GoodSeed Farm

Country Garden Center & Nursery
THE OPPOSITE OF
“BIG-BOX” SHOPPING

Contact Us


Plant Finder


 

TIME TO PLANT SWEET POTATOES 

Is there anything more delicious than a plate of baked sweet potatoes with fresh cracked pepper, salt and melted butter? Yes. The same dish made with fresh-dug sweet potatoes from your own garden! Sweet potatoes are easy to grow. The key to success in Ohio is an early start, since sweet potatoes need a long season of sunny days to mature.

Sweet Potatoes are in the same plant family as morning glories. They need warm soil, so now is the time to prepare your garden for these delicious tubers. You’ll need to make a raised ridge in a place with full sun all day, working the soil and perhaps covering it with some black plastic for a week or two to warm the soil.

Sweet potato plants are rooted cuttings; stems with a few leaves and well-developed roots sold in bunches. You can keep them in a jar of water until you’re ready to plant. After planting, water them regularly to keep the soil moist while they develop. Control the weeds in your row until the plants spread out enough to shade the ground.

Sweet potatoes will be ruined by frost, so make sure you harvest them as soon as they are ready. If an early frost takes you by surprise, harvest them immediately before the decay from the dead vines travels into the potatoes and rots them.

Which sweet potatoes should you choose? Here’s a rundown of the most popular varieties:

Beauregard has been accepted by farmers everywhere. Chances are this is the sweet potato that is available at your local market. The outside color is red-orange and the inside color is orange. The Beauregard is a quick maturing potato and has a good shape.

Centennial Perhaps the most widely recognized sweet potato, the Centennial has been used in many bake-off contests. It has carrot color inside with copper to orange outside skin, and produces "Baby Bakers" in about 90 days.

Georgia Jets provide extremely fast growth, producing #1 size potatoes in only 90 days, and extra-high yields. Five years of testing in the state of New York shows that Georgia Jets produce 2 1/2 times the yield of standard sweet potato plants. Yields in other sections of the country are even more exceptional. Jets have deep orange inside color with moist flesh and a marvelous flavor. The outside skin is so red it is almost purple.

O’Henry O' Henry is a white-skinned, cream-fleshed sweet potato that cooks up drier than other sweet potato varieties. Has a different look from the other darker-skin varieties.

"Bunch" Porto Rico is a favorite of  gardeners with limited space Also called "Bush" and "Vineless," the Porto Rico sweet potato has a copper-colored outside skin and light red flesh. With delicious "old-fashioned" flavor, it is an excellent baking potato producing "Baby Bakers" in 100 days.

Vardaman is another bush variety sweet potato. It has golden yellow outside skin that darkens after digging, and the deepest, brightest inside color of all sweet potatoes.

White Yams, sometimes called Triumph, Southern Queen, Poplar Root, "Choker" and White Bunch, are white as cotton inside and out, and sweet as sugar. One of America's oldest varieties, white yams are the driest sweet potato.

Set sweet potato plants 12 to 18 inches apart, preferably on a wide, raised ridge about 8 inches high. A ridge not only dries better in the spring but also warms earlier. Covering the ridge with lack plastic can speed early season growth by capturing and storing more of the sun’s heat in the soil under the plastic cover. The vines of spreading varieties need a great deal of space, so allow at least 3 to 4 feet between rows.

After early cultivation (which is not necessary with black plastic), sweet potatoes need minimal care to keep down weeds. Once the vines spread to cover the ground, little weeding is required. Irrigate if an extended drought occurs. Do not water during the last 3 to 4 weeks before harvest to protect the developing roots.

GROWING YOUR OWN FOOD 

I think vegetable and fruit gardening is going to become quite fashionable over the upcoming years. It’s a classic case of trends coming full circle; growing our own food is a tradition here in Adams County so suddenly we find ourselves on the leading edge.

