Garden and Grow Flowers all Winter Long

/1 Comment/in , , , , , , , /by

Wildflower Seeds

by Sandy Swegel

For gardeners foolish enough to live where winter takes hold and the ground freezes, the time between first frost and last frost can be very long. Some gardeners are wise enough to welcome the break from the work of the garden and enjoy the natural flow of the seasons. Others like me start longing for a greenhouse or dream of living in warm tropical climates. I fantasize about building a mobile greenhouse I could drive down south to grow all winter and drive back to Colorado next Spring. I mourn the death of geraniums in beautiful pots and the brown frozen leaves of basil.

Before you lug dozens of plants into your living room where they mostly suffer until they succumb to low light and pests, make a plan for how to garden your indoor area.

If you have good indoor southern exposure…

Blooming plants like geranium, Hibiscus, Bougainvillea and Mandevilla will put on winter-long displays of flowers. Often by January, the dry air and lack of circulation will cause aphid explosions, and you’ll need to give the plants a quick shower or deal with the aphids in some other way before they get completely disgusting. Fragrant plants like rosemary will also thrive and even bloom if you keep them well-watered. Plants that didn’t need much water outdoors have different needs indoors and will probably need to be watered twice a week.

 

Low light windows…

Winter is the time to move cyclamen and African violets out of the direct winter sun to the north or east windows to keep them happy. Begonias also do well in lower light.
Cuttings of coleus bring in lots of foliage color. Coleus plants are so attractive in pots but expensive to buy. Simple jars of water will keep the coleus happy and grow roots so you have plants next Spring.

Herbs…

The rosemary is in the southern window. You can harvest the thyme from outdoors all winter as long as you can push aside leaves or snow. Tender herbs like basil and oregano are another story. I haven’t had much luck bringing them indoors…they bolt or get buggy. I have had great luck seeding narrow windowsill pots densely and enjoying the young leaves as microgreens.

Forcing bulbs…

Amaryllis are great to start now. Setting aside a few bulbs from Fall plantings can occupy your gardeners’ heart for weeks in January and February. Not all bulbs force so there is some experimentation here and some bulbs will need a cooling period in your frig or cold garage. But little daffodils inside in late January give great joy.

 

Forcing stems…

Make a mental note now of what spring flowering trees and shrubs there are in your yard or neighborhood. In late winter after a warm spell, you can see the new buds swell on woody stems. Cut those stems and bring them indoors.

Winter doesn’t have to be long and gray. You can garden inside all season long.

Photos:
http://www.hiddenvalleyhibiscus.com/forum/index.php?topic=144.0
http://picklesandcheeseblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/bright-red-geraniums-in-big-black-pots.html
Miss Priss the Bougainvillea, Good To Grow, Liza’s plants

Quit Working so Hard This Fall

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Garden Clean Up

by Sandy Swegel

The old adages say cleanliness and hard work are virtues. That may be true in your kitchen, but in the garden, a little sloth can save many lives and make your life a little easier.  Mother Nature isn’t just messy when she clutters up the Fall garden with leaves and debris….she’s making homes for her creatures.  Old dead leaves may look like clutter that needs to be tidied up, but it’s really nice rustic sustainable homes for many of a gardener’s best friends.

Here’s who is hiding in your garden this winter if you DON’T clean up.

Ladybugs in the garden beds next to the house.  Ladybugs want a nice sheltered home safe from wind and exposed soil. I most often find them under the leaves and dead flower stalks in the perennial garden.

Butterfly larvae (aka caterpillars) in leaf bundles. Sometimes in winter, you’ll see a couple of leaves looking stuck to a bush or tree or in a clump on the ground.  Often there’s a butterfly baby overwintering there.

Lacewing at the base of willows or in the old vegetable garden.  Insects don’t work very hard in the fall either.  Often they are eating happily on the aphids in your vegetable garden or your mini forest and just go through their life cycle right there.  They lay their eggs on the bottom of leaves and the leaves fall to the ground.  If you clean up too much, you’ll clean up all the beneficial insect’s eggs

Slugs in your hosta garden. Even slugs are a good thing to leave for the winter.  They will be plump food for baby birds next Spring.

