What beautiful snow fell last week, only to be washed away this week. I spent last weekend not gardening much but still outside enjoying the snow. During these dark days of December and January, try to get outside in the daylight. It will improve your mood.
While I walked around my Norway spruce trees, I gently lifted the boughs and brushed off snow that pinned them to the ground. I decided to prune these back by about 18 inches to a side shoot. Maybe my small effort will prevent them from getting pinned by future heavy snows this winter. Pruning a few stems of holly or evergreens won’t harm the plants, and in spring the trimmed branches will sprout new growth to become bushier and stronger.
Use the cut greens in decorative displays outside in all-weather planters or in a vase indoors. No evergreens? Why not? You should definitely think about adding dwarf evergreens next year. In the meantime, dried herbs also make fragrant holiday decorations.
Last weekend, I cut the stems but couldn’t get them into the frozen-hard soil of my containers. I knew warm weather and rain was forecast. I just left the cut pile out of the sun to keep cool. I plan to install the greens this coming weekend. If no warm-up was due, I could have used a small electric drill to poke starter holes in the hard soil surface. I may need to use a drill anyway if the soil freezes hard again.
While poking around the evergreen spruce trees, I heard a heavy thud on the ground behind me at the trunk of a tree. I worried it might be a branch broken by snow. I took a closer look. It was an apple! I didn’t know spruce trees would grow apples, but we have had a bumper crop of apples this year. Ha! More likely some squirrel gathered that apple from one of the many fruiting trees around and stored it for later somewhere in the upper branches of my spruce.
Squirrels will gather, relocate, and plant all sorts of fruits and nuts. Sometimes they seem to forget where they left their cache and a clump of apples will sprout. Or maybe they didn’t need those apples during a mild winter, so they didn’t dig them up. Squirrels can find food buried under a foot of snow!
That reminds me: Check your storage of apples, onions, garlic, summer bulbs, potatoes, and squash. Be sure to cull any spoiled fruit or rotting bulbs. They will ruin the others. Don’t let your squash go bad. Hubbard squash and buttercup get sweeter during storage.
If you have onions or garlic in trays, you can save space by hanging them up in a mesh bag. Reuse mesh bags formerly used for mandarin oranges as your storage bags. Also, the little wooden boxes that held clementines make useful stacking bins for sorting twine, seed packets, plant labels and other garden accessories.
We are getting into the gift-giving season. Consider a low-maintenance green plant for a busy or forgetful person. Cast-iron plant (Aspidistra) and Snake Plant (Sansevieria trifasciata, now classified as Dracaena trifasciata) are easier to care for than pronounce. Both do fine if watered every two weeks and maybe once a month in winter! They will tolerate neglect and bounce back from dried up soil. Many will survive fine in low-light situations. Cast-iron plant will soften darker corners of your home. Sansevieria has many different leaf forms that will call for slightly different light needs. Do some research online and ask about them at your favorite plant store.
Could a plant gift intimidate the recipient when what she really needs is a better way to take care of the plants she has? Offer a plant-care book (they still exist), plant-care tutorial, or monthly check-in to help the plants thrive. A gift card for a tool or container would be appreciated, too!
If your houseplants look wimpy or yellow and the soil dries out too quickly, it may be time to change the pot and soil. Check the drainage hole. If roots extend through the hole, repot the plant in fresh soil and a container about one to two inches wider in diameter. I will probably wait to do that “up-potting” until after the new year. Schefflera is another plant that tolerates neglect, and I don’t really have the time or desire to do it this month.
Some watering tips to share: Plastic pots hold moisture longer than unglazed terra cotta pots. Glazed ceramic pots fall between plastic and terra cotta. If you go heavy on the watering but your plants prefer to dry out, use terra cotta pots.
Finally, have you put up a huge evergreen cut-stem in your living room? Yes, a Christmas tree is just a big, fresh-cut stem. Like fresh-cut flowers, a fresh cut at the trunk base will help it absorb water. Also like fresh-cut flowers, they do best in cool parts of the house away from heaters and bright sunlight. Keep the plant-stand reservoir filled with fresh water, too.