Concern over food safety, inflation pressure on food prices, and a trend to home improvement instead of vacation travel all are contributing to a surge in home gardening. So is the “slow food” movement, a growing awareness of how important it is to really savor and enjoy what we eat. For those of us already accustomed to eating fresh home-grown fruit and vegetables, this is not a new discovery. What’s next? I predict a resurgence of interest in home canning. Imagine that!

The general public is starting to realize how much we’ve lost in our pell-mell rush to embrace factory-made “convenience foods” and the “drive-up” fast-food industry. After all, eating is one of the most important and central aspects of life, so why rush it? Why eat mediocre, dumbed-down adulterated processed foods? Particularly when we know full well that a processed food diet is a major contributor to obesity, sickness and disease?

Our grandparents set an example for us by growing and serving fresh vegetables and fruits at home, preserving enough to last all winter. They did it because they had to in order to survive; buying food wasn’t always an option. Today, most of us can afford to buy food produced by strangers and shipped thousands of miles, but the quality of home-grown and home-canned food is now a luxury. Maybe it’s time to rediscover the pride and satisfaction that come from managing a home garden.

Is there a better legacy we can pass along to our own children and grandchildren?

CONTROLLING FRUIT TREE PESTS 

For hobby orchardists with busy lives, the simplest approach to growing healthy fruit remains the all-purpose orchard spray applied every 10 days from bud break until harvest. All-purpose orchard spray is a mixture of insecticides and fungicides. Applied every 10 days to two weeks, it will kill a number of insects and stop some fungus growth. The most important aspect of effective pest or disease control is proper timing. Even the most effective material will not work if applied at the wrong time.

Fruit trees have many natural insect enemies, however it’s unlikely that they will be bothered by more than a few of these in a given season. Early control of the first generation of insects reduces the amount of control needed later in the season. The same is true of disease control. Most spraying is directed at diseases, which threaten trees all season long but can be minimized by early control. In other words, get started right now and keep it up on a schedule.

Disease pressure can be minimized by selecting disease resistant varieties. Old favorites whose names you recognize may not be the best choices. We always recommend disease-resistant apples like Freedom, Honeycrisp and Zestar, which require much less spraying. Another important step is annual feeding with trace-mineral-rich tree fertilizers like Espoma Tree Tone. A healthy, well-fed tree is less vulnerable to pests and diseases.

Growing fruit organically requires you to thoroughly study the interrelated cycle of fruit growth, pests, diseases and beneficial insects. Tree fruits are one of the most difficult crops to grow under a strict organic definition. Organic growers may have to accept a high percentage of crop loss to insect damage.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a middle ground between chemical control and strict organic methods. It requires a high level of understanding and record-keeping, which sounds difficult but actually eliminates a lot of unnecessary work. Understanding the natural balance is a good thing and well worth the effort.

Professional orchard growers take the time to thoroughly research, understand and document all the factors of insect and disease control in their orchards. For the home orchardist this may be overwhelming. The tried-and-true approach of regular spraying, pruning and feeding will give you a satisfying fruit yield with the least time spent.

PRUNING KNOCK-OUT ROSES 

In our neighborhood this is the perfect time to cut back shrub roses, including the popular “Knock-Out” series. Roses are just starting to sprout new growth, the weather is warming and we’re headed for another season of gorgeous color from May until frost.

“Knock-Out” shrub roses have proven themselves worthy of all the hype. They are rugged, easy to grow, perform well all season and are incredibly free of the typical problems that plague Hybrid Tea roses. The early spring “haircut” we’re about to describe is just about all the care they need to perform their best all year.

Put on a pair of stout leather gloves for this job. Start by raking some of the dead leaves from around the plant so you can see all the branches. Now take a good sharp bypass pruner and cut the main canes down to about half. Make your cuts just above a good, healthy, out-facing shoot, cutting on an angle just above the shoot. This directs the growth outward and doesn’t leave a stub that will rot.

Make sure you cut well below anything dead or rotten. The cut end should be green and healthy-looking. A good rule is to cut more and further rather than less. You can’t harm the plant by cutting too much; the remaining canes can be a foot or shorter and that’s fine. We call this “tough love”. You’ll be amazed how quickly the plant replaces all the little “busy branches” you are removing with healthy new canes.

