Don’t worry about the daffodils

It’s only January, and the daffodils in my yard are already coming up! How do I keep them from freezing?

Early risers: daffodils can survive winter.

It may seem too early for this unmistakable sign of spring, but it’s not unusual for the shoots of early daffodils to begin pushing up through the ground. In some places, they started coming up before Christmas. The best thing to do is: Nothing. In fact, there is nothing you can do. Spread some pine straw over the daffodil bed if it makes you feel better, but really, even that is an unnecessary step, says Anne Owen of the Middle Tennessee Daffodil Society.

We’re at the mercy of the weather fluctuations, but generally, a blast of cold weather won’t hurt the daffodils, Owen says. The worst that could happen is that the weather turns warm and stays warm enough for long enough that the daffodils bloom; then the flowers might succumb to a snap of extreme cold. If we get a freeze while only the leaves are up, they should survive without a problem.

Good reading

It’s a good time to sit down with a stack of seed catalogs (or a list of seed company URLs) and plan this year’s kitchen garden. Here are some of my favorites (where I indulge in a little wishful thinking):

Seed Savers’ Exchange (Unusual varieties not found at the big box store seed kiosks)

Seeds of Change (Seeds, supplies, and live plants, too)

Territorial Seed Company (Try out the online garden planner)

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange (“Particularly suited to the Mid-Atlantic and similar regions”)

Renee’s Garden (Pretty as a cottage garden)

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (Recipes included!)

John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds (Straightforward, with tidy line drawings; more tips and entertaining reading at the website)

Brent & Becky’s Bulbs (One of the best sources for bulbs, say those in the know)

Burpee (for sheer volume, and all those luscious pictures!)

Making plans for a great year in the garden

QUESTION: What are YOUR garden goals for 2012? Here are mine:

-Grow more flowers. In my yard, that means finding more flowers that thrive in the semi-shade that’s provided by the graceful maples and the giant, beautiful elm tree in our back yard.

-Keep trying for better success with tomatoes. That means figuring out how to outsmart squirrels. (Maybe I should give up on tomatoes in the kitchen garden out back and move tomato production to my garden plot at Farm in the City, the community garden I belong to downtown.)

-Double the produce by doubling the space for growing. I’d like to take on another raised bed at Farm in the City if there’s one available.

-Grow better peppers. I know that the secret is lots of sun and consistent water. There’s a lot of sun at Farm in the City; I need to work on the water part.

-Okra: plant less, pick more often.

-Grow more pole beans. Grow more cucumbers. Try squash again.

-Plant more shade-tolerant herbs. This is a project I started last spring – finding herbs that can grow happily in the shadiest of the eight raised beds in the kitchen garden out back. Success so far with curly parsley and red-veined sorrel. Hope to plant sweet woodruff and more borage, maybe nasturtium. Still trying to find lovage.

-Make peace with the wildlife in the backyard, while at the same time finding a way to keep the rabbits from eating the hostas.

-Plant more big, blooming perennials and annuals in the three little garden beds at Mom’s house.

-Visit as many public gardens as I can manage (especially interested in visiting Eudora Welty’s home and garden in Jackson, Miss. this spring).

-Enjoy every minute I can spend gardening, and writing, talking and teaching about gardening.

What plans do you have for your garden this year?

O, Christmas pine

QUESTION: I’m using a Norfolk Island pine as a small Christmas tree. What do I need to do to keep it looking nice, and how do I care for it when the holidays are over?

Norfolk Island pine provides a nice alternative to the big tree at Christmas, especially if your space is small or your decorating is simple. It’s best not to load it down with large, heavy ornaments that could break the feathery limbs. Use lights sparingly, if at all, and remove them as soon as you can after Christmas is over.

When it’s time to change it from a Christmas tree to a houseplant, place it in a spot (preferably in a cool room) that gets bright, indirect light – a south- or west-facing window is good – and give it a quarter-turn once a week to encourage it to grow straight up.

The biggest threats to Araucaria heterophylla (that’s the tree’s botanical name) are dry soil and dry air. Keep the soil consistently moist, but don’t let the pot sit in water. Increase humidity in its environment as much as possible. A daily misting could go a long way toward keeping the plant healthy. If the air remains too dry, the Norfolk Island pine responds by dropping its needles, and once they’re gone, they don’t grow back.

Houseplant specialists suggest using a balanced fertilizer once a month in summer, and be on the lookout for pests. Spider mites and mealybugs are drawn to this plant. A cautionary note about placing it outdoors: it’s a very tender plant, and will be damaged if the temperature falls below 40 degrees.

With care, a Norfolk Island pine can last for many years. They grow very large in their native South Pacific environment, but in a home, the tree usually grows, over time, to about 6 feet.

