Gardening Granny's Gardening Pages

Tuesday, November 3, 2020

November 3, 2020- oh what a day

Hi Gardeners

So, I normally avoid political topics here in my blog, but I must say this is an anxious day for me, and probably thousands of other Americans. I am writing and you can be reading- about gardening to pass the time. It’s nice that across much of the country it’s a beautiful fall day. It’s sunny and almost 60 degrees here, a big change from the snow and winds we had over the weekend.

I saw a monarch outside today. It must be migrating through but where did it come from in the north where the cold wasn’t as bad as here? We’ve had several nights in the 20’s. And I had a yellow jacket buzzing around me too. I was hoping those buggers had all died.

My dahlias are now dug, and I don’t think there is anything else I could bring inside. I did bring a diascia inside, as I mentioned in the last blog. Outside a mum by the barn has managed to keep blooming, but most other things are now gone. The trees around here are mostly bare, the wind we had really stripped them fast.

Inside I have lots in bloom. The hibiscus are really doing well this fall, with 3 of my 4 plants in bloom. Fuchsia, streptocarpus, the peace lily, geraniums, gerbera daisies, begonias, bouvardia, pomegranate and my lemon tree are all in bloom.

I keep having to mess with my plant light timers because we have had several power outages lately. But having those brightly lit windows full of blooming and green plants when fall days are dreary is so nice. And with my canary singing and parakeets chattering it is very soothing. I have been wanting to make an indoor fountain, but my husband might not be happy with that and trying to find some space may be a problem. How about a fountain instead of a Christmas tree?

November Almanac

This month’s full moon, November 30^th, is called the full beaver or full frost moon. In earlier times beaver traps were set about this time and of course a large part of the country has now received killing frosts. Moon apogee is November 26^th and moon perigee is November 14^th.

In England November 5^th is known as Guy Fawkes Day, or Bonfire night. It originally celebrated to commemorate what was known as the gunpowder revolution but has become known as a day to burn effigies or pictures of hated people and things. If you have an anger issue after the election that night may be your chance to burn some anger.

Both topaz and citrine are considered to be birthstones for November. November's birth flower is the chrysanthemum. It’s National Adoption month, Native American Heritage Month, Peanut Butter Lovers month, American Diabetes Month, National Alzheimer's Disease Awareness Month, and Lung Cancer Awareness Month.

November 11^th is Veterans Day, the 13^th is Sadie Hawkins Day, World Diabetes Day is November 14^th, World Toilet Day, whatever that means, is November 19th, November 26^th is Thanksgiving. Black Friday, which is an actual holiday in some states, is the 27^th. The 28^th is also Abe Lincoln’s birthday and American Indian Heritage Day.

Watch for Evening Grosbeaks

Bird watchers across Michigan and other Midwestern states are reporting an increase in sighting Evening Grosbeaks at feeders. In recent years the birds have not been coming very far south and sightings have been rare at US feeders. Speculation by birders is that winter in the north is going to be hard and birds are moving south for the winter. The birds usually move in flocks and far northern US and Canadian forests are their prime habitat.

Evening Grosbeaks may remind people of big chubby goldfinches. They are about the size of a robin. Males are yellow and black, with a white patch on the wings. Females are gray, with black and white wings and a bit of yellow around the neck. Evening Grosbeaks have large, thick conical bills that are light colored. One of their favorite seeds is that of the Box Elder tree, but they are quite happy with sunflower seed at the feeders too.

Burlap shields and rose cones

Should you put burlap shields around evergreens to prevent winter leaf burn? This depends on how hardy the plants are for your zone and where they are planted. Plants at the limits of their growing zone or where you are trying to “zone cheat” might survive better with a shield. And plants in areas subjected to strong winter winds may need a shield. Broad leaf evergreens are more susceptible to winter damage than needle type evergreens and benefit more from shields.

Leave some space between the shield and the plants and don’t put the shields up too early. Never use plastic for shields – you want the air to flow through and keep plants from becoming too wet. Plastic also causes plants to warm too much on sunny winter days.

Rose cones are used by some people to protect hybrid tea type roses. Cut the roses back only enough to fit under the cones. Wait to put up the cones until the ground is frozen and cold weather is predicted to remain. Another way to protect roses is to insert a sturdy tomato cage over the rose while the ground is unfrozen, and then fill it with leaves or straw after the ground freezes. You may need to wrap the cage with burlap or netting to keep the mulch in place.

