Winter Tasks

Are you stuck indoors and getting antsy because you don't have any gardening chores?  Don't worry...there are still a few things that you can be doing during the winter to give both your plants and you a jump start on spring.  

• Cut back on watering and fertilizing your plants.  Rule of thumb for most plants is to water when the soil about 1 inch below the surface is dry.  Hold off on fertilizing until March.
• Over-wintering outdoor plants indoors?  Pinch out tips of plants you brought indoors as they get leggy.  Remember to check for whiteflies and spider mites on the plants overwintering indoors.  An occasional shower and application of insecticidal soap should keep them healthy.
• To prolong the bloom of an amaryllis plant, remove the yellow anthers inside the flower with tweezers before they shed pollen.  Also, move them to a cooler room at night (55-65 degrees) and keep them out of direct sunlight.
• Avoid using salt-based snowmelts because salt is bad for nearby plants.  Choose a potassium or calcium based mix or plain old sand instead.
• As temperatures near 20⁰, cover strawberry beds with 6-inches of straw mulch.   When the ground has frozen hard, add  another foot of mulch.
• Use evergreen boughs to provide winter protection for Canadian wild ginger, Lenten rose, and other evergreens that can suffer in cold weather.

And lastly, leaf through all the seed and plant catalogs that are landing in your mailbox.  Sit back...and dream.