Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Clean up the yard and compost dead plants. Replace them with pansies and primroses for winter bloom.

• Feed the birds this winter and enjoy the pleasure of their company. Bird feeders come in many styles and make wonderful gifts.

• Clean up rose bushes by removing spent flowers and raking up old leaves, but wait until February for heavy pruning.

• Don’t overwater your houseplants in the winter. Empty saucers after watering.

• Stop peach leaf curl by spraying now with copper to help prevent this disfiguring disease from attacking your trees next spring.

Winter Days in the Garden

We may not welcome winter with its short days and grey weather, but the plants in our gardens do. During the winter, most plants go dormant, take a rest from the continual production of new growth and store up food for the spring growth spurt.

Tulip, daffodil and crocus bulbs, which spent the summer resting, are busy putting out a whole new set of roots to anchor and feed themselves and preparing to bloom once again. Trees that have lost their leaves take their break now and brace themselves for the winter storms.

Evergreen trees and shrubs are still using water, especially when it’s windy. And their roots are still growing, even if the branches are not. Evergreens in containers need to be kept moist all through the winter. When the temperatures drop below freezing, they desiccate or dehydrate through their leaves and, if the soil is frozen, they can’t pull up water to replace what they’re losing. Keeping them moist at all times will help them withstand cold spells.

But winter is also a time for seeing the garden with new eyes, and for letting some of the more subtle plants shine. There are several winter-flowering scented shrubs that grow well here. Sarcococca is an evergreen shrub with shiny dark green leaves that blooms in mid-winter with tiny white flowers that give off a wonderful fragrance. Growing to 5 feet tall, they are attractive up against the house where you can situate them near an entryway so you can enjoy their sweet scent.

Daphnes of all kinds are deliciously fragrant. They need good drainage, but will take almost any exposure. Daphne odora ‘Marginata’ has attractive green leaves with white margins, and it looks pretty year-round. Blooming in February, it is a delight you won’t want to miss.

Camellias give us a lot of winter color, especially the winter-blooming Camellia sasanqua. Their single flowers are borne in great profusion for several weeks through the winter in colors from dark red through shades of pink to pure white. The flowers really stand out against the shiny dark green leaves of the plants.

Don’t overlook hollies for winter interest. Their beautiful leaves are attractive year-round and their bright red berries which adorn the plants also make wonderful indoor decorations. There are many different types of holly from low, round bushes to tall, full shrubs. Variegated leaves on some varieties are an added attraction.

The hardy, evergreen perennial Helleborus, known as Christmas rose, blooms through the winter months with nodding, cup-shaped flowers in white, pink or rosy-purple. Plant it in the shady, woodland garden.

Contrasting colors of foliage, even among the evergreens, add a lot of interest to the winter landscape. There are beautiful blue conifers, such as blue spruce or the exotic Weeping Blue Atlas Cedar, which are outstanding against a green background. Needled plants contrast nicely with broad-leafed evergreens, and a golden shrub like gold-edged Euonymus is beautiful in the winter sun.

There is always something wonderful and beautiful happening in the garden, even in wintertime.

• There’s still time to plant bulbs. Consider putting some in containers so you can enjoy the flowers on your patio or by the front door.

• Plant snapdragons, pansies and violas for color this fall, winter and next spring.

• Dress up your interior landscape with some new houseplants for the holidays ahead.

• Spray for peach leaf curl with copper spray. Peach and nectarine trees may suffer from this fungus disease without a protective spray.

• Tie red raspberry canes to wires; prune to 1 foot above the top wire or wrap the canes around the top wire.

Heavenly Hyacinths

The Hyacinth family is relatively small compared to other bulbs. Native to the Mediterranean region and South Africa, they were made famous by the Dutch in the 18th century. In fact, they became so popular that 2,000 kinds were said to be cultivated in Holland, the chief commercial producer, at that time.

The common, or Dutch, hyacinth has a single dense spike of star-shaped flowers ranging in color from pure white to yellow, salmon, pink, blue, purple, and near red. Colorful as its flowers may be, the true joy of the Dutch hyacinth lies in its delightful, pervading fragrance. Even a few bulbs suffice to instill the garden with a heady scent.

The peculiarities of the soil and climate of Holland are so favorable to the production of hyacinths that Dutch florists have made a specialty of growing them. Virtually all hyacinth bulbs available in this country are imported from Holland.

