Gardening Granny's Gardening Pages: September 17, 2019

Hi Gardeners

As the fog burns off it’s turning into a pretty fall day here. After some good rains last week, the plants are perky and fresh looking. Goldenrod is lighting up the fields. Heath asters are pushing out white clouds of flowers. The maples are starting to show some good reds and oranges. Pesky Virginia creeper is turning purple-red.

In the garden the last plants to bloom, toad lilies and colchicum are blooming. Mums are at full bloom. Anemone, hardy hibiscus, rose of Sharon, sedum, snakeroot, black eyed Susan, coneflowers, and buddleia are still blooming. We’ve had no frost, so the annuals are still going strong, but starting to look a little tired. Roses have a new flush of bloom, although I’m aggravated, they are being chewed up by Japanese beetles. Those buggers should be gone by now. They are worse than they were earlier in the season. The drought earlier must have delayed some of them emerging.

Grapes and apples are ripening. Deer are coming up to snatch apples. The veggie garden is done for the year, I dug the rest of the potatoes and the tomatoes have pretty much succumbed to blight. Now I just need to clean it all up.

I’m seeing lots of monarchs right now. I don’t know if they are migrating through or not. I saw hummingbirds two days ago, so I refilled the feeders, getting stung by a hornet in the process. It’s odd but I’ve noticed far fewer ants at the hummingbird feeders this year. Maybe it’s a bad year for ants. I think the red winged blackbirds and orioles have already left. Killdeer and buzzards are still around though.

The tree frogs and crickets are really calling at night now. The frogs sound close to the house and I am worried they are crawling into the houseplants. I am starting to move some of my houseplants back inside this week. I am going to have cataract surgery on one eye this week and won’t be able to bend and lift for a few days. Then I am having surgery on the other eye in early October, so I have to get those plants moved inside within a tight schedule. I’m hoping the weather cooperates.

Speaking of my eye surgery, I don’t know if I will be putting out a blog next week or not. I guess it depends on how I see after the surgery with one eye fixed and the other not. I’m worried it may be hard to use the computer, but we’ll see. If you don’t see a blog next week, you’ll know why.

Japanese beetles on rose

It’s National Houseplant week

September 16-22 is National Indoor Plant week. You do have houseplants, don’t you? If you don’t, shame on you. Every home needs houseplants, and I mean needs. Every classroom needs them too. Houseplants make people calmer and happier; research has proven this. While the air cleaning aspect of houseplants is somewhat exaggerated, they do provide us with improved air quality.

In one study children were asked to choose between two classrooms, exactly alike except one had lots of plants. Every child chose the room with plants. Teachers- you need plants in your classroom! There are plants that can survive colder nights when the heat is turned down and even school year vacation breaks. And plants are cheap- often free. Heck, if you are a teacher near me, I’ll give you a houseplant for your classroom.

If you don’t have houseplants, it’s a great time to buy them. Since they are popular once again many stores are carrying them. Do some research and find plants that match your lighting conditions and your likelihood of caring for them. But you are gardeners after all – so no excuses that you can’t grow houseplants. You can, you should.

Kalanchoe synsepala Gremlin

There are some houseplants I don’t recommend for most homes. These are Boston ferns, and most other ferns, crotons, gardenias, and azaleas. Fiddleleaf figs, while popular, are also difficult. Carnivorous plants are fun for a while but rarely last long. That still leaves hundreds of plants to chose from.

Do you give your houseplants a summer vacation outside? I do. It’s too early to frost here- probably- but it is time to start thinking about moving the house plants inside. When nights fall below 50 degrees on a regular basis most tropicals should be brought inside. Even if you don’t turn on the furnace the house will be 10-20 degrees warmer than outside if the windows are closed.

If you need grow lights now is the time to order or shop for them. The new energy efficient grow lights make it easy to grow plants even when window light is poor. They are safe, and inexpensive to operate. There’s a plant for every room if you use grow lights and almost every room if you don’t.

I don’t like the work involved in moving them in and out, but the house does seem cozier filled with plants in the fall and winter. Usually I bring mine into the porch first as I check them for bugs and look for mice and frogs hiding in the pots and then decide where to put them.

I learned a lesson one year when several tree frogs hitched a ride inside on my plants. In the middle of the night they called and sang to each other. I couldn’t find some of them though, which bothered me. I’d see one and then it would vanish. The poor things voices gradually faded away through the winter. I was providing little dishes of water among the plants but there was no way to feed them.

Getting a Poinsettia to rebloom

My mom has had her poinsettia plant outside all summer. It grew large and lush. She told me she had brought it inside and stuck it in the closet behind her steps because she heard it needed darkness to get colorful again. (The leaf bracts turn red, it’s not a flower, although the plants are flowering at the time.) I asked mom if she was bringing the plant to the window in the day and she said no.