The bottom line is don’t do a good job of cleaning up in the Fall.  Take away any very diseased leaves.  Clean up the thick mats of leaves on the lawn so they don’t encourage lawn fungus.  But leave the flower stalks with seeds and the leaves in the beds.  They insulate and protect plants and insects.

Another good reason to be a little lazy this Fall.

Photos: http://www.nashvilleparent.com/2013/07/fall-for-fun/http://antsbeesbutterfliesnature.blogspot.com/2009/11/overwintering-caterpillars.html

Free Rose Bushes in Less than Five Minutes

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Wildflower Seeds

by Sandy Swegel

 

This is going to be a short post because it only takes moments to act now to have free rose bushes growing in your yard next spring.  No lights, heaters, no fussing.

The internet often calls this method of rose propagation “Grandma’s Mason Jar Method” because it’s how pioneer gardeners brought their favorite roses across the country.    And that’s how I learned it from a grandma and esteemed rosarian years ago.

What you need:

 

A cutting from the end of a mature rose cane.  About 8 inches.  (Not the soft green growth of late summer but a cane that had a rose on it. )

A quart mason jar or plastic jar.

Some mud.

Some water.

Decide where you want the rose to grow.  You’re going to put the cutting exactly where you want it. No transplanting needed.  Put some water and mud in the jar and swish around.  This is to make the jar more opaque. (Here in Colorado we have to worry about harsh winter sun frying the cutting.)

Prepare the place the rose is going to go…it should be decent garden soil. Water it if the soil is very dry.

Push the cutting about 3 or 4 inches into the soil and tamper in.  Put jar over cutting.

Now leave it alone until next May or June.  Seriously.  No peeking or opening it up for air on warm April days.  Leave it alone.  Water the area if the soil dries out terribly.  Let leaves drift on top of it.  Just let nature do what nature does.

Not every cultivar of rose propagates easily, but many do.  Do lots of cuttings, each with their own jar, to increase the odds of success.  My gardening friends have used this technique in harsh Colorado weather and it’s just a miracle.

Photos and more info:

http://www.rose.org/the-rose-whisperer/

http://scvrs.homestead.com/cuttings1.html

Starting Rose Bushes From Cuttings

Food for Fall Pollinators

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , , , , /by

Wildflower Seeds

by Sandy Swegel

Fall is a great time for birds and bears.  Gardens and natural areas are full of seeds and berries for getting the calories needed for winter.  Pollinators like bees, flies, butterflies, moths and insects need nectar and pollen food sources.  When I was in the foothills this weekend I noticed that native sources of nectar weren’t very evident. We haven’t had much rain so some late-season flowers finished earlier.  There were still tiny white aster blooms and stray late blooms of Penstemon, Liatris and Gaillardia, but this is nothing like the abundant feast of spring.  Poor pollinators…Fall must be a difficult time…addicted to sugar all summer and then have it all cut off.

 

Fall is one time when it’s good to have nice irrigated areas with annuals and non-native plants so that you can feed the pollinators of fall who are still active.  In home gardens this week I saw dozens of butterflies, bees and moths on late-season annuals like Verbena bonariensis, Cosmos, Zinnias.  Our love of home gardening is very helpful to pollinators.

 

Cornell University released a study this year about monarch butterflies.  While it is true that milkweed is the only food of the caterpillars, adult butterflies eat from all flowering plants.  This time of year the monarchs need a lot of nectar and pollen to give them the strength to migrate back home.  The monarchs can find nectar in areas gardened or farmed by humans.

 

So for those of us who love pollinators, providing some fall habitat with blooming flowers is very helpful to butterflies and all the pollinators. The longer in the season they eat, the better the chance they’ll survive winter.  To get ideas for what to grow, notice what might still be blooming in wild areas and where the pollinators are actively feeding in gardens.   Each year I give out awards to the plants I know for things like “First Bloom of the Year” or “Best Season Long Performer.”  The last award of the growing season is “Last Bloom of the Year.”  Sometime in November long after a hard frost, there is still some little single perennial flower that had several bees visiting it.  Most years it is blue Scabiosa, but Borage is putting up a last-minute burst into bloom.  Who won the last bloom of 2016 in your habitat?

