Saturday, February 12, 2011
Planning ahead yields rewards when spring arrives.
Though spring is still several weeks away, seeds requiring roughly 12 weeks before planting outdoors (not many, but a few) can be started now. Once the medium is selected (I recommend plain, unopened peat moss), it is time to prepare the container(s). I use individual peat pots as opposed to one large container, as this prevents damage to fragile root systems when transplanting. If each seedling has its own peat pot, you simply prepare its hole outside and place the seeding, pot and all, into its permanent home. And don’t worry about the roots not having enough room to grow (I always do). They’ll become sturdy so quickly once the growing season takes hold that they will easily penetrate the peat pot as necessary to allow for growth, all …
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Keeping notes a good way to make plans, keep goals.
Writing this column is one of the things I look forward to during my week. But more importantly, it has proved to be an effective catalyst for working on some of my gardening goals and ideas that somehow previously never materialized. As I discussed in last week’s column, I have finally committed to the project of recycling my holiday poinsettia. And this week, I created the gardening journal that I always intended to do “some day.” In the past, I started numerous journals, but they were really just spiral notebooks where I jotted down haphazard, random notes with no real organization. They would inevitably be misplaced or discarded. As something with no purpose, they were all eventually tossed out during one of my purging fits. My …
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Some tips from years as a New England gardener.
As an original New Englander, I am much more familiar with winter damage to landscaping than most Georgia natives. Some of my favorite shrubs fell victim to my lack of preparedness (call it what you want, I was just plain lazy!). Because winter damage is so much more prevalent there, many of us learned our lessons over the years and prepared much of our landscape as part of our fall gardening chores. More than just snow, however, both northerners and southerners, need to be mindful of the potential damage from winter’s cold, dry winds. To protect from the usually less destructive damage from wind and sun scald, I use a product called “wilt-pruf.” It is intended for evergreen foliage, but I also apply it to the trunk and limbs of my …
Saturday, January 15, 2011
How to keep your poinsettia looking beautiful next season.
Did you know that poinsettias can grace our homes for more than one Christmas season? Being that one of my New Year's resolutions is to expand my habits of recycling, I am determined to invest the considerable commitment of time, effort and patience required to re-use my gorgeous poinsettia next year. I have always intended to attempt this, but was intimidated by what seemed like the overly strict precision and timing necessary for success. The financial benefits just never seemed to justify the effort involved (although the "green" ones do!). Not that I don't enjoy these types of projects, I just know my track record with consistency over time, which is what a successful outcome requires. This is the procedure: In early spring, cut …
Saturday, January 8, 2011
Gardening during the cold months leads to rewards in the summer.
At this time of year, when the gardening life can be somewhat boring, I get one of my greatest gardening thrills when the cuttings that I've taken from my favorite annuals begin to take root. Only a "manical botanical" as I sometimes refer to myself and likewise kindred spirits can appreciate the excitement of seeing those first roots appear. My husband makes fun of the happy dance I do on that first discovery. This year is particularly exciting for me, as I rooted my neighbor's gorgeous geranium that I was so envious of all summer. It is the deep red/burgundy geranium that I fruitlessly hunt for every spring. Its petals look like a deep, deep red velvet, but I inevitably and predictably settle for that ubiquitous, mundane red that one…
