SHRUBS, I’M SHARPENING MY SHEARS AND LOPPERS
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Shrubs are Shrubby
A shrub is a shrubby, woody plant. (Now, that’s profound.) Numerous stems originating at or near ground level are what make a plant shrubby. Usually, no one stem ever gets the upper hand over other stems. For most shrubs, you need to get out there with your pruners to snip and lop every year.
How to prune a shrub depends on when it flowers and on what age stems provide the most ornamental effect. Does the shrub flower early in the spring, or later in the summer? Does it flower on old stems, on those that grew last year, or on new shoots?
And one more thing before we…
BREWING UP BATCH OF POTTING SOIL
Prime Ingredients for Any Potting Mix
Many years, my gardening season begins on my garage floor. That’s where I mix the potting soil that will nourish seedlings for the upcoming season's garden and replace worn out soil around the roots of houseplants. Why do I make potting soil? Why does one bake bread?
There is no magic to making potting soil. When I first began gardening, I combed through book after book for direction, and ended up with a mind-boggling number of recipes. The air cleared when I realized what was needed in a potting soil, and what ingredients could fulfill these needs. A good…
TO PRUNE OR NOT TO PRUNE, THAT IS THE QUESTION
A Sharp Knife is not Enough
“Prune when the knife is sharp” goes the old saying. Wrong! (But don’t ever prune if the knife—or shears—is not sharp.) There are best times for pruning, and they depend more on the type of plant and the mode of training than on the sharpness of the knife.
As each growing season draws to a close in temperate climates, trees, shrubs, and vines lay away a certain amount of food in their above- and below-ground parts. This food keeps the plants alive through winter, when they can’t use sunlight to make food because of lack of leaves (on deciduous plants)…
GETTING TO THE ROOT OF GARDENING
Etymological Wanderings
Sure, I’ve been dropping seeds into mini-furrows in some seed flats, and prunings are starting to litter the ground outdoors. But there’s a lot of nongardening activity going on here. What better time to ponder etymology? (Etymology, not entomology, the latter of which is the study of insects; aphids, mealybugs and whiteflies, all of which will be crawling around soon enough.) What exactly do we mean when we talk about a "garden" or "gardening?"
The word "gardening" is pretty much synonymous with "horticulture," which comes from the Latin hortus meaning a garden,…
FIGS: WAIT, DON’T GROW!
Stay Asleep Please
If you garden in a cold winter climate, as do I, I hope you’re growing figs. Despite being tropical plants, figs are relatively easy for us to grow, as attested to by other gardeners, from Moscow to Montreal, Minneapolis and beyond.
If you garden in a cold winter climate, I also hope that your fig plant is NOT growing now (unless you’re in the Southern Hemisphere). The way we cold-climate fig growers help our plants face winter cold is by protecting them from it. A usual method is to grow a plant in a pot that gets moved to a sheltered location to wait out winter.…
OMINOUS HOUSEPLANTS
Poinsettia Absolved
Sunny temperature reaching the 50s a few days ago enticed me outdoors for pruning. Today, with temperatures in the 20s, I'm back indoors (except for a very pleasant cross-country ski tour earlier) looking over what plants I have, or might have, growing indoors. Their ominous or not so ominous sides.
Mention poisonous houseplants and most people immediately think of poinsettias. Actually, poinsettia's bad reputation is unfounded. The plant's not really poisonous. Only a masochist would be able to ingest enough of this foul tasting plant to cause the occasional cases of vomitting…
AN ICEY BEGINNING, WITH KIWIS
Pruning Weather
Yesterday was a fine day for pruning, windless with a sunny sky and a temperature of 19 degrees Fahrenheit. The ice storm had turned this part of the world into a crystal palace, with branches clothed in thick, clear sleeves of ice. From an auspicious vantage point, a pear tree glowed like a subdued holiday tree as hints of sunlight’s reds and blues refracted from the natural prisms on the branches.
What a pleasant setting for pruning! The usual recommendation is to hold off pruning until after the coldest part of winter, which typically occurs in late January and early…
A HOUSEPLANT, AN “ALMOND,” AND PAPER
Easiest Houseplant of All?!
What with the frigid temperatures and snow-blanketed ground outside, at least here in New York’s mid-Hudson Valley, I turn my attention indoors to a houseplant. To anyone claiming a non-green thumb, this is a houseplant even you can grow.
Most common problems in growing houseplants (garden plants also) come from improper watering. Too many houseplants suffer short lives, either withering in soil allowed to go bone dry between waterings, or gasping for air in constantly waterlogged soil. Also bad off yet are those plants forced to alternately suffer from both extremes.
The…
SOWING PEARS AND LETTUCES
For the Long Haul
Among the must-have tools for any good gardener are hope, optimism, and patience. I thought of all three last week as I was planting some seeds.
The first of these seeds especially emphasizes patience. They were a few pear seeds I saved from pears I had eaten. After being soaked for a couple of days in water, the cores were soft enough for the seeds to be squeezed out, after which they were rinsed, and then planted in potting soil.
I put the planted seeds near a bright window in my basement where the cool (about 40°) temperatures would, in a couple of months, fool the seeds…