Once you’ve trimmed off all the extra, look for stubs from last year that have died back and rotted, and cut them off at the base. Cut any canes that are lying along the ground. Now you can clean out all the dead leaves and weeds from underneath. This rotten stuff harbors disease and insects and will make your work harder if you don’t remove it.

Now you should fertilize with a good dry fertilizer. We like Espoma “Rose Tone” best. About a pound is enough for one feeding. Just scatter it around under the plant. Next you should spread a little mulch to keep weeds from getting a head start before the rose gets bushy and shades the ground. We prefer pine bark nuggets for roses because they dry out quickly; moisture encourages fungus problems with roses.

A good haircut right now will make your shrub roses bloom their best. Shrub roses bloom on new growth and a good pruning encourages new growth. Now you can enjoy a spectacular show for the rest of the year!

“Knock-Out” shrub rose before pruning

After pruning

        
MAKING SOGGY DIRT FLUFFY 

We’ve been able to plant successfully even when gardens are soggy and saturated the way they are now, from all the rain we’ve had. Our secret is adding two or three inches of peat moss on top and deep-tilling. Peat moss is bone dry and absorbs many times its weight in water, so tilling into wet soil dries things out immediately. It also mixes in lots of air, which is beneficial to plants.

Planting isn’t just about “digging a hole” and putting the plant into it. “Green thumbs” know they have to make the soil they’re planting in as close as possible to the rich, well-drained soil in the pot the plant was grown in. Plants breathe through their roots. This is one of the big gardening secrets that separates “green thumbs” from average gardeners. Compacted soil is the biggest reason plants fail to thrive, and there’s nothing you can pour on top of the soil that will help plants breathe.

Whenever we plant gardens or trees we always till in plenty of peat moss to break up the clay soil. Peat moss isn’t food, it simply adds organic matter to the soil to keep it from sticking together and permit air the reach the plant roots. We usually till in a mineral-rich bone-meal based fertilizer as well. We call this “making fluffy dirt”, and when we do it plants build healthy root systems quickly. It’s magic.

Soil compaction is the enemy of healthy plants (including lawns). Plants in compacted soil can’t breathe, and also water can’t soak in and simply runs off. Organic materials such as compost, peat moss and manure help open up air passages into the soil, and earthworm activity helps keep it loose. Mulch on the top helps also.

Try this method the next time you plant: scatter some Espoma “Tone” fertilizer on the ground, spread two or three inches of peat moss over it, and then till the whole area until you have fluffy topsoil six to eight inches deep. Pull some of it aside, set the plant in the middle and pull the soil around it, tamping it gently. Mulch and water, and then try not to walk on the soil close to the plant ever again. You are now a “green thumb”.

SPRING HOUSECLEANING FOR YOUR LANDSCAPE 

      One of the first signs of spring is freshly mulched landscape beds. April is the month to get your landscape cleaned up and groomed, looking good before the weather gets hot and weeds take over. Yard work is much easier and more pleasant when the weather is still cool!

      The first step is to cut a nice clean edge along all your landscape beds where the lawn has been creeping in. Bed edges should be out around the “drip line” of foundation shrubs. Lawn grass shouldn’t be allowed to invade your perennials. Take up a strip of sod along the bed edges and use it to fill erosion gullies and washouts, or pile it somewhere to rot so you’ll have a stash of rich topsoil later in the year.

      If you see Japanese Beetle grubs as you dig, it’s a sign you need to treat to prevent an infestation later in the year, and for mole control. You can kill grubs with chemical insecticide, or a long-lasting organic biological control like Milky Spore.

      Next, cut all the dead foliage off perennials. Most kinds can be cut to the ground. Ornamental grasses should be cut short before they start to green up; six inches is a good height for their spring “haircut”. Shrub roses should be cut at least halfway back. Cut stems off just above healthy buds that are facing outward, and cut of any dead stems even further, back to green healthy wood.

