Repeat Performance

The two showiest flowers midwinter flowers – poinsettias and amaryllis – can be frustrating for the home gardener. They look great the year you buy them. Getting a repeat performance the next year takes some extra care.

To get these plants to flower again in 2008 you need to provide conditions that mimic their natural habitat. For poinsettias, this means giving them sunny but short days of only 9-10 hours for 10 weeks. This mimics the conditions normally found in Mexico in autumn – days growing shorter and the bright sun of the topics. (see http://www.pauleckepoinsettias.com/html/point_fset.html for more information)

Amaryllis are also from the tropics. They don’t create flowers in response to short days but in response to an annual dry period. They’re tropical plants, so the dry period needs to be relatively warm, not as cold as needed for forcing daffodils and tulips.

To get your amaryllis to flower in 2008, begin by cutting off the flower stalk at the base after the flowers have faded. Put the plant in a bright spot and keep it watered through summer. Fertilize with dilute water-soluble fertilizer every two weeks. If you like, you can put your amaryllis outdoors once the weather warms. Toward the end of summer, the leaves may begin to yellow. This is your sign to reduce watering drastically and let the leaves die away. If the leaves don’t start to die back on their own, reduce watering by the beginning of September. After the leaves have faded, the bulbs need to be dry and slightly cool for 8 weeks. You can leave the bulb in the pot. Try to keep it at about 55-60 degrees F and don’t water. After 8 weeks, bring the potted bulb to a slightly warmer room and water sparingly until you see new growth. You should have open flowers in 5-6 weeks.

Not just red anymore!

Poinsettias are popular flowers for the holiday season. The traditional red reminds us of holly fruit and leaves, but poinsettias are now available in pink, white, salmon, purple, burgundy, two tones, even polka-dots. Care for it correctly and your favorite can last into the new year.

Poinsettia Care Tips
- Don’t let your poinsettia get cold. Cover it with plastic or a paper bag when you transport it from the store to your car and then into you home. Once home, make sure night temperatures stay 60 degrees F or above.
- Keep your poinsettia cozy but not toasty. Poinsettias prefer daytime temperatures from 65-75 degrees F and nighttime temperatures a bit cooler, from 60-65 degrees F. Too hot and the color won’t last long; too cold and the plant may get root rot.
- Give your poinsettia a drink of water – but not too often. Make sure you don’t overwater or underwater. Yes, this can be a bit tricky. Feel the soil. When it is dry an inch deep, water the soil thoroughly.
- Don’t drown your poinsettia! Make sure any decorative pot covers have holes in the bottom so water can drain out. Don’t let the pot sit in water either.
- Share a little sunshine. Place your poinsettia so it gets bright but indirect light all day.

Gardeners Don’t Love Ice!

Central Indiana was very lucky this past week. We missed the ice storms that plagued the central US, getting rain or snow instead. Both ice and lots of wet heavy snow can damage your trees and shrubs. There’s not a lot you can do when an ice storm hits. Should you do anything at all?

If your plants are coated with ice or frozen snow, it’s best to not do anything at all. You’ll break or damage the branches as you try to remove the ice. Just let it melt naturally. If it’s just heavy snow, you can try to remove it. Be gentle! Brush it off or use a broom to reach under a branch, then lift and gently shake. Don’t hit the plant with the broom or your shovel to get the snow off.

Some plants have several main trunks instead of just one. This is called having “multiple leaders”. Arborvitae and junipers often have multiple leaders. These leaders can be bent over by heavy snows. If you have these plants in your yard you can do some preventative care. Tie the upright branches together with cloth or nylon stocking before the snow or ice arrives.

Some of the damage from snow and ice is damage actually caused by you. If you shovel snow, don’t throw it onto your shrubs. Stay way from deicing salts made from sodium chloride. If the salt gets on your plants (or drain into the soil after the snow melts) you may see dried foliage and struggling plants. Use cat litter, sand or sawdust instead.

If the ice does break branches off trees and shrubs, there’s not much you can do but remove the broken branches. Cut them all the way back to where they join a larger branch. Remember that tree branches are quite heavy. If the branches are 3” or more in diameter or high in the tree, consider hiring a profession to help (see http://www.treesaregood.org/).

Do Gardener’s Love Snow?

Central Indiana had its first snowfall of the season this week. Do gardeners rejoice when there’s snowfall or do they think only of shoveling the driveway?

I think most gardeners are glad to see snow cover their gardens. It doesn’t make much difference for those growing annuals and vegetables. Their plants have long ago joined the compost pile. If you have a large perennial garden, though, snow cover can help some marginal plants make it through the winter.

That seems backward, doesn’t it? Isn’t it extra cold under all that snow? Actually, comparatively, it’s warm and snuggly under the snow. Snow keeps plants at a constant temperature, closer to the melting point of water than to the air temperature. Snow also protects the plants from drying winter winds.