 

Water in winter

Landscapers know this, but we casual gardeners may not remember that even though it’s winter, the garden still needs water. Pay special attention to newly planted trees and shrubs, broadleaf evergreens (which continue to “breathe” even during winter), pansy beds and perennials that you planted in the fall.

Mulch keeps soil from drying out too quickly, but if the weather is cold but very dry, the soil will eventually dry out.

 

Events

A couple of garden-related events coming up:

- The Tennessee Gesneriad Society will meet Jan. 8 at 2 p.m.at Cheekwood in Botanic Hall. The program will be a slide show on Gesneriads. For more info contact Julie at Julie.mavity@gmail.com or 615-364-8459.

- The Perennial Plant Society is planning its January meeting and welcomes visitors. The guest on Jan. 17 will be Alan S. Windham, Ph.D, Professor of Plant Pathology with UT Extension in the UT Institute of Agriculture at Ellington Agriculture inNashville. He’ll speak on “Hot Topics On Diseases of Perennials.” Refreshments served at6:30 p.m., and the meeting begins at7 p.m.

Poinsettias in the spotlight

QUESTION: I like to decorate with poinsettias for Christmas. What’s the best way to keep them looking good from now until New Year’s?

Poinsettias are a tropical plant, native to Mexico, so the first thing to remember is to keep them out of the extreme weather. If it’s a cold day when you bring them home (less than 50 degrees), don’t leave them in the car too long, and make sure they are protected on the trip from the car to the house.

Once inside, place them in a spot that gets indirect light. They’ll do well and last longer in a room that is not overly warm – 68 to 70 degrees is just about right. Keep the soil moist, but not soggy. Most likely the plastic pot will be wrapped in foil; it’s best to take the foil off when you water, to avoid trapping water that will cause the roots to rot. If the leaves become dry and curled, that’s a sign that it needs water. If a poinsettia wilts, that’s an indication that it may be getting too much.

Those are the basics for keeping a poinsettia looking cheerful through the holidays. If it starts to look a little sorry after that, don’t feel bad about tossing it into the compost. However, as often happens, a poinsettia can surprise you by pushing on healthy and strong into the New Year, and it’s a shame to discard something that’s growing so vigorously.

So, let it grow. Keep the soil moist and it should continue to thrive. As spring approaches, cut it back to about 8 inches tall and fertilize with an all-purpose plant food, and after there is no longer any danger of frost, re-pot it and set it outdoors, or plant it in the ground where it can survive as a nice, interesting green plant all summer (and succumb to its inevitable fate at the first sign of frost).

Here’s an interesting tidbit that comes from California poinsettia grower Paul Ecke Ranch: National Poinsettia Day is coming up! Dec. 12 marks the death of Joel Roberts Poinsett, the first United States ambassador to Mexico, who gets credit for introducing the plant to the U.S.

Just water, please

Last summer, when it was very hot, I ran my dehumidifer upstairs when it was impossible to cool and used the water to water my indoor plants. Within a week or so they perked up like they were new plants, so I’m wondering how to duplicate that water, or what do you suggest? I have tried plant food, tea water, etc. and nothing works like the water from my dehumidfier. -S.W.

Houseplants may benefit from water that is free of added chemicals.

A likely explanation might be that since the water in a dehumidifier is “collected” from the air, nothing has been added — no chlorine or fluoride, such as we have in tap water. A lot of houseplants are sensitive to the additives in tap water, especially fluoride, according to my favorite source on caring for houseplants, author Barbara Pleasant’s Compete Houseplant Survival Manual.

You may be able to duplicate that unadulterated water by letting tap water sit out overnight before watering plants with it; supposedly that allows the chlorine and other chemicals in the water to escape. Or you could try using distilled water, or collect rainwater to use on your plants.

The author goes on to suggest using water that is at room temperature when you give it to the plants. “Giving cold water to tropical plants chills their roots, which can cause them to rot,” she writes.”

Spring is coming!

Dates for the 2012 Nashville Lawn & Garden Show have been set. Plan to head to the Tennessee State Fairgrounds March 1 – 4 to enjoy Tennessee’s largest and most popular annual gardening event. This marks the show’s 23^rd year, and the theme this time is Gardens Past, Present & Future. Details should be coming soon to the show’s Web site.

Waterfalls were featured in many of the 20 live gardens at last year’s Nashville Lawn & Garden Show.

Come in out of the cold

QUESTION: I would  like to know how to “winter over” geraniums.

Geranium photo by Jonathan Hornung.

By now, anything you want to save from frost should be indoors. So, now that they’re already inside, here are general guidelines for keeping geraniums happy. These tips are from garden author Barbara Pleasant’s book The Complete Houseplant Survival Manual:

Ideally, you would have moved your geraniums to a shady spot outdoors in later summer, to begin to acclimate them to reduced light. Even when you do that, they lose many of their leaves inside, so don’t be surprised when they begin to look very bare. Clean up the leaves, and prune off up to half of the long branches.

