning agent, place your rock(s) in a plastic container and add enough OA solution to cover the rock(s). Set aside for several days. 4. After the stain colors have disappeared, with rubber gloves on remove the rock(s) and wash under running water for several minutes. Next soak in clean water for a day changing the water as often as possible. To speed up the last process (step #4), using heat and/or agitation will help. If you have a hot plate that can be set up outdoors or in an area with good ventilation then repeat step #4 but heat the solution only to bath water hot - Never Boil!!! An hour in hot solution usually will do the trick. Best of all is an ultrasonic cleaner with built in heater. Sometimes only 30 minutes is necessary. But you should not put the OA directly into the stainless steel basin. Make a double boiler type of arrangement by partially filling the ultrasonic cleaner basin with water. Then place your rock(s) and OA solution in a plastic container or heavy duty plastic bag that is suspended in the water. You can reuse this cleaning solution over and over. As it dissolves more and more iron from rocks it will get darker often taking on a green color. After the cleaning solution gets really dark discard it and mix a new batch. Safety is important. OA solution is highly toxic. It can absorb through the skin and builds up in your organs cumulatively. Same goes for the fumes, which is why you never boil the solution and always have proper ventilation when using the heated solution. Be careful not to spill the solution on porcelain and keep away from food preparation surfaces. In spite of all its bothersome concerns, this is one of the best all around method for cleaning rocks. -- Using Muriatic Acid This rock enhancing cleaning technique is a more aggressive - but very effective. Hydrochloric Acid is available in most hardware stores as Muriatic Acid. It is usually sold in one gallon containers and is used to clean masonry as a rust remover. In spite of its easy availability, it is dangerous. Do not inhale the fumes or get any on your skin or in your eyes. Always wear appropriate eye protection, rubber gloves, and old clothes. Keep your arms covered even if it is a hot day. And always observe the safety precautions on the container. There are two main uses for hydrochloric acid: removing carbonates like calcite that often are the last minerals to form on rocks, and of course, the more aggressive removal of iron oxide rusts stains (which acts faster as a rust stain remover than Oxalic Acid). The former use is the most common and often produces staggeringly beautiful results because the calcite layer being dissolved had protected the stone surface underneath. If hydrochloric is used to remove iron oxides from rocks be careful that there are no carbonates in it that you want to preserve in the stone's surface. The acid will dissolve them. Which is why, no matter what kind of stone you are cleaning, always test your cleaning agents on it in an inconspicuous spot to make sure you will not ruin its overall desired natural appearance. The basic cleaning procedure is: 1. Again, wash the rock(s) in clean water to remove any remaining loose sand and dirt to make the acid last as long as possible (NOTE: sand and dirt contains iron oxide which will quickly exhaust the reactionary properties of acid). 2. Place rock(s) in a large plastic container with a lid that can be later tightly sealed such as a five gallon joint compound bucket often found at construction sites. Let rocks dry and move the container outdoors to an area with good ventilation. Pour in enough acid to cover the rocks. Always wear heavy rubber gloves and be very careful not to splash any acid on yourself. 3. Depending on what you are removing with the acid you will want to leave it in from 5 minutes to 5 days. If you are etching carbonates/calcite off a specimen then you should check it after five minutes. Be careful not to inhale any fumes when checking the progress. When removing calcite or marble from specimens the action is very fast and active. Your bucket should be large enough to prevent the bubbling foam from overflowing. If you are removing rust stains from quartz the action can take up to a day and is less energetic. When removing the "sphalerite" crust on quartz rocks it is not uncommon to repeat three day sessions removing any loose material between each session. For safety, place the sealing lid on the bucket to prevent children and animals from exposure (but provide a small vent hole for relieving eventual build-up of gas pressure). (Note: Do not leave the bucket in the sun light. This may results in a yellow stain developing on the rock's surface). 4. Neutralize the acid left on the rock acid wash can be achieved in many different ways. After a brief pre-rinse in clear water, some rock cleaning experts prefer to dissolve ordinary household baking soda in a bucket of warm water immersing the rock(s) in the baking soda solution for 15 minutes before proceeding with the final washing. However for expediency and as a matter of preference, some experts just skip this particular step. 5. Lastly, because the acid has penetrated the rock(s), it is best to wash very thoroughly for its final cleaning step. As a rule of thumb, three times immersion in clear, clean water for a five minute dip bath each time is best. Altogether a 15-20 minute wash will be adequate to complete the procedure. 6. If residual stains and/or mineral deposits remain, repeat these cleaning steps again. As the acid is used up it will eventually turn yellow/green/brown. It can be used until it no longer is effective or until it starts to stain rocks when used. If you are using it to dissolve carbonates/calcite the acid will exhaust itself long before the color changes. You will see that it no longer actively dissolves the calcite. It should then be discarded. You can fully neutralize your old acid with crushed limestone or baking soda. When it no longer fizzes then you can dispose of the acid safely. IMPORTANT NOTE: if removing calcite from a landscaping rock, do not dissolve all calcite. Often it may be the only thing holding the stone together. A little calcite can provide a nice contrast and make the stone more aesthetic and appealing. Some types of rocks, if immersed in a hydrochloric acid cleaning bath too long, will turn powdery and crumble apart. -- Using Mechanical Methods By mechanical we mean using force of some sort to remove unwanted stains or mineral encrustations. Obviously such method has the potential of damaging landscaping rocks by fracturing them causing unsightly breaks or surface cracks. As such, care should be taken to go slow and easy to minimize any potential damage and to stop the process altogether if need be. A. Sand Blasting Sand blasting sounds exotic but is more common than you would think. The sand blasting removes the softer material or deposits very quickly and leaves a more natural softer appearance than chisels or scrapers. A sand blasting