We see the effects of snow cover in two ways. First, herbaceous plants normally killed when temperatures fall to near zero may survive if they are covered with snow. Secondly, flower buds that cannot survive extreme cold are often protected by the snow cover. We frequently see this in forsythia, a shrub that flowers in early spring. If temperatures fall below about -10 degrees F the flower buds of forsythia are killed (not the whole plant, just the flower buds). However, if there is snow cover, the buds low down on the stem, under the snow, will stay warmer and survive. In spring, you will see forsythia that has flowers close to the ground, where the snow covered the stems, but no flowers on the upper stems.

So, yes, gardeners usually love snow. But gardeners often don’t love really heavy, wet snows and ice. Check back next week for tips on dealing with this type of weather.

Gifts and Gardeners

It’s easy to shop for that gardener in your life. Plants, tools, books, gift certificates, there’s almost no end to the list of things they’d enjoy finding in their stocking.

Some tools may not fit in a stocking, but they make gardening easier and gardeners happier. Spades, rakes, trowels and cultivators are all good choices. You don’t need to spend $200 just for a shovel, but you do need to buy sturdy tools that won’t break on their first use. Select tools make of quality steel. The word “tempered”, “heat-treated”, “forged”, or “drop-forged” should appear somewhere on the tool. Avoid tools made of stamped steel. Check the handle also. If it is wooden, make sure there are no knots that would make the handle weak and breakable. The handle should connect to the steel head by fitting into the head, not the other way around, and be secured by rivets.

If you’re looking for pruners, make sure to select one whose blades meet in the same way as the blades of scissors. There are lots of new ergonomic designs on the market, with swiveling handles, soft grips, and smaller pruners for smaller hands. Think about adding a leather holster to hold the pruners securely to your gardener’s belt.

Gardening books make great gifts, but which to choose? I’m often asked for recommendations, but I’m hesitant to give them. People have different needs, so there’s not a one-size-fits-all gardening book. Unless there has been a specific request, this is a great time for gift certificates. Let your gardener browse the book stores, but suggest they visit the library as well. Most book stores will special order that special book if it’s not on their shelf.

Last lawn fertilization of the year

It’s time to fertilize your lawn one last time. Congratulations if you fertilized your lawn in September and again in November. If you’ve been putting off your November fertilization, now is the time to do it.

Make sure to remove the leaves or mow to mulch them and let them settle down into the grass. Then apply 0.75 pounds actual Nitrogen for 1000 square feet. You should be using fertilizer containing mostly slow release nitrogen. Often this percentage is listed on the fertilizer bag. The active ingredients may list sulfur coated urea (SCU), polymer coated urea, or methylene ureas. Fertilizer made of organic material also contains slow release nitrogen.

The “0.75 pounds actual Nitrogen per 1,000 square feet” instruction is often confusing. To apply lawn fertilizer correctly, you need to know two things – the area of your lawn and the analysis of your fertilizer. Measuring your lawn lets you determine how much fertilizer you should apply. For example, if my lawn is 5,000 square feet, I will need to apply 5 x 0.75 or 3.75 pounds actually nitrogen.

Since the fertilizer isn’t 100% nitrogen, you’ll need to apply more weight of fertilizer than just the 3.75 pounds. If the analysis on the fertilizer bag is 24-4-8, the fertilizer contains 24% nitrogen or 0.24 pound actual nitrogen for each pound of fertilizer. In this example, 10 pounds of fertilizer would give you 2.4 pounds of actual nitrogen. That’s still not the 3.75 pounds we need, so we can do a simple calculation to determine how much weight of fertilizer to apply. Just divide the amount of actual nitrogen you need by the amount of actual nitrogen in a pound of fertilizer. In this example we divide 3.75 by 0.24 and find we need 15.6 pounds of fertilizer for our 5,000 square foot lawn.

There’s a great article about fertilizing your lawn at http://www.agry.purdue.edu/turf/pubs/ay-22.pdf.

And now for your Thanksgiving pleasure …

I’m already thinking about Thursday’s meal – turkey and dressing and of course cranberry sauce. Cranberries are native to North America. They grow naturally in peat bogs in the Northeast part of the US and up into Canada. Growing cranberries commercially is big business. You’ll find most commercial producers in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Oregon, and Washington.

Growing cranberries at home will take real dedication. (My trusty fruit book doesn’t even list them as an option!) You’ll need to create your own peat bog, digging out our mineral soil and replacing it with bales of peat moss. You’ll need to provide ample water during the growing season. Make sure you have plenty of water available in winter, since you may need to flood your bed for winter protection.

Cranberry plants grow as an evergreen groundcover that produces 6 foot runners. Each runner then produces upright stems which flower and fruit. Cranberries need soils high in organic matter which have good drainage and never dry out. Related to blueberries, they also need soil with a low pH (hence the peat). Cranberries are hardy to zone 2 – as long as they are covered with water in the winter.

Commercially, cranberries are grown in bogs that can be flooded as needed for winter protection. The bogs are also flooded for harvesting. The vines float in water, bringing fruit to the surface where it can be loosened from the vine. The floating berries are then corralled and collected. Because the plants are perennial and the bog soil is never disturbed, it’s not rare to find a 75 year old cranberry bed still in production. You can learn more about cranberries at http://www.umass.edu/cranberry/cranberry/seasons.shtml.