They do well as houseplants in bright light from a south or west window, in rooms of cool to average temperature, and in good potting soil. Pleasant suggests feeding them every two weeks with a balanced houseplant food. Allow the soil to dry slightly between waterings but don’t let them get so dry that the plants wilt. Blooming should resume after a few weeks, she says.

QUESTION: Is there a successful way to save  Boston ferns over the winter without bringing them into the house? (Too messy!)

Most information sources say that the best way to save Boston ferns over the winter is to treat them as house plants, but even Barbara Pleasant (see above) says that keeping them healthy through winter can be a challenge. They need bright light and high humidity, so you should plan on frequent misting. Southern Living Garden Book advises to cut back all the side fronds to the rim of the pot and leave the top growth about 10 inches high. Place the pot next to the brightest window you can find, and keep the soil moist. Even with that, fronds will break, leaves will turn brown, and a mess will be made, so keep the broom handy, and send the fern back outdoors after the last frost in early spring.

Time to hang up the tools? For some, maybe, but a gardener can always find a reason to be
outdoors, even in winter. To help you plan, check out the four-month, Fall & Winter Landscape & Garden Calendar in Saturday’s Tennessean. A short list of garden classes and events in the coming months is at Tennessean.com.

Leafy lawn = free mulch

Our yard is about to be covered with maple and oak leaves. Can leaves be used as mulch in flower and vegetable beds?

After the leaves fall, they can be used as mulch in the garden.

All those trees that are turning brilliant colors are about to flame out and drop their leaves to the ground. Yes, most of them can be used as mulch, and they can benefit your beds. Here are some guidelines for using leaves as mulch from the UT/TSU Extension office:

*Use a 3- to 4-inch layer of shredded leaves around trees and shrubs in annual and perennial flower beds. Notice they suggest “shredded.” Leaves that have been chopped up will decompose faster. They also will, no doubt, stay in place better than whole leaves if a gusty wind comes along.

*Oak leaves may change the pH of the soil over time, making it more acidic, so you may have to apply lime to maintain a favorable number. If your beds are mulched primarily with oak leaves, you should have the soil tested about every three years. Oak leaves are also tougher and decompose more slowly, so it’s especially important to chop them before you use them to cover your perennial beds. Otherwise, when spring comes, a thick layer of oak leaves could smother emerging plants.

*Leaves can be mixed into kitchen garden beds and in beds where you plant annual flowers. Most of the leaves will decompose before planting time next spring. A bonus: if you have heavy clay soil, a thick layer of leaves tilled into the soil will improve the soil structure. Free mulch, plus better soil: win-win.

Events coming up

*Nashville Tree Foundation’s Tenth Annual ReLeafing Day is planned for Nov. 19. Volunteers will plant more than 100 powerline-approved  trees and 100 shade and fruit trees in parks, at schools and on selected streets and flood buy-out properties in westNashville. Volunteers can check in for planting assignments at 8 a.m. at the outdoor basketball courts near the Olympic statue on the TSU campus,3500 John A. Merritt Blvd.To learn more about the event, visit the Nashville Tree Foundation’s Web site.

*Master Gardeners ofRutherfordCountyis accepting registrations now for their annual Garden Basics classes. The five-week course begins Jan. 23 and is held Monday evenings, 6 – 9 p.m. at the Lane Agri-Park building, 315 John R. Rice Blvd. in Murfreesboro. The series is designed for those new to gardening, new to Middle Tennessee gardening conditions, and for experienced gardeners looking to improve gardening skills. Registration fee is $45, and the courses are taught by Certified Master Gardeners. Sign up now; the class is limited to 45 gardeners. To learn more call the UT/TSU Extension at 615-898-7710 or get an application the Rutherford County Master Gardeners Web site.

http://www.mastergeners-rc.org

Transplant a peony

When can peonies be separated and transplanted?
Peonies can be kind of fussy about where they’ll grow and what they’ll do if you try to move them. In fact, most garden experts will tell you that peonies seldom need dividing, and recover poorly from any attempt to do so.
That said, there’s a good time to do if, if you must, and that time is late summer or early fall. Make divisions or root cuttings with at least three growing points, then replant the divisions 18 to 24 inches apart. Plant them in a new bed that has been dug 12 inches deep, into which you have worked good compost or other organic matter. Pick a spot in full sun or a place that gets a little afternoon shade. Set plants in the ground at the same level or slightly higher than they were growing before you dug them up.
The cuttings should begin to grow next spring, so make sure they have sufficient moisture when they do. Judy Lowe, the author of Month-By-Month Gardening in Tennessee & Kentucky, suggests placing a half-inch of compost on top of the soil in spring and summer, and applying a slow-release fertilizer in mid-spring.
Then sit back and be patient. Even with this good care, it may take a couple of years for a transplanted peony to recover and bloom well again.