Photos:

http://monarchbutterflygarden.net/are-native-only-wildlife-gardens-starving-fall-pollinators/

http://diet.yukozimo.com/what-do-honey-bees-eat/

Apples

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , /by

All About Apples

by Sandy Swegel

Two things I learned about apples this year.

Reduce codling moths in your trees.

A few years ago, I started following the advice of a local organic farmer to pick up the bad apples under my apple trees. I’ve always left them there to compost in place or waited until they were all down to pick them up. My delicious McIntosh apple tree had lots of codling moths which left unappealing frass in the apples as well as the occasional worm. The tree was too tall to spray clay and I didn’t want to use anything toxic. So I did start religiously picking up the apples as they fell. Now, some five years later, I’ve noticed that while codling moths still attack the apples, they are MUCH fewer in number affecting maybe only 10-20% of the apples. What a difference sanitation made.

 

Bake awesomely easy gluten-free Apple Crisp

The second thing I learned came from the new “problem” of what to do with so many apples. If you pick up the apples soon after they fall from the tree, then you notice the apples are in pretty good shape if you cut out the bad parts right away. So now I had a surplus of apples. The freezer was full of sauce and still, the apples came. Fortunately, I gave the apples to a baker friend who made a gluten-free apple crisp that was better than anything I had ever had. And that’s when she taught me a professional secret. You have to bake the apples first before you put the crisp topping on. When you just layer apple pieces in a pan and sprinkle with your crisp mixture, you can end up with apples that are too crunchy and/or a burnt crisp top.

So here’s the basic recipe:

Cut up apples into pan. Bake until mostly soft.

Crisp topping:
Oats, cinnamon, nuts (almond meal, tiny pecan pieces) Optional: butter, brown sugar.
Sprinkle topping on baked apples. Put the pan back in the oven until the crisp is browned and crispy. Twice-baked apples melt in your mouth (without lots of extra sugar) and the topping is crispy delicious. The perfect foil for vanilla ice cream.

So now I spend more time working to clean up apples…..but am rewarded with more apple crisp!

Photos:

http://utahpests.usu.edu/ipm/htm/fruits/fruit-insect-disease/apple-pear-control03
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/229088/apple-crisp-with-oat-topping/

Stop the Powdery Mildew Cycle this Fall

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , , /by

Gardening Tips

by Sandy Swegel

Powdery mildew had a grand time in my garden this year. I often have a nonchalant attitude to it growing on a few leaves and don’t mind a little bit. But it started early this year on roses, then showed up on the bee balms and finished out the season inundating the sweet peas and squashes. By the time I paid attention, it was out of control.

But now it’s Fall and my inner lazy gardener says…ah well this season is over. Next year it will be different. But if we want to make progress against disease in our gardens, now is the time to act.

 

Do you Want Less Disease in your garden next year? Then take these steps now:

In the Vegetable Garden
As your squash and cucumbers and pea plants are dying back, remove those leaves and put them in the trash. Not in the compost pile. Don’t let them overwinter and deal with it in the Spring. Fungus and disease spores are sitting passively on the backs of those leaves, just waiting for rebirth next Spring. They do not reliably die in home compost piles. Powdery mildew will survive the winter by forming minute fruiting bodies called cleistothecia And tomatoes? I put the whole plants in the trash after frost. There are just too many diseases on them to risk.

In the perennial beds, leaves infected with powdery mildew like rose or phlox or bee balm often drop before Fall. Before the big tree leaf fall, I use the blower to blow the diseased leaves out of the bed and PUT THEM IN THE TRASH.

This vigorous sanitation is a good idea for all pests too. If you had bean beetles…get rid of those leaves that might have next year’s eggs.