      Shrubs should either be carefully pruned or have the scraggly tips sheared off nice and neat. There’s still time to “limb up” your trees, cutting low-hanging branches back to the trunk. Once all this is finished, rake up the whole mess along with any leaves and trash that have piled up during the winter.

      Now it’s time to feed everything. Scatter dry fertilizer on the ground under shrubs, around trees, and over the root zone of perennials. Each plant has a preferred diet; we like to use “Holly Tone” on evergreens and acid-loving plants like hydrangeas, and “Plant Tone” on perennials and flowering shrubs. “Bulb Tone” has just the right nutrients for Daylilies, Peonies, Daffodils and Tulips. Spring rains will dissolve the powder so it soaks in gradually. Plants will start to feed as the soil warms up.

      The last step is a applying a generous layer of mulch. The best weed control is complete darkness! This is why we mulch generously before weeds start to grow, in spring while the ground is still cool. Mulch prevents the sun from penetrating to the weed seeds, so they won’t germinate.

      Weeding our landscape beds is the number one maintenance headache we face, so getting the jump on weeds is a priority for experienced gardeners. A spoonful of dirt can contain thousands of weed seeds. Bury them under three inches of mulch, and then take special care to avoid introducing soil on top of your mulch.        

PREVENTING DEER DAMAGE 

Deer pressure is an increasing concern for gardeners. Many new landscapes become all-you-can-eat deer buffets, frustrating homeowners into giving up on attractive landscaping. Another problem is ‘buck rubs” during the fall rut season. Bucks can’t resist sapling trees and will shred them as part of their mating ritual. 

There are two solutions. Good landscape design and plant selection should include deer resistance along with other design considerations. There are many beautiful plants that are not attractive to deer, and some that actually keep them away. We’ll have details about this in next week’s column.  

For now, let’s talk about how to discourage deer from destroying the landscape you already have. Deer are creatures of habit. Preventing deer damage before it starts is much easier than changing existing behavior. Deer control should begin whenever you add a new plant to your yard; deer will investigate newly turned dirt and you want to send an unfriendly message right away, before they get comfortable.  

We’ve all heard about folk remedies for deer control. Bars of soap, human hair, rotten eggs, garlic, fabric softener strips, dried blood etc. all have some value because they either “jam” the deer’s sense of smell or create a sense of danger. These methods often work in the beginning and lose effectiveness over time. One reason is that they are difficult or messy to manage over time. They can also attract other pests, such as rodents or dogs. 

Deer are also neophobic (afraid of anything new). Their five physical senses suggest five different ways to make them feel insecure. Changes in your yard put them on alert, and you can keep them off-base by rotating deer-deterrence tactics. Devices that move or make noise can work for a while. Physical barriers like electric fences can discourage them. Substances that taste bad will discourage deer browsing. For a thorough understanding of how to balance all these techniques, we recommend “Deer Proofing Your Yard & Garden”, a book by Rhonda Massingham Hart. 

The bottom line is that there are many ways to discourage deer, most of which will help as long as you spend the time, effort and money to use them consistently over time.  

The easiest deterrent to manage over time is commercial deer-deterrent spray. We have had great success using “Liquid Fence”, a mixture of smells deer cannot tolerate, in an easy-to-use pump sprayer. We start by spraying liquid fence on any new planting, and reapply about once per month. Once it dries, “Liquid Fence” resists washing away and will continue to work for up to six weeks. During the growing season we apply it more often so tender new leaves are treated before the deer feast on them. We spray the trunks of all our young trees once per month during fall to prevent buck damage.  

Our experience has been that “Liquid Fence” works very well year after year, as long as we reapply it on schedule. We’ve never found any other solution that is as effective and easy to use.

PREVENTING DEER DAMAGE II 

Rural and suburban landscapes attract deer because they offer a neat little “buffet” of food deer love to eat. Rather than forage over a wide area, deer can “one-stop-shop” for a delicious meal all in one location. Good landscape design and plant selection should include deer resistance along with other design considerations. There are many beautiful plants that are not attractive to deer, and some that actually keep them away. These plants should be mixed in to any landscape if deer are a problem.

