December 9, 2009 – Festive Plants and Winter Care

Plant some winter blomers in your yard to beat the mid-winter blues.  Lenten roses, or Hellebores (that’s the genus name from its scientific name), bloom from mid-winter to early spring.  Most are hardy to zone 4.

They come in a variety of colors, from white or pale green to purple, pink, and even yellow.  They grow best in moist, well-drained soils with lots of organic matter.  They prefer shade.  Their foliage is evergreen in areas without large snow falls, and stays attractive throughout the summer.  That makes it an idea plant for the perennial border.  A bit of green tucked in among the colors of the border helps the colors pop.

You can order seed, but there are many different hybrids cultivated through vegetative methods. You have to buy the whole plant to get the hybrid.  Additionally, plants grown from seed don’t bloom until the third or fourth year.  That requires patience!
Spruce up your garden this year with some hellebores. They’ll make you smile during the dreary winter days!

• Buy Lenten roses at Amazon

Winter Composting Tips

Because even “cold composting” involves some heat, winter composting requires some ingenuity and attention for best results. Here are our winter composting tips.

• Start an indoor worm compost container. Worms need to stay above 45 degrees to live and eat! Only do this if you want to live with worms under the sink or in the garage.
• Stockpile leaves, newspaper and other “brown” materials, so that you can continue to build your compost pile during the winter.
• Acquire a covered container that you can use to store food scraps for a week or so, before you build a new layer. A small trash can works well, as long as critters can’t pry the lid off. You can also continue to layer in your compost bin. Every week, when you add the layer of “green stuff” (food scraps), add a thin layer of “brown stuff.”
• Chop up both green and brown materials before composting them. This allows them to break down more quickly in cooler temperatures.

For the best, most comprehensive guide to composting, check out The Rodale Book of Composting in our Organic Gardening Bookstore. It is the definitive guide, is easy to understand, and is affordable, too!

Holiday Gifts for the Gardener

I don’t know about you, but I do all my online shopping at Amazon. Therefore, to keep things convenient, all gardening gift ideas can be found at Amazon.com.

Gardening Books!

Of course there are books on our gift list. Some of these are old standbys, and others are new favorites. Out of all of the books purchased this spring, Katie and Chris has used the Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Organic Food the most. As a pretty coffee table book with lots of interesting information, Planthropology by Ken Druse can’t be beat. Wicked Plants and Black Plants are both delightful, and full of weird and wonderful plant information and pictures. You can’t go wrong with these titles for the gardener on your list!

Felcos pruners

Felcos are, hands-down, the best pruners you can have. There’s the #2, the classic pair. Number 7 has a rotating handle which makes it super-easy to prune or cut back things in the garden for longer periods of time. You can sharpen the blade easily, or buy replacement blades. Though not the cheapest out there, a pair of Felcos, if well-cared for, will last a lifetime.

• Purchase Felcos pruners at Amazon

Dramm Watering Wand

Dramm has improved their long-stem watering wand for increased pressure and a “squeeze” handle with hook function. Their tools are the best, and a watering wand works for just about everything: seedlings, hanging baskets, new transplants, and established gardens.

• Find the Dramm watering wand at Amazon

The Aerogarden

The Aerogarden, a complete hydroponic plant system, is neat in that you place it in your kitchen and pick herbs for your meals and salads. The only upkeep you need is plant growth capsules, water and nutrient tablets. Grow vegetables, herbs, lettuce and other greens all year long. No mess, no fuss!

• You can purchase the Aerogarden kit, seed packs, replacement bulbs and fertilizer refills all at Amazon.com.

Organic Gardening Ebook Christmas Sale

I couldn’t end this list without a mention of our organic gardening ebook, of course! In addition to the main ebook, you also get two bonus ebooks — Butterfly Gardening and Vegetable Gardening Quick Guide. These three ebooks are full of information, pictures and diagrams to help you become a better organic gardener.

You don’t have to go “whole hog,” either. Just incorporating some of these tips will help your garden stay healthier, as well as the environment. Chapters about insect control, making compost, soil health, organic lawn care, basic gardening techniques, and more ensure that even the most seasoned gardener will learn something. At the sale price of $9.97, you can’t go wrong!

Winter Indoor Plant Care

Winter is the time to enjoy your indoor plants. The low humidity, dust and heat in the house during the winter isn’t always a friend to plants, though. Here are some tips for keeping your indoor plants healthy and happy this winter.

• Make sure that your plant is in the right place for its grown conditions. A plant that likes bright afternoon light won’t be happy in an East window.
• Use room-temperature water to avoid shocking the plants’ systems.
• Water sparingly! The best way to properly water your plants is to get to know them. For example, peace lilies usually look fine, fine, fine, fine, dead. They don’t wilt until they’re having an extreme emergency. Most plants need water when the top inch of soil is dry. Overwatering tends to kill more than underwatering, so if in doubt—go easy on the water.
• Plants that need humid conditions do well when they sit on top of a tray of pebbles that is filled part of the way with water. (You don’t want the water to touch the underside of the container.) The water in the tray will evaporate, elevating the humidity around the plant.
• Keep plants away from heating ducts and radiators.
• Stop fertilizing the plants as light levels decline-unless the plants are flowering. If in flower, a plant can be watered with a dilute fertilizer.
• Winter is a good time to re-pot plants that are pot-bound, or haven’t had new growing media over the past year. Cut off any roots that are soggy and rotten.

Poinsettia Care and Facts

Poinsettias are popular gifts around the holidays. Nothing brightens a home more than a festive, bright red poinsettia in the corner of the living room. Poinsettias are named for Joel Poinsett, the first United States Ambassador to Mexico. He sent plants back to his home in South Carolina, and brought them into cultivation.

The name “Poinsettia” has lead many people to think these shrubby plants are poisonous. As part of the Euphorbia plant family, Poinsettias have the characteristic milky sap that is irritating to the skin. If ingested, the plant parts can cause nausea, but the plant is not acutely toxic.

Poinsettias are native to Mexico and Central America. They naturally bloom in the winter, and are responsive to changes in daylight. Poinsettias that are sold around the holidays have been forced into bloom by carefully scheduled greenhouse conditions. When you bring your poinsettia home, keep it in a moderately bright room. Keep the soil moist, and temperatures around 60 degrees. After the holidays, you might try to keep the Poinsettia, but it is extremely difficult to coax them to re-bloom within a home. It is best to enjoy the Poinsettia while it lasts, and compost it after the bloom.

Christmas Tree Care

A fresh-cut Christmas tree gives the entire houses the scent of winter mornings and festive, candle-lit evenings. To keep your tree fresh from now until the big day, follow these tree care tips.

• Select the freshest tree. When you select a Christmas tree, hold a branch in your hand, and squeeze gently. Pull your hand toward you. You want to select a tree that doesn’t lose a lot of needles when you do this. If a tree’s losing needles in the nursery, it will definitely lose needles in your house.
• Ask for a fresh cut on the bottom of the tree trunk. After plants are cut, the cells closest to the cut seal over. In order to facilitate uptake of water, you need to cut the end of the stem or trunk, to expose un-sealed cells.
• Position your tree away from the heating vent, stove, wood-burning oven, and fireplace. Heat sources will cause the tree to dry out more quickly, and can increase risk of fire.
• Keep the reservoir full of water at all times. As soon as the base of the trunk dries out, it will re-seal.

A fresh-cut Christmas tree should last about five weeks if kept watered and away from a direct heat source.

Everybody have a great holiday! We’ll see you in 2010 for a new gardening season!