But don’t be too clean.
That’s the important lesson here. In the non-diseased parts of the garden, ladybugs and lacewings and lots of beneficial insects are going to lay eggs and overwinter. We want them. I learned last year especially to let willow leaves be…there were dozens of beneficial babies at the base of willow plants last spring.

 

And next year…be attentive to the powdery mildew. I now promise to treat early and often with something gentle but effective such as horticultural oil or a baking soda. I lost a lot of production in my vegetables this year because I let the powdery mildew have its way. And the roses and phlox really took a hit. I’ll do better next year. I promise.

Photos:
ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7406.html
startorganic.org/tips-for-treating-powdery-mildew/

How to Have Fewer Green Tomatoes

/0 Comments/in , , , , /by

Gardening Tips

by Sandy Swegel

First Frost is fast approaching and we’ll be reaching for our green tomatoes recipes when all those green tomatoes are hogging our countertops. No matter how clever, green tomatoes aren’t as wonderful as red tomatoes. So act now to get those green tomatoes to turn red on the vine.

Now is the time to prune off the tops of your tomatoes plants in order to get them to focus on ripening the tomatoes they already have. After the blistering heat of August that brought pollination to a stop, cooler temperature plants confuse tomatoes into growing new leaves and flowers. Tomatoes are multi-tasking to an extreme now, ripening old fruit, setting blooms, pollinating, etc. Any new blooms won’t have time to even become edible green tomatoes.

So be brave and CUT OFF the top foliage especially stems with new flowers.

CUT BACK excess foliage throughout the plant to expose the current bigger tomatoes to more light.

Keep your tomato comfortable in its dotage:

*Keep the soil evenly watered.
*Wash off aphids if they start up again.
*Lightly fertilize with a liquid fertilizer a few weeks before frost.
*Have frost cloth or old bed sheets ready to throw on overnight. Sometimes if you can protect from one or two nights frost, you’ll have a couple more weeks of warm weather.

 

You want your tomato to focus on one thing only: ripen the remaining tomatoes while they are growing on the vine. That’s how they taste the best!!!

 

Photos:

Making green tomato chutney

http://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/wellbeing/summer-vertical-gardening

Bunnies in the Garden…What Works, What Doesn’t

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Gardening Tips

by Sandy Swegel

We’ve had a bunny explosion the last few years. Population growth has been so pronounced that just walking around the neighborhood in the morning I see at least two bunnies per front yard. The problem with bunnies is that they make babies like crazy and each bunny eats a lot of plants. They particularly like young tender plants and flowers which is devastating for the garden.

If you are serious about protecting your garden from rabbits, you must be vigilant.

Strategies that Work

GET the rabbits out of your garden.

KEEP the rabbits out of your garden.

 

This is the only strategy that really works. And it takes a lot of vigilance to build an effective barrier and perseverance to get every bunny that comes into the yard out of there.

First, you have to have a really good fence that goes all the way into the ground. Wood is just another food for bunnies so you’re going to need supplemental chicken wire or a stone barrier at the base. Every time there is another rabbit in your garden you have to figure out how it got in and close that opening. And you have to remember to always keep the gate closed. I can remember the sneaky bunny that waited while I rolled the garbage can out to sneak in the yard.

Second, for the rabbits already in your garden, you have to trap them or dispatch them or even get the dog to chase them out an open gate which you quickly shut behind them.

I know people who live-trap the rabbits and bring them to rescue places, and I know people who sit in their gazebo in the evening with a beer and a shotgun. You have to determine your level of lethality. But you have to get rid of the bunnies.

Strategies that sorta work but don’t solve the problem

Repellents
An otherwise intelligent friend has strung soap across her yard because she read on the internet that Irish Spring works. It doesn’t. Bunnies are darn smart and aren’t kept from a succulent meal because something smells funny. They also don’t fall for the fox urine scent thing…They look around. They can see there is no fox. Repellents can work for the plant you spray them on….if you keep respraying. But you’ll go broke buying repellant for every plant in your yard.

Dogs
Dogs do keep down the number of rabbits, but dogs on the hunt for rabbits can dig holes and tear up your garden better than any rabbit can.

