Gardening with Sam: Prepare for 2018 planting
Happy New Year to everyone. This year is going to be great with lots of good food and planting and gardening.
It is so rewarding to see your labor of love start to come alive in the garden and the trees’ buds and bushes start to green up.
If you have plants in windows, be sure you turn the pots and do not let them touch cold windows or hot windows. When the sun is out, it will hurt your window plants. It can be hot if the sun is out and shining in the window. Your plants are tender and will burn, or the cold will hurt the leaves too.
If you have bulbs left that you didn’t get planted, place them in the freezer, and the first warm day in the early spring, you can plant. Most of the time they will bloom the first year.
Pansies should be at their peak in January and February. They love cold weather, and it is a welcome sight to see their faces look back at you on a cold day. It is beautiful, when we have snow to look out in our pots and see these smiling back.
If you have the time on a warm day, you can start your pot gardens, getting them ready with new soil and working up the dirt so you can plant. Placing them in the beds and garden will give you a head start to finishing the garden early so you can enjoy all spring and summer into the fall.
With all the warm weather, iris bulbs will thrive.
Gardening is a 12-month job. There is something to do all the time in the garden – cutting, moving, planting, picking, deadheading – and the best part is sitting back and enjoying your hard work.
When we had the farm, to bring the outdoors in, they would go out and dig small pine and cedar trees and plant in pots to have the smell and greenery in the house. You can do the same with branches. When they first start to bud, cut and place them in vases around your house to give you a little color. Adding birds and butterflies will make you think it is spring. Birds nests and birdhouses, placed on porches and steps around your pots, will give a touch of the garden, and you won’t feel so sad because all the plants are dead.
The best way to get color into your home is to stop by your local florist and pick up a few stems of fresh flowers to place around the house in vases. That adds a smile to anyone’s face.