Deer instinctively know which plants are poisonous, but there are many plants they simply don’t care for. They are less picky in winter, when their native food supply is dormant or snow-covered. Plants with course, fuzzy, bristly or spiny textures, or intense aromas, discourage deer.

A good first step is to avoid plants that deer particularly like, such as Hostas, daylilies, tulips and Taxus (yews). Unfortunately deer are attracted to some of our favorite ornamental plants, but substitutes can usually be found for landscaping. For example, the following perennials look good in landscapes but are relatively unattractive to deer:

• Artemisia

• Bellflower (campanula)

• Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia)

• Bleeding Heart (Dicentra)

• Catmint (Nepeta)

• Columbine (Aquilegia)

• Crocus

• Daffodil (Narcissus)

• Fern

• Foxglove (Digitalis)

• Geranium

• Hellebore

• Hyacinth

• Iris

• Lady’s Mantle (Alchemilla)

• Lamb’s Ears (Stachys)

• Lavender

• Liatris+

• Naked Lady (Lycoris)

• Peony

• Russian Sage (Perovskia)

• Salvia

• Yarrow

            Deer also ignore most types of ornamental grasses. The following trees and shrubs are landscape favorites and don’t appeal to deer:

• Ash

• Barberry

• Boxwood

• Butterfly Bush (Buddleia)

• Burning Bush (Euonymus alatus)

• Cotoneaster

• Dogwood

• Forsythia

• Grape Holly (Mahonia)

• Hawthorn

• Heavenly Bamboo (Nandina)

• Holly

• Japanese Kerria

• Japanese Maple

• Juniper

• Lilac

• Magnolia

• Mimosa

• Mountain Laurel (Kalmia)

• Pieris japonica

• Rhododendron

• Smoke tree (Cotinus)

• Spirea

• Spruce

• Sweet Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua)

• Sweet Shrub (Calycanthus)

• Viburnum 

A challenge to home gardeners and orchardists is that deer particularly crave virtually all fruit and vegetable plants. If you like apples, strawberries and sweet corn, or peas and lettuce, you need to take steps to protect your crop. Certain plants mixed in with your garden can actually deter deer, however. Surrounding and inter-planting susceptible plants with unpalatable or repellant plants makes them harder for deer to find. Here are some deer-deterrent plants:

• Catmint, Catnip

• Chives, Garlic, Onions

• Lavender

• Sage

• Spearmint

• Thyme

• Yarrow

Deer tastes vary from place to place, season to season and deer to deer. It may take some trial and error to find the ideal mix for your landscape. For a thorough understanding, read “Deer Proofing Your Yard & Garden”, by Rhonda Massingham Hart. Remember that newly installed plants are the most vulnerable, so using a deer deterrent is a good idea. The best one we’ve found is “Liquid Fence”, a mixture of smells deer cannot tolerate, in an easy-to-use pump sprayer. We recommend it for any landscape installation if deer are likely to be a problem.

RAISED BEDS MAKE GARDENING EASY

Can you imagine raising delicious vegetables without bending over? We know some master gardeners who have this luxury, and they rave about how healthy their crops are and how little work is involved. They have created raised planting beds, filled them with topsoil and compost, and harvested bumper crops year after year. Retaining walls are an ideal environment for ornamental beds also.   

For homeowners with clay soil or drainage problems, raised beds and retaining walls can be a lifesaver because they allow you to garden with well-drained soil. This is much better for plants and easier for the gardener. You can create giant “planters” filled with nice fluffy topsoil, and there’s no danger of your lawn eventually taking the beds over because there’s a wall between the lawn and the garden. The wall even gives you a place to sit while you work, and set things down so you don’t have to bend over! 