What now?

Now that Indianapolis has finally had temperatures below 30 degrees F, you might be wondering what will become of your annuals. Many will die with the cold. Tender annuals cannot tolerate frost at all and decline as the weather cools. This includes impatiens, marigolds, flowering tobacco, zinnias, petunias, coleus, and begonias.

Some annuals look good up until frost. These are termed half-hardy annuals. They are killed by frost but their attractive late into fall. They probably look better in fall than they did in the middle of the summer. Half-hardy annuals include cleome, forget-me-nots, mealycup sage, strawflower, and love-in-mist. Half-hardy annuals can be planted outdoors in spring about the time the crabapples finish blooming.

Hardy annuals can tolerate a light frost. Sweet allysum, bachelor’s button (cornflower), annual larkspur, and pot marigold (Calendula) fall into this group. Sweet allysum at White River Gardens is still looking good and much better than it did in the heat of the summer. This is an unusual group of plants. You can plant the seed for these outdoors in fall and tiny plants will overwinter to bloom early in spring, then deteriorate in summer. You can also put out plants in spring when it is still quite cool, about the time Forsythia bloom.

In researching this group of plants, it’s clear there is some disagreement about which plants fall in which category. I used an article from North Carolina State University as my guide - http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/depts/hort/consumer/factsheets/annuals/text/types.html.

Support Indiana's Master Gardeners

The Master Gardener program, administered through Purdue Extension, is active throughout Indiana. The Master Gardener program is designed to help educate the public about gardening through the use of trained, certified volunteers. The program helps participants to grow by providing them with training in horticulture principles. They, in turn, agree to share their knowledge and help others grow.

The 2008 Annual Master Gardener Conference is in Indianapolis in September. To raise money to support this conference, the Master Gardeners of Marion County have created a 2008 calendar. This is a great deal! For $10 you get not only a calendar but monthly tips and gardening haiku. It’s great for gift giving or to start your own year out right.

You’ll find an order form at https://www.ces.purdue.edu/CES/Marion/MGStateConf/MG_calendar_order_Public.pdf. Order one (or two or three) today!

There's still time to plant bulbs

The first touch of frost is not the end of the gardening season. There’s still plenty of time to plant bulbs. Put in a little effort now and your garden will come alive next spring with tulips, daffodils, crocus, and squill.

Bulbs can be planted until the ground freezes. They need a well drained spot. Full sun is great, but many bulbs, including daffodils will grow well in part sun. Make sure to plant them with roots down (it’s not always that easy to tell!) and at the correct depth. Bulbs should be planted to a depth 2-3 times their size.

What if you have bulbs left over? Many bulbs can be “forced”. Forcing is simply treating the bulbs so they bloom on your schedule rather than nature’s. You’ll need bulbs, a pot, potting mix, and a very cool spot or refrigerator. You’ll find information on forcing bulbs on this website: http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/HO-19.pdf.

For more information on planting bulbs outdoors see http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/HO-86.pdf.

Should you “Winterize”?

Fall is the most important time to fertilize your lawn. Purdue’s grass experts recommend fertilizing in both September and November.

But should you “winterize”, using fertilizer given this specific name? To find out all about these products, just go to Purdue’s Turf Tips page.

You’ll find out about winterizing fertilizers here: http://www.agry.purdue.edu/turf/tips/2007/10_25fert.html.

You’ll find all of the Turf Tips here: http://www.agry.purdue.edu/turf/tips/index.html

If you want more information on caring for you lawn – watering and aerating as well as fertilizing, you can find it all at: http://www.agry.purdue.edu/turf/publicat.htm.

Leaves begin to fall

The leaves are falling in Indianapolis, helped along by the recent winds and rain. What can you do with all those leaves? You can of course gather them to make fall decorations, press them for art projects later in the year, or make a leaf collection. Even if you do all three there will probably be leaves left in your yard.

In natural areas leaves can be left to decay naturally. You do, however, need to remove them from your lawn. You can mow over them several times, shredding them to a small size. Collecting them for curbside recycling is another alternative. If you’re a gardener, the best alternative may be to make a compost pile. You don’t need fancy equipment. You can build a compost pile by making a mound of leaves and enclosing it in a circle of strong fencing. 9.5 feet of fencing will make a compost pile 3 feet in diameter; 16 feet for a pile 5 feet in diameter. You’ll need some leaves, some soil, some water, and a source of nitrogen. If the grass is still growing, you can use green grass clippings to provide nitrogen. If not, you can use high nitrogen fertilizer, the same one you use to fertilize your lawn.

For more information on composting see:
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/ID-182.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/compost/
And for kids: http://sustainable.tamu.edu/slidesets/kidscompost/kid1.html.

The beginning of IndyGardening

A new adventure in Gardening begins today! I'll add comments, observations, and suggestions to help you take care of the trees, shrubs, flowers, even lawn grass in your yard. Let me know if you find these useful!