I explained to her that although poinsettias need complete darkness at night- for at least 12 hours each night- they do need sunlight in the daytime. If you want a poinsettia to turn red again near Christmas it needs to be in the natural light cycle for fall, days getting shorter until darkness is about 10-12 hours long. Any artificial light during what should be night will delay or prevent that red color you want.

Most poinsettias will never be as pretty as when they came from the greenhouse but if they were given good care through spring and summer, preferably a summer outside in the sun, and the right light conditions are met in the fall, they can look pretty nice near Christmas the second or following years.

Poinsettias should also get a gradual cooling down in fall, although they should never be exposed to frost. The chilling makes the coloring of the bracts more brilliant. If you leave them outside until just before the first frost this usually does the trick. Of course, once inside they still need those long dark nights.

If you are keeping the poinsettia plant inside all year round you should put it in the window of a room that doesn’t get used at night and remains dark, starting in late August. If you can’t do that try slipping a box over the plant as nightfall comes outside and removing it when the sun is up. It’s best to mimic the gradual shortening of the day in the fall, so use the light conditions outside to guide you. Lower the room temperature at night to 55 degrees if possible.

Once the poinsettia leaves have turned red again the plant can be moved to a location where it can be seen better if needed. You don’t have to worry that light at night will change the color of the leaves anymore. They will often stay red for months once they color up.

The poinsettia makes a pretty good houseplant if it has a sunny window and regular watering and with a little care can “bloom” for many years. It will get larger; they are shrubs in Mexico. My mom has agreed to move hers back to a windowsill, I don’t know if she’ll remember to keep up the light schedule but since she goes to bed fairly early it may work out.

Blending spring blooming bulbs into perennial beds

Many people don’t plant bulbs like tulips and daffodils in their perennial beds because they have read that the bulbs must be dry in the summer or because they think the dying bulb foliage will be too ugly. But many gardeners successfully blend bulbs into their perennial beds and those are the gardens which look so pretty in early spring.

While it is true that most spring blooming bulbs like a period of dryness after the foliage disappears, almost all types of bulbs will successfully adapt to the normal perennial bed. You don’t have to skip watering your perennials to keep bulbs happy. Unless you have poor drainage and are growing wetland perennials many types of bulbs will thrive.

Some gardeners think they must dig up the bulbs after they bloom and store them somewhere until next fall. You can do this if you like, but it’s a lot of work and really isn’t necessary. Each type of bulb needs a certain length of time to go dormant. And then after digging they need a period of time to cure spread out somewhere in a dark spot. After curing they need the proper storage conditions until fall. All of this can be hard for the average gardener to do.

Some bulbs, particularly tulips, do tend to fade out after a year or two in the garden. Summer moisture is only part of the problem though, some hybrid, cultivated tulips are just naturally short lived. Many species type tulips have longer lifespans. I always plant more tulips every fall to ensure a good show in spring. Renewing most bulbs every few years is wise, with maybe the exception of daffodils, which often multiply tremendously and aren’t bothered by bulb eating animals.

Other things that cause bulbs to disappear after a year or two are disturbing the bulbs when planting other things, cutting off dying foliage too soon, and animals digging out the bulbs either for a snack or just tunneling or digging in the garden. Moles don’t eat bulbs, but if they tunnel beneath them the bulbs can either fall down into the tunnel and be buried too deeply or the bulbs are damaged in the tunneling process.

Cats, dogs and skunks sometimes throw bulbs out of the ground when digging. Frost can heave bulbs out of the ground as the ground freezes and thaws. Heavy rain can wash them out. If the bulbs are exposed on top of the ground for long, they will probably die. When there are thaws and the ground is visible in winter check your flower beds for bulbs that have been pushed out of the ground and replant them.

The foliage of bulbs should be left to mature and die naturally so that the plant makes food to produce a new flower. Flower buds are being made for next year soon after this year’s flower fades. Bulbs also need energy to produce new bulbs. If your concern is that the bulb foliage will look ugly after the flowers fade in the spring, there are ways to minimize the mess.

The best way to hide bulb foliage until it dies, and the bulb goes dormant, is to plant your bulbs among perennial plants that are slow to emerge in spring but then rapidly disguise the bulb foliage beneath and among their foliage. In the fall plant your bulbs carefully under these plants, making sure not to cut into the perennial’s roots.

I like to plant bulbs under hosta and among daylilies and ferns. Early blooming bulbs can be planted under roses, especially landscape type roses. In the spring the bulbs grow and bloom before the perennials get very large. By the time the bulb foliage is yellowing the perennials should be large enough to hide them.

Other perennials that can hide bulb foliage are ornamental grasses, true lilies, cannas if hardy in your zone, poppies, bleeding hearts, brunnera and astilbe. Small, early flowering bulbs like winter aconite, crocus and snowdrops can be planted under groundcovers like thyme, sweet woodruff, and various sedums. By the time the groundcovers are actively growing the bulbs should have bloomed.