Whether you’re a vegetable gardener or you’re trying to grow healthy landscape plants, poor drainage is your worst enemy. Even if you till peat moss and compost into your soil, your plants will suffer unless there’s a way for excess water to drain away. Plants breathe through their roots, and excess water drowns them. The nicest garden soil is unworkable if it’s saturated with water. Raised beds allow extra moisture to drain away by gravity all year long, so soil is workable earlier in the spring. Another benefit is that your soil will stay nice and fluffy if you don’t walk on it, and gardening in raised beds keeps foot traffic away from plants.

Making raised beds is easy. Railroad ties or concrete retaining wall blocks work well for this. Pressure treated wood also works but it won’t last as long. Pick a spot with the right amount of sun for your plants (full sun for vegetable gardens, part sun for plants like Hydrangeas and Azaleas). First, apply Roundup to the area to kill any existing perennial weeds. Make sure there are no low spots that would trap water. You don’t need level ground; just start your wall at the lowest point and build until the top of the wall is level. Any shape will do, so try to harmonize your raised planter with the rest of your landscaping. 

The best soil for most plants has plenty of compost or peat moss. These materials allow plenty of air to reach the plant roots, and excess water drains away quickly. Organic peat retains just the right moisture for most plants. Soil with lots of humus, peat or compost is easy to dig and weeds pull right out, so gardening is a pleasure. Make sure you add fresh compost each year to keep the soil fertile. Mulching your beds with well-rotted leaves or composted mulch keeps away weeds, and adds fertility to the soil. 

You’ll find that raised beds produce better than conventional tilled gardens, in a smaller space. Once you’ve built them they will save you a lot of work.

PANSIES SHRUG OFF COLD WEATHER          

      It’s easy to enjoy cheerful March-April color without worrying about frost damage. All you need is a flat or two of cold-hardy pansies. They come in a huge selection of colors from the subtle “Antique Shades” to traditional “Bingo” and “Red Blotch”, and these can be planted right now regardless of the weather. It’s hard to resist their velvety friendly faces. Pansies shrug off the cold, frost and snow.

      A little-known fact is that most pansy varieties are perennial and will come back every year. Pansies like cool weather, so plants you install this spring will bloom again in fall and again next year if you protect them from summer heat. Pansies bloom vigorously from April until June, and when it starts to get really hot we just pull a little mulch over them to protect them from the sun. Another approach is to plant annual flowers around the pansies. These plants will shield the pansies from the sun all summer, and when the frost kills them the pansies will burst into bloom for the late fall.     

      A popular variation on the pansy is the Viola, or “Johnny-jump-up”. We sell more of these every year and their dainty, pastel colored blooms are charming. Once established they will self-seed in cool, moist areas of your garden and you’ll have more every year. Like pansies, violas like cool weather or a shady location. They’ll fizzle out in early summer, by which time your annual bedding plants can take over. You’ll be surprised how they pop up next spring when you’ve forgotten all about them!

      Pansies and violas are very easy to grow and easy to transplant. Work your soil with some peat moss before you plant, mix in a little Flower-Tone or other dry fertilizer with the soil, and lightly mulch the plants once they’re in the ground. Like most plants they will grow better in fluffy, well-drained soil than they will in hard clay.

      A good way to rotate your planter pots and window boxes is to fill them with pansies at this time of year and then refill them with pansies once danger of frost is past. The pansies can be transplanted from your containers into a shady spot in your garden; they’ll give you an “encore” of cheerful fall color.

GROWING GREAT ONIONS     

      It seems too early to be vegetable gardening, but experienced gardeners have their onions in the ground by St. Patrick’s Day. In order to get fat onion bulbs, you need to grow big healthy tops before the days get long. That’s when the plants switch from growing foliage to storing food in the bulbs, so planting too late means puny bulbs at harvest time. 

      The easiest way to grow onions in the home garden is by planting onion “sets”, tiny onions that grow into big onions. We sell these by the pound in yellow, sweet white and sweet red. All you need to do is loosen up a patch or row with a cultivator, mixing in some 10-10-10 fertilizer, and then press the little onions into the loose soil two inches deep and two inches apart. We recommend “wide row” planting; instead of a single line plant six or eight rows two to three inches apart. Onions don’t mind being crowded, and later you can thin the weaker plants and have plenty of fresh scallions. Make sure to tamp the soil over your onion sets. 