Plant bulbs 4 to 6 inches deep and 6 to 8 inches apart, in a sunny, well-drained area in beds and borders. They are especially appropriate for formal plantings. Plant a few near a doorway so the heady perfume can waft inside each time to door is opened.

For a more informal look, mix hyacinths of various colors with tulips, daffodils, pansies, primroses and other spring-blooming flowers. They make excellent cut flowers.

Few plants are better adapted than the hyacinth for forcing in pots. By starting them in early September, they can be forced into bloom as early as Christmas. To keep up a succession of bloom, others should be potted every few weeks through November.

When planting, the pot should be loosely filled with enough planting medium so the top of the bulbs will be even with the top of the pot. Place 1 hyacinth bulb in a 4-inch pot, 3 bulbs in a 6-inch pot, and as many as possible in larger pots. You can also grow them in hyacinth vases, special glass vases with a pinched neck and bulb-sized “cup” at the top.

Either way, you need to keep them in a cool, dark place (from 35° to 48°F) for 13 weeks to establish roots. Then bring them into the light and they will quickly send up a flower spike and bloom in 2 to 3 weeks. Hyacinths can be planted in the garden after they are finished blooming. Many of them will flower again after 1 to 2 years.

Planted in clumps of single colors or arranged in masses of contrasting colors, they add a bright and happy tone to the garden. Forced for indoor display, they fill the house with a heavenly fragrance.

• King Alfred daffodils, those big, showy, golden, trumpet-flowered daffodils, can be planted now from bulbs for glorious spring flowers.

• Clean up the garden by raking leaves and old flower blossoms out from under your shrubs. Roses and camellias especially appreciate this.

• Enjoy birds in your garden by hanging bird feeders around the yard. You’ll see many different kinds as they migrate through this fall.

• Empty birdbaths and fountains and cover them for the winter, to prevent water freezing and cracking the bowls.

• Broadcast wildflower seeds and annual ryegrass on hillsides to stop erosion and give you lots of flowers next spring.

Gardening by the Moon

Since ancient times, our ancestors have watched the phases of the moon and observed the behavior of seeds and young plants. As they did so, they saw that seeds germinated more quickly when they were planted at certain times. They also saw that some seedlings grew more vigorously than others, and that some crops fared better when planted at certain times than at other times. Years of observation led them to the conclusion that the phases of the moon were responsible for these differences.

Indeed the moon’s position in the sky does appear to influence plant behavior. And for this reason many gardeners plant and garden “by the moon”.

Astrological gardening, as it is called, is an elaborate system involving both the phases of the moon and the signs of the zodiac. As the moon moves around the earth, it passes through each of the 12 constellations of the zodiac every month. “The moon is in Pisces” means that the moon is in the same part of the sky as the constellation Pisces. The moon moves into a new constellation every 2-3 days.

Every gardening task has its optimum time from planting seeds to harvesting crops and killing weeds. For best results, planting, and other garden jobs, should be done when the moon is in the right phase and also in the right constellation for that activity.

The best time for planting above ground crops, like broccoli, cabbage, lettuce and spinach, is between the new (dark) moon and the first quarter. The most fertile signs of the zodiac are Cancer, Scorpio, Taurus, Libra or Pisces. So planting these crops will be most successful when the moon is in this phase and in one of these zodiac signs.

Between the first quarter and the full moon, plants with a fruit or pod, like beans, squash and tomatoes, do best. Flower seeds also germinate best at this time, especially in the sign of Libra.

The week following the full moon is a good time to plant bulbs and root crops along with perennials and grape vines. This is also a good time for transplanting, since active root growth is strong. It is also the best time for pruning, especially under the sign of Scorpio.

Between the last quarter and the new moon, activities like weeding, cultivating and pest control can be done during a barren sign like Leo, Virgo, Aquarius and Gemini. It is also a good time for harvesting.

If all this sounds too complicated, that’s because it is a very complex system that has taken hundreds of years to work out. Fortunately though, others have done the work of sorting this out and have put it together in a calendar called “Gardening by the Moon 2011”. It gives you day-by-day suggestions for all your gardening activities based on the cycles of the moon to keep you on track with your gardening jobs.

Get ready for your best gardening year ever by taking advantage of the secrets of gardening by the moon.