Flying, crawling creatures on African violets and other indoor plants? See the solution in The Garden Club column in today’s Tennessean.

Gardenia is a high-maintenance beauty

QUESTION: I have an issue with a gardenia plant/tree that I purchased this summer. It was blooming nicely and looked to be very healthy, but when I brought it home I transplanted it out of the 3-gallon bucket to a larger pot and

Photo by Forest and Kim Starr

placed it on our porch, and it started to show a yellowing of the flowers and then stopped producing flowers. It was getting direct morning sun till about 10  a.m. and shade for the rest of the day. I moved the plant to the basement with no direct sun but plenty of light and much cooler temps. It still does not seem to be recovering. I water it every few days but careful not too water too much because the leaves turn brown if I do so. What do you suggest I do to revive this beautiful plant? – Rick

Gardenias are beautiful and their sweet fragrance is almost intoxicating, but they present a challenge
even in the best environment. I spent some time leafing through gardening books and looking around the Web for information, and it looks like you are experiencing a typical reaction to bringing a gardenia home. It sulks, and stops producing flowers.

Of course, a gardenia has a limited flowering season, typically spring into early summer, so it may be that yours was coming to the end of its flowering cycle when you brought it home. Plus, remember that gardenias grow better in the South’s lower regions, where winters don’t get as cold.

In our area, they should be treated as house plants, which means that you will have to bring it indoors or into a greenhouse and baby it through the winter or it will sulk some more. In the house, it becomes a magnet for mealybugs, mites and whiteflies.

So, if you still want to revive this temperamental beauty, here’s what it needs: acid soil, good drainage, full sun or partial shade, regular watering, high humidity, and nighttime temperatures of 50 – 55 degrees in winter and spring if you want flowers.

By the way, the most common gardenia, G. jasminoides (G. augusta), is said to be hardy to about 10 degrees, and may survive to zero degrees, but will likely die back to the roots. There are several varieties that may be hardier in colder climates: ‘Chuck Hayes,’ ‘Grif’s Select,’ and ‘Klein’s Hardy’ are
said to be slightly more tolerant of cold weather. Good luck.

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Oh, deer: In many areas, deer come out frequently to sample the goodies they see growing around the house. Check out the list of deer-resistant plants in The Garden Club column in Saturday’s  Tennessean.

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Two meetings at Cheekwood Tuesday night, Sept. 20, both open to the public:

The Perennial Plant Society will meet in Botanic Hall. Refreshments and plant swap begin at 6:30, and the meeting at 7  p.m. features guest speaker Kevin Guenter, president and owner of Design Resource and founder of The Sustainable Living Guild. He will speak on “Sustainable Patterns in the Garden.”

The Orchid Society of Middle Tennessee meets at 7 p.m. in Botanic Hall. Speaker is David Johnston of Jewell Orchids; his topic is “New Trends in Blue Cattleya.”

Fall — and aphids — in the air

QUESTION: Sometimes we see white, wooly-looking bugs in the air and all over the hackberry trees in the fall. At the same time, there is a black coating of something on everything under the trees. What is this?

These are Asian wooly hackberry aphids, which have been flying around Middle Tennessee for about a decade after making their way to the U.S. sometime in the mid-1990s. The aphid has a tiny mouth that resembles a beak, with which it pierces the leaves to extract the plant sugars. Then, like all aphids and
plant-sucking insects, they excrete a sweet, sticky waste product called honeydew, and in the heat of late summer, that substance grows sooty mold, the black substance you see on patio furniture, plants and anything else under a hackberry tree that is playing host to the insects.

I talked to U.T. Extension agent David Cook about the insects several years ago. He said that the feeding doesn’t cause serious damage to the tree. It’s considered mainly a nuisance pest.

If you feel the need to control the insects, Cook has suggested a systemic insecticide, applied around the tree’s root zone in the spring.

IF YOU THOUGHT last month seemed hotter than usual… you were right. Bobby Boyd at the National Weather Service sent me a list of factoids that made me sweat just to read them. Consider this:

August 2011 in Nashville was the 25^th hottest on record. There were 24 days when the temperature was 90 degrees or higher, and one day when it bubbled up to 102. That was August 3, and it broke the record for that date of 100 degrees, which was set in 1952.

The average temperature for August was 1.8 degrees above normal. The average high was 92; the average low was 68.9. Three of the 10 hottest summers in Nashville have occurred in the last five years.

All this makes these past few days of cooler weather even more welcome. Fall, ready or not, is in the air.