      If you get a late start or want bigger onions, splurge on young onion transplants. These come in bunches of about 60-70 plants, each the size of a pencil. Place the plant on your index finger and press the onion into the soil about two inches, then pull up slightly (so the roots will point downwards) and firm the soil around the plant. Starting with onion transplants gives you a “head start”, insuring you’ll get the biggest, fattest onions within the growing season. Favorite varieties are “Walla-Walla” and “Red Mars”, huge sweet globes.

      Onions need fertilizer three or four times before harvest. Use 10-10-10, sprinkling the fertilizer around the base of the plants (fertilizer dust can scorch the foliage). Super-phosphate and bone meal are good for onions too. Fertilize when plants reach 6 inches, and again 3 or 4 weeks later. 

      Thin every other plant, harvesting the weaker ones. Big, healthy tops mean big fat onions. Pinch off any seedpods, because if the plants set seed they won’t grow big bulbs. Once the days are long enough, healthy vigorous onion plants “shift gears” and energy from the big tops is transported down to make a bulb. Bulbs continue to grow until the tops wither and turn brown.  

      They key to storing onions is drying them thoroughly after harvest. Uproot them and lay them out, protected from the sun, until you can brush the roots off easily. Turn them a few times as they dry. Store them in mesh bags so they can breathe.  

      Steve Boehme is the owner of GoodSeed Farm Country Garden Center & Nursery, located on Old State Route 32 three miles west of Peebles. To e-mail your landscaping questions click “Contact Us” from their website at www.goodseedfarm.com or call (937) 587-7021.
 

CARING FOR POINSETTIAS 

It is easy to get frustrated with poinsettias. If they aren’t handled right by the shipper and the seller, they can look great when you buy them yet turn yellow and lose their leaves in a few days. It’s important to buy them from a place that knows plants. Quality Poinsettias are a result of careful and expensive hybridizing. Good ones have a “pedigree”. Our favorite is “Freedom Red” developed by Paul Ecke Ranch, a huge Poinsettia breeder. “Freedom Red” has unusually large flower bracts of a deep, velvety red color, and is amazingly tolerant of drafts and cool temperatures. These are superior traits much sought after by Poinsettia breeders, and not found on mass market poinsettias in the “big box” stores.

Once you buy them, here’s how to make Poinsettias last for months and months:

      First, avoid cold or drafts. Have the store wrap them in a plastic sleeve so they won’t get a chill on the way to your car. Even a short exposure to a cold draft will shock them and they will start losing leaves. A good rule of thumb is that if you feel a draft yourself, the plant feels it too. Poinsettias will hold their blooms longer at 60 degrees than at 75 or 80, but a draft will finish them off quickly. That’s why it’s so harmful to ship and store them like groceries or hardware, the way big-box retailers do.

      Poinsettias need lots of light but don’t like much direct sun. An East or North-facing bright room is best. If they are in direct sun they will dry out quickly, so we suggest re-potting them soon in a larger pot with rich potting soil. Lack of sufficient sunlight will cause the plants to become spindly, with fading color and yellowing, small leaves. We keep our Poinsettias in a greenhouse with 50% shade cloth to filter the sunlight.

      Greenhouse-grown Poinsettias are used to getting a little liquid fertilizer right along with their watering every day. The best way to feed them is to mix a little Miracle-Gro in their water.

      Poinsettias like moist, well-drained soil. Their roots need to breathe, so it’s best to let the soil dry out between watering. Over-watering will make them wilt and drop their leaves, however if they get a bit dry they’ll bounce right back when you water.

      Poinsettias are a tropical plant native to places like Florida and Mexico. They like mild, sunny weather and can’t stand cold. Keeping Poinsettias year after year requires a ritual of letting them go dormant and then come back, like a perennial. Unless you have a home greenhouse you can’t duplicate their native growing conditions so when the plants come back they won’t be nearly as showy as they are right now. The good news is if you follow our suggestions, Poinsettias can look good for months or even longer.
 