unit is not expensive. The basic setup can be purchased for around $50.00. However the air compressor to drive the sand blaster is expensive. Unless you already have access to a 3.5 HP air compressor, then sandblasting is not for you. There are many different media that you can use in a sandblaster. Anything the consistency of table salt can be blown through the gun, wet or dry. Glass beads are readily available and are the hardness of quartz. But you can purchase many different harnesses down to 3.5 on Moh's scale. The goal is to choose a media softer than the mineral you want to keep but harder than the mineral you want to remove. B. Air Scribe This is a miniature reciprocating impact chisel commonly used by fossil preparers to expose fossils. ARO air scribe Model 8315 costs $289.00 and comes with a medium carbide tip. Additional tips are available in fine to coarse for $31.00 each from Main Tool Supply, 55 Lafayette Ave., North White Plains, NY 914-949-0037. These tools reciprocate at 36,000 cpm and are very efficient at locally removing matrix. B. Water Gun Similar to a sand blaster, the water gun is used in the dry cleaning industry as a stain remover (they blast cleaning agent right through the fabric). The Krebs 5000 cost $350.00 and is available from Aurora Mineral Corp. (do web search for contact address). The action is a combination of sandblasting and ultrasonic. The gun creates a fine, high powered jet of water that will loosen most clays or dirt. The advantage is that you can put solutions other than water in the gun. In theory you could shoot oxalic acid through it. But since oxalic acid requires time to work the value of this option is questionable. And remember the toxicity of oxalic acid - the last thing you should do is create a fine mist of oxalic acid that you could accidentally breathe. In conclusion, you do not have spend lots of money to clean landscaping rocks. In many cases a brass scrubbing brush and plain old sand paper is all that is often need. Remember also that these mechanical methods are often the first in a many step process. You may simply only need to start with a brass brush and sand paper then use hydrochloric acid or oxalic acid to get the desired rock cleaning effect.

Hi Courtney, Welcome to the Oklahoma Gardening Forum and congratulations on the purchase of your first home. First, there is no need to apologize and there are no silly questions. Every single one of us started out as 'new gardeners' once upon a time, you know. (Admittedly, for some of us the 'new' part was very long ago. Hee hee.) I don't know which part of Oklahoma you live in, but common cool season flowers that are cold-hardy in much of the state include pansies, violas, dianthus, snapdragons, ornamental cabbage, ornamental kale, and dusty miller (grown for its silvery white foliage). There are others that can handle most of our cold weather, but those are the ones most commonly seen in nurseries and garden centers. As far as keeping mulch in place, that can be very difficult depending on the topography of the land around your house and also depending on how high your winds tend to get. In most of the state, you may find yourself fighting northerly winds that can occasionally be very strong. In general, it is easier to keep mulch in place if you do two things: Buy mulch that is finely ground and in smaller pieces. Larger chunks tend to blow around/wash away more. Granted, larger pieces are heavier than smaller pieces, but it doesn't seem to help keep them in place. Secondly, keep the mulch moist...not dripping wet, but moist enough that the pieces will clump together a little. If you are in a very exposed location, such as on a hilltop or a barren stretch of grassland with no nearby windbreaks (natural or manmade), then keeping mulch in place will be a lot harder. You can tack down black netting (like the netting sold to throw over fruit trees to keep birds off the fruit) using landscape staples. The netting will help hold the mulch in place and isn't too terribly obvious. You can mulch with something heavier like stone or lava rack. (With clay soil, it is better to use a bark mulch or shredded leaves because they feed the soil as they break down, but if you live in a very windy, exposed location, rock maybe the only good option.) Also, some types of wood mulch stay in place better than others. If you can find pine needles/pine straw mulch, it stays in place really well. I'm partial to cedar but use cypress too. Pine bark mulch seems to me to be one that blows around too easily. Depending on where you live, some cities and counties grind up tree trimmings/leaves and allow residents to pick them up free, or for a nomial fee, and that can be a great source of mulch. If you are in a rural area, your local electric co-op may either do their own tree trimming or hire contractors to do it for them, and they can be a great source of free tree-trimming mulch. Once you have more plants in place, even the plants themselves will help hold the mulch in place. And, if you are in a windy location where it is going to be impossible to keep mulch in its place, you may want to switch to an evergreen groundcover. There are some groundcovers that work well with bulbs and other perennials. Good luck, Dawn

The dirt can be dealt with. What looks bad is the mortar pasted on so as to cover the boulder edge. Chip this out with a hammer and chisel or whatever prying tool you have (without damaging the wall, of course. Be careful not to loosen the stones while temporarily weakening the wall. Use small stones in a wedge-like manner if stones at bottom need support.) Scrape out some of the earth at the base of the wall (between wall and boulder) -- about 2 1/2" - 3" depth. Clean the excavation with a hose nozzle and after the water dissipates. sweep the debris away. Fill the cleaned gap with fresh mortar such that it is tooled flush with the face of the wall ... not overlapping the boulder base. Where there is a dirt between the boulder and the pavers, do the same thing, excavating 2 1/2" depth and filling the gap with mortar. Tool the mortar flush with the pavers. In the end, there should be no dirt showing between pavers, boulder and wall. Probably the easiest way to handle the mortar is to mix it a little on the soft side (like soft butter) and put it in a grout bag. Don't use mortar that's been sitting around even though it's been dry. It must usually be relatively freshly purchased to work in a grout bag. Also, if it doesn't want to come out, you might trim the tip of the bag a little larger, but be careful not to overdo it. A little trimming at a time. This may require some experimentation. Fill the gap completely and don't worry about any excess mortar that protrudes from the gap. You'll cut this off with a mason's trowel (or your pancake spatula) after it begins to firm up, during the tooling stage, which might be an hour or two later, depending. If you can tool so that joints are slightly concave, that would be fine.