Brrr. Cold again. Time to look out the window and assess your winter landscape. What are the pros and cons? Is there no break to the brown sticks? It should be almost as attractive in winter as in summer. Read last week’s column: any exfoliating bark? What about evergreens? Commonly lumped with Christmas traditions, evergreen trees and shrubs have a valuable winter landscape role. They give our eyes a rest after the endless brown (or hopefully white) landscape. The usual cone shape of evergreens helps them shed snow as well, so that is a nice lazy gardener feature.
What other January tasks will you do this week? It might be a good time to fix that leaky hose with new washers or ends. The brass threads at the ends of old hoses can become bent and leaky. Washers grow hard and ineffective. A hose kinked in the same spot repeatedly may have a crack. Find repair supplies at your hardware store or garden center.
If you are using your wood stove like crazy, you have ash! Scatter wood ashes uniformly over lawn and gardens- even over the snow. The wood ash contains some calcium and potassium, valuable nutrients for your landscape plants, and it is freely available direct from your stove.
Snow may be coming your way soon. Don’t overdo it! Shovel wisely by using good posture and pushing snow not lifting, especially heavy, wet snow. Don’t pile snow where the weight can damage plants or the salty slush will burn grass. De-icing salts also injure trees and shrubs through spray along a roadway or if taken up by the roots. Know that a snow pile will take a longer time to melt than surrounding snow, and choose your pile locations wisely!
About now, I start craving fresh veggies from the garden. My sprouts and small trays of greens don’t quite meet my demands. Time to dream of seeds and plan more for seed-starting. A few of my tomato plants stalled out last summer, and I blame the heat. Tomatoes won’t set fruit in overly hot temperatures. But we had a long, warm fall, so the plants started producing anyway.
In my efforts to garden as the climate fluctuates, I will seek out more tomato varieties. I want plants with different harvest dates and different heat tolerance as well as pest resistance. Some are ready to harvest in 65 days, others in 75 days or later. Although my tomatoes took a pause last season, I still had fruit ripening in bags through the fall. In fact, I found a small bag hiding behind the Christmas cookie tins last week. Behold, cherry tomatoes! Uh oh! They were beginning to dry out but not rot! Amazing.
Holiday events and gatherings have finally started to wind down. Kids are back in school. I will attend to my houseplants, I promise. Luckily, bromeliads can go several weeks without watering. Some varieties have magnificent blooms that emerge from the water well at the center of the plant. I have a collection that forms a low-maintenance green mass of foliage. The clusters will bloom in spring as the daylight lengthens. Each cluster blooms just once, but they multiply at the base. Ones that have bloomed dry up and make room for others.
More uh-ohs. Tiny black flies hovering around houseplants are probably fungus gnats. They signify overwatering or standing water somewhere. Eliminate standing water and let soil dry out before letting the pots soak up moisture again from below. If infestations are bad, you may want to use fresh potting soil in a thoroughly cleaned container. To refresh soil, remove the plant and shake off existing soil and then rinse the root clump clean. Trim mushy or rotted roots. Fill the cleaned pot halfway with fresh potting mix. Set the plant into the soil and fill the pot up to about half an inch below the edge with more potting mix. Water thoroughly and allow soil to settle. Tamp soil down around roots gently. Add more soil up to the same level and water again.
Here is a greenhouse-management tip that applies to me too! Lift potted plants, especially those in plastic containers, to determine if they need water. A lightweight plant is likely dried out. Sometimes the finger test for moisture in the soil can be tricky. I know when my hands are chilly, I can’t tell if soil is moist or not. So lift the pot again once you have let the plant soak in a tray or sink of water. You should be able to tell the weight of the water has increased the weight of the pot.
Another trick for many potted plants: Bring a bucket of room-temperature water to your plant collection. Put the plants in the water for 15 to 20 minutes each to soak up the water from the bottom. Gently lift up the potted plant and allow it to drain over the bucket. Then return it to its drip tray. With some practice, you will know how long it takes the plant to draw up what it needs. This strategy of moisture from below, along with ample air circulation and cooler temperatures, has helped herbs stay clear of powdery mildew and other indoor greenhouse pests at Ward’s Nursery this past December.
I call myself the Lazy Berkshire Gardener because I don’t want to work too hard in my gardens. I want to enjoy them. I find it easier to observe my landscape and let the compost happen, the water pool up, or daisies to self-sow. I look for ways to do the minimum task for the biggest impact. For example, mulching is better than spraying and much better than weeding all season. I look for beautiful, low-maintenance plants that thrive in or at least tolerate my garden conditions. Plus, I am willing to live with the consequences if I miss something.
