Is it okay to add old, stale bread to the compost pile? What about tree stumps – can they be buried in the pile to speed their decay?

No, bread should not be added to a compost pile. As far as tree stumps, I wouldn’t add them to the compost pile. They will eventually decay in a long, long time, but in the meantime you will upset the balance in your pile and you won’t be able to turn it to speed the decomposing process. A balanced pile needs both green and brown materials. I would chop it up and use it for a nice bonfire, or maybe rent or borrow a chipper and use the chips around your garden, with maybe a small portion of the chips added to the pile.

This spring I had grass sprout up all over my garden beds. Last fall I put down a 1-inch top dressing of my own compost, which was about a year old at the time. I have been doing this for several years and never had any grass grow in the beds. Is it from my compost or something else? Are there any reasonable methods to prevent it from happening again?

It is most likely not from your compost. Grasses propagate through the growth of tillers and rhizomes. The tillers look like blades of grass that grow along the surface and send down roots where they contact bare soil. In working your garden, you are taking the tillers out in your normal cultivation. Rhizomes grow laterally from the grass, underground. They then send up shoots at points along their length. Often, if you were to pull up a three- to five-inch tall shoot, you may find two feet or more of root. This root is the rhizome. Over time, rhizomes will work their way under or through most bed edging. Pulling up the shoot and as much of the root as possible is the best way to fight back. Using the types of chemicals that would be needed to kill back the grass could harm other plants in the bed, so a chemical solution would not be a good choice.

I’m wondering when is the best time to prune my Oregon grapeholly? It is a standard-size Mahonia, not a compact variety. It’s so pretty in bloom, but it needs trimming – if I do it now I’ll lose all the berries. If I trim it in the fall, will I lose the spring blooms? I hesitate to prune in fall because of the browning that occurs over the winter, which already takes a fair amount of leaves. Please help!

Sometimes in gardening, as in life, we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place. So it is in deciding when to prune your Oregon grapeholly (Mahonia aquifolium). As you’ve discovered, cut back this evergreen ornamental shrub in early spring and the slightly-fragrant, pyramidal-shaped cluster of bright yellow flowers won’t emerge during their typical April to May blooming time. Prune this shrub in early summer and there won’t be any of the bird-attracting, grape-bunched, chick pea-sized, blue-black berries in late July.

You must, however, prune to keep this vigorous-growing ornamental (it can reach nine feet) looking tidy. If you’re willing to sacrifice the flowers or the berries for a season, you can hard prune any time of the year, except early autumn. If you prune in September or later, the new growth that will be stimulated may not harden off before the killing winter cold. On the other hand, light pruning (cutting back one stem in three) in early summer will preserve most of the flowers and/or berries.

In terms of cultivation, if many of the lustrous green, leathery leaves die during the winter, perhaps your Oregon grapeholly needs to be moved to a different site. Hardy to zone 4, this native of the Pacific Northwest likes moist, well-drained, acid soil in a protected location; it doesn’t like exposure to excessive heat, dry soil, and desiccating winds.