Bulbs with hosta and Jacobs ladder

If you plant your bulbs in the fall before you have cleaned up the foliage of perennials- if you are a fall clean up gardener- you’ll know what area of ground around the perennial will be hidden by its foliage next year. (Pictures taken when the perennials were mature for the year can also help you decide where to plant bulbs.) Just carefully tuck the bulbs in that area. This may take more work than digging up a large area just for bulbs and plopping them in, but it will be worth it next spring.

Another way to use bulbs in perennial beds is to reserve a strip for them behind perennial plants. If your flower bed is in front of a wall or fence, the spot for the bulbs should be back against the wall or fence. The bulbs should bloom before the plants in front of them leaf out and hide them. If your flower bed can be observed from all sides plant bulbs in the middle.

You can also reserve space in the front of a perennial bed for smaller bulbs like crocus, miniature daffodils, grape hyacinth and so on. Then as soon as possible in spring plant annuals like pansies, petunias and marigolds among the bulbs. As they grow the annuals hide the bulb foliage while providing color to the flower bed. If you plant annuals and tropicals in large containers every year, bulbs can also be planted in them for early color.

You could plan a bed that’s all bulbs. Carefully planned you could have something in bloom all season. Start the season with small early bloomers, snowdrops, crocus, iris reticulata, add early season tulips and daffodils, then mid spring and late spring bloomers like fritillaria, alliums and late tulips.

Next add summer blooming bulbs like Asiatic and oriental lilies, and things like dahlias, canna, rain lilies, glads, crocosemia, tuberose and others to bloom all the way to fall. (Some of these may not be winter hardy in your zone.) There are fall blooming crocus and colchicums.

If you can’t hide it, the foliage of spring blooming plants can be cut back when the leaves have yellowed completely. The “ugly” period is usually short if you can tolerate it. In some bulbs like crocus and corydalis (sold with bulbs but not a real bulb) the foliage isn’t that bad looking.

The beautiful blooms of bulbs in early spring before all else blooms are well worth tolerating some yellow foliage. Go with bold and beautiful and plant some bulbs. There’s room in every garden.

Gather your herbs while ye may

If you haven’t harvested herbs such as lavender, sage, rosemary, oregano and thyme now is the time to do so. Cut young stems after the dew has dried in the morning or they have dried after a rain. Bundle 6-10 stems with a rubber band or string and hang the bundles in a warm dark area. Rubber bands contract as the stems dry and keep the bundles together.

You can also place stems or bundles of herbs in brown paper bags and put them in your car to dry. A car sitting in the sun dries herbs quickly but beware, your car will smell like what you dry in it.

I now place dried herb bundles in plastic bags and put them in the freezer. This keeps the flavor strong. You can also crumble the dried herbs into clean dry jars with tight fitting lids. Place a teaspoon of dried milk in a piece of tissue paper and twist it closed. Place that in each jar to absorb any moisture. You can also put some dry white rice in each jar to keep the herbs dry. You can also buy or save those little deoxidizer -drying packets to put in jars. Use ones labeled food safe or that came in food.

Dill seeds just about ready for harvest

Collect the seeds of dill, fennel and caraway now or they will be lost on the ground. Put something like a bowl or bucket under the seed head as you snap it off to collect loose seeds. Then shake or scrape out the remaining seeds from the dried flower. Spread the seeds out in a dry warm place for a few days to continue drying before storing in clean dry jars with tight lids. If you have a food dehydrator or your oven can be set on low heat of about 150 degrees, you can use that to speed up the drying process. Be careful not to scorch or over dry the seeds.

Don’t try to dry herbs with powdery mildew or other fungal diseases. Discard any herbs that mold during the drying process. Dried herbs can last a year or longer if properly stored. Label your packages or jars so you know when the herbs were collected and what they are.

Blinding the queen bee

Think of spending your life studying the seminal fluid of honeybees. That’s the job of UC Riverside's Boris Baer, an entomologist who has been studying bee sperm for 10 years. Your tax dollars at work.

It turns out bee seminal fluid is full of chemicals – bee manufactured ones not environmental toxins. One of the things bee seminal fluid can do is kill the sperm of rival bees. But a recent finding pointed out another thing the fluid can do- make the queen blind.

When male bees mate with a queen early in her life the sperm they pump into her blinds her. Within a short time after mating the queens start becoming blind and have difficulty finding their way back to the hive. Since blind bees can’t fly, the queen stays home to produce babies. This also ensures the queen isn’t flying around mating with other males. Maybe the queen isn’t the ruler of the hive after all.

The blindness does fade after a while because later in life queens often leave the hive in a “swarm” and create a new hive. (Or maybe they are fleeing from captivity.) They do see then, researchers found. But most queens mate only once in their lifetime, with the sperm they received at that first blinding event becoming the father of their babies for a lifetime.

But life isn’t all kingly fun and games for the male honeybees since they die shortly after mating. Did they die happy? No one has studied that yet.

Gardening Granny's Gardening Pages

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

September 17, 2019

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