Trap crops
Some people try growing plants like clover the bunnies love to keep them off the good plants. This is marginally successful in the short term, but ultimately, you’re feeding the bunnies.

What bunnies have going for them is that they are incredibly cute and fertile. They also have the support of your neighbors who feed them. A neighborhood-wide eradication program might work, otherwise, you just have to build your fortress and keep it defended. If you’re lucky like a friend of mine is, a great horned owl will move into one of your trees and take care of the would-be intruders.

Photos:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horned_owl
http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1386301/how-to-rabbit-proof-raised-beds
http://pestkill.org/other/rabbits/how-to-keep-out-of-garden/

Nurse Rock

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , , /by

Gardening Tips

by Sandy Swegel

Sometimes there’s a difficult spot in a garden when plants just keep failing. Or sometimes there’s a plant you really want in your garden (you know who you are butterfly weed) that keeps dying even though you think you are giving it perfect conditions. The easy thing to do is give up and plant a different plant or in a different place. But the determined gardener can reach into her magic toolbox of helpers for a Nurse Rock to give her plant the extra edge.

What is a nurse rock? Basically, it’s just a rock…most any old rock…that you strategically plant with your new plant. In hot arid Colorado, I usually plant on the north side of the rock so there’s just a bit more water and shade for the young plant. I learned about nurse rocks from a gardening friend who liked to grow the native plants she saw when she was out hiking. In nature, you’ll often see that plants are more likely to be growing near rocks rather than out in the open field. Even in your own suburban garden, you’ll see the edges of your beds or even your sidewalks have more robust plants.

There have been many scientific studies about why plants do better with nurse rocks. The obvious speculations are improved water, improved drainage, protection from sun, space from other plants, protection from wildlife, less evaporation, better soil nutrients under rocks and even more mycorrhizae. Old garden folklore highlights the image of the rock as a protector of the young plant from the big world.

 

I encourage you to give it a try. In the wild, nurse rocks are often large rocks a foot or more high. In the home garden, I’ve found even a small rock that fits easily in my hand gives a plant an edge. I’m trying this week with a spot in a narrow garden bed that just has had several different plants die out despite our ministrations. We’ve come up with reasons why the plants die…that one spot gets a little more sun and it a tiny bit higher than surrounding soil, or it’s a good hiding place for the bunny who ate the beautiful fall anemone down to stubs. We’re going to try again with an adorable small upright clematis, Sugar Bowl, and a good baseball sized nurse rock planted at its base. Thank you nurse rock.

 

Photos:
http://www.highcountrygardens.com/perennial-plants/unique-plants/clematis-scottii
http://www.laspilitas.com/classes/native_planting_guide.html
http://eachlittleworld.typepad.com/each_little_world/2008/12/

Baby’s Breath

/0 Comments/in , , , , , , /by

Baby’s Breath…growing for whimsy

by Sandy Swegel

Some plants aren’t the most efficient plants to grow, but you have to do it just because it’s fun.  Annual baby’s breath fits that category for me this week.  I visited a lovely garden where the perennial baby’s breath was allowed to grow and fall where it may and the rest of the flowers just grew up among them.   Very nice looking.  But the baby’s breath I’m interested in is the annual variety because it blooms very fast from seed and I don’t have a lot of time left this season to start new flower from seed. I want some fun and whimsy in my garden before the garden turns into Fall mums.

 

Gypsophilia elegans (annual baby’s breath) is a very short-lived plant.  Growing guides advise sowing every two weeks if you want the tiny white flowers all season.  That’s more work and irrigation than I need for the full season…but a fast-blooming flower sounds great for the end of the season.

So just for fun, I’m sowing some annual baby’s breath between the roses and hoping they end up looking just like flower arrangements.  I’m also sowing some in the “moon garden” where most of the flowers are white because what could more whimsical than baby’s breath under a full moon!

Have some fun and grow some flowers just for fun.

 

Photo:

www.sarahraven.com/gypsophila_elegans_covent_garden.htm