SUNSHINE!!

Yeeeaaayyy the sun's out!  It's not 40 degrees yet, but it's not windy and the sun's warm, so great day to get out there.  You notice that I didn't say get out in the garden?  This is not a good time to step into your gardens because you don't know where everything is yet, and you compress the soil too much.  So just get your small folding rake and gently clean out the beds of debris.
This is also a great time to prune your roses and shrubs that don't bloom in spring. My next note will be about tools.

New Hellebores

Hellebores, or Lenten Rose or Christmas Rose.  There are two species that grow here really well, and their common names reflect when they bloom.  Well, here in Rochester, they start to bloom in late winter as soon as the snow melts.  Their foliage is evergreen until spring when they begin to bloom, then I usually trim off the brown leaves.  This photo is of a new cultivar I just found.  What a gorgeous flower!!

SPRING BIRDS

Just a thought.......as I was looking through my bird guide.......this should be a very good year to see the warblers as they come through.  They are usually up in the tree tops, and it's hard to see them, but this year the trees are going to leaf out later.  Warblers are some of the prettiest birds we see around here.

Well it was still a bit too cold to do any serious planting, but I was able to put a few pansies in the pot and I used some yellow-twigged dogwood branches to add a little more color.  It at least says spring better than evergreen branches.

Calling out Spring!!

If you are in the upstate New York area, and you're anything like me, you have some serious cabin fever raging.  Here's my cure, and BTW I find that I do this every year, just at slightly different times because of weather.  I'm going to go to my favorite local greenhouse and buy me some pansies.  They take the frost without too much trouble. Rochester is going to have about another week or 10 days of frosty nights. I'm not saying they won't lose their flowers that are fully out from the greenhouse, but they won't die, and they will continue to flower from the buds that are formed, and will grow new ones.  In many cases they will survive and come back next year, especially if you plant them in a partly shaded, well-drained moist area (morning sun).  This picture is a client's porch pot that I decorated for winter.  I'm going tomorrow to redo it for spring.  I'll post the after pic.  I put pansies all over her gardens where she can see them from her favorite window.  It's what we Irish like to call 'a lift of the heart'!

Buying Your Christmas Tree

OK, here we go, it's that time of year, and I just have to put my two cents in on this.  We used to sell Christmas trees, and it was quite the education.  So here are my Christmas tree tips:
1) If you are going to cut your own tree, be sure it is above 34 degrees.  (the air temp, not the tree)  This will insure that the sap is up in the tree and it will hold its needles much longer. Cutting your own on a really cold day won't get you a longer lasting tree than the ones in the stores that were cut in October or November!  How long ago the trees were cut is not nearly as important as what temperature it was on the day it was done, so don't vex over it Dad!
2) NEVER tie your tree to the roof of your car to transport it home unless it is completely wrapped in plastic or a tarp of some kind.  I know, I know, it's so romantic.......the air blowing over the tree going home will suck ALL of the life out of the tree and it will drop  needles like crazy.  So stuff it in the car or trunk if you can.
3) Always fresh cut the trunk of the tree before putting it in the stand with water in it.  A cut trunk will seal over in about two hours, so if you can't get it in the stand before then, stick it in a bucket of water, and let it wait like that until you are ready.  The fresh cut can just be a half inch off, so you're not sacrificing height. Then do not let the trunk get dry in the house.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!  HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!  HAPPY TREES!!

Fall Clean Up

Just getting back into this blog thing.  Now that it's Fall, well late Fall really, there are some really important tips for perennial gardeners.  When I teach classes in Spring, I'm always saying "well actually these are things that should be done in the Fall", so here it is:
1) Always cut down your perennials and remove all debris, including leaves and stems.  If you had roses with black spot, or phlox with powdery mildew, or any sort of disease or insect problem, the diseases in particular will carry-over in the soil, and start up again next season.
2) Remove all tree leaves from the garden.........I know.......you feel like it insulates the perennials from the cold.  Truth is, they don't need the leaves for protection.  The snow cover insulates, and keeps the soil at 32 degrees.  Even if there's no snow, they are better off without the leaves, because they can create disease and insect problems for the plants.  If you have Maple trees with the black spotting on their leaves, you for sure want to remove them completely from the garden and the yard because this disease carries over.
3) Be sure that your garden is well watered and moist before it finally freezes.  This usually doesn't happen in Rochester until late December, but I've seen winters that have had dry spells and the soil was cracked in the garden.  This is one of the biggest causes of plant failures in winter.....freezing when they are DRY!