CHOOSING THE BEST CHRISTMAS TREE 

      Instead of taking a fake Christmas tree out of a box and assembling it, treat your family to the magic of a fresh, live tree. Really fresh trees are clean, and aren’t a fire hazard. The most important thing is that the tree be truly fresh the day you bring it home.

WHICH TREE TO CHOOSE

      In southern Ohio Scotch Pines are extremely popular for several reasons. They grow rapidly and are easily shaped, making them inexpensive to grow. We prefer Fraser Fir because the needles are soft and don’t prick your skin, plus they have lots of space between the branches. This makes your ornaments show up better. The best thing about them is how long they stay fresh: up to two months with very little needle drop. The needles are still soft when it’s time to take the tree down, which makes the job easier.  

KEEPING TREES FRESH

      We recommend cutting off a bit of the bottom of the trunk and then “pencil-pointing” the bark with a kitchen knife to help the tree take up more water. This means trimming the bark around the cut end on a bevel, to open up the pink inner bark. This allows the tree to take up more water, since an old cut will be sealed with sap. If you’ll be away and can’t add water, add “Tree-Moist” granules to the water in your stand. This gels the water so it can’t evaporate, and has a tree preservative in it. Liquid tree preservative can easily be mixed with the water, extending tree life. We’ve found that a fresh tree will remain moist and fragrant well into January.

CHRISTMAS TREES YOU CAN PLANT 

      “Live” Christmas trees are evergreens meant to be planted after serving as Christmas decorations. These trees are sold “balled and burlapped”, meaning they are dug rather than cut. Live trees are more expensive than cut trees, and are more trouble, but the payoff is that they can give you pleasure for many years.

      Evergreens popular for live Christmas trees include Colorado Blue Spruce, Norway Spruce and dwarf Alberta Spruce. These varieties all make attractive Christmas trees and are good landscape specimens as well. Norway Spruce is very well adapted for clay soil, and it’s easy to find many mature examples in landscapes all around southern Ohio. We recommend Norway Spruce above all other evergreens for windbreak and privacy plantings all year long. 

CHOOSING THE RIGHT TREE 

      Scotch Pines are popular as cut trees because they grow so fast, making them an ideal crop for Christmas tree growers. They make good Christmas trees but aren’t popular landscape trees, since older Scotch pines lack the graceful mature shape and appearance of Spruce. Fraser Firs are ideal cut Christmas trees but will not thrive when planted in this area for climate reasons. White Pine and Hemlock are nice for landscaping but don’t make good Christmas trees, because their branches won’t hold many decorations.        

      The best live tree is a smaller tree. A five-foot Spruce with a good-sized root ball can weigh well over 100 pounds, and is bulky and hard to handle. Larger trees weigh even more. If the root ball is too small, the tree may be cheaper and lighter but will probably die. Getting a good-sized evergreen in and out of the house, keeping it watered and planting it in the dead of winter can be a lot of work.

TIPS FOR PLANTING LIVE TREES 

      If you decide this is for you, here are some suggestions to help you succeed. First, keep the tree inside for two weeks or less. The transition into, and later out of a heated house should be gradual. When you take your tree home, keep it in a garage or screened porch until the week before Christmas. Spray it with “Wilt-Pruf” to reduce moisture loss, and keep the root ball moist.

      Evergreens are dormant in December, and the heat in your home can fool the tree into thinking it’s spring. Once the sap starts to rise, putting the tree outside again will shock it. After the holiday, let it get used to the cold again in your garage or porch before putting it outdoors.       

      We suggest placing a few bags of mulch over the spot where you plan to plant your tree, to keep the ground from freezing. Make sure not to plant it too deep or cover the root ball with soil. This will smother it and could kill it. After planting, water the tree well and spread mulch around it to protect the roots. Good luck, and Merry Christmas!

200 Storer Rd • Peebles, Ohio 45660 • Phone: 937-587-7021