New soil additive pulls water from the air

The University of Texas, Austin has announced they have produced a new hydrogel product that can actually pull moisture out of the air to keep plants hydrated. The hydrogel is mixed with soil as many hydrogel products already are mixed. It pulls water from the air, mostly at night, and plant roots can access it.

The new hydrogel could be used on farmland where climate change has been producing droughts and allow crops to be grown there. (No information on how expensive that would be.) Researchers are also speculating that it could be used to provide drinking water for humans in dry areas.

Tuesday, October 27, 2020

October 27, 2020 both bulbs

Diascia

I’m sitting here in my home office and it’s 37 degrees with a rain-snow mix outside. It’s dark and gloomy. Inside I am surrounded by green plants, flowers and bright cheerful light. Electricity is one of the greatest of inventions and grow lights are not far behind. I’m going to expand on that a little later.

I really appreciated electricity this past week after being without it for 24 hours after a storm passed through. Living in the country you don’t have water flowing when the electricity goes out, as well as no heat, no refrigeration, and no lights.

Normally I prepare in advance if storms are predicted, filling buckets getting the generator out and so on. I charge my phone and kindle reader and make sure I have downloaded something to read. I am embarrassed that this time I missed the warning signs. No buckets of water, nothing downloaded I hadn’t already read. The storm roared through and poles went down and it went dark.

Our generator was just sent out for repairs earlier that day. My husband had tried to start it and broke the pull cord and couldn’t fix it. That was earlier in the summer. I had just nagged him enough to get him to call his “guy”. The stars all aligned just right, and it was miserable. Thank goodness it was only 24 hours.

The garden outside is pretty much finished. The hostas are melting clumps of yellow leaves. The oaks and poplars are bare and maples nearly so. It’s such a messy looking time of the year. I noticed a clump of diascia is still blooming on the deck. I think I am going to dig it up and pot it and bring it inside. I haven’t tried overwintering it inside.

I still have dahlias to dig up. I still have 275 bulbs to plant. They arrived last week but it was rainy and cold, and I haven’t had a chance to plant them. I’m hoping to get them done tomorrow. It’s late for me to be planting bulbs but luckily, I ordered fewer than in past years.

Inside I have lots of things in bloom. My lemon tree is blooming, and I am going to play bee and see if I get lemons. Usually it blooms outside and sets fruit before I bring it in. It was late this year. I have a beautiful white ivy geranium in bloom right next to me today.

It’s getting late but there’s still time to plant bulbs for forcing- and amaryllis

If you’d like to have spring flowers early this year you can follow a tradition that’s been practiced for hundreds of years- forcing bulbs. Forcing bulbs means getting them to bloom outside of their normal blooming period, and generally indoors. Greenhouses do this to have blooming bulbs for sale shortly after Christmas, but you can easily do it at home too.

Paper white narcissus, a yellow narcissus known as Sol D’Or, and some hyacinths are probably still available for forcing. Paper whites and Sol D’Or don’t need a chilling period to bloom. Some catalogs may also sell pre-chilled bulbs for late fall and winter potting.

You can start paper whites just about any time in the fall and winter and expect blooms in about 6 weeks. So, you could have those for Christmas.

Any kind of spring blooming bulb can be forced, from tiny crocus and snowdrops to stately tulips and alliums. With November planting you won’t get flowers until February and March, but that will still be earlier than they bloom outside for most bulbs and it will bring a burst of spring inside just when you need it most. If you found pre-chilled bulbs for sale you may get flowers earlier.

Amaryllis require 8-12 weeks from planting to bloom, depending on the cultivar and conditions. You are probably too late to get bloom at Christmas now, but you will have blooms shortly after Christmas. They do not need chilling to bloom.

Amaryllis

What to plant them in

Paper white and other narcissus and some hyacinths can be forced in water. Fill a container with rocks, glass beads or marbles, put water in the bottom inch or two and partially bury the bulbs in the filler. You want just the base of the bulb in water, submerged bulbs will rot.

Most bulbs, however, do best in potting medium. Since you’ll need to move the pots around and good drainage is a must, a good lightweight potting mix is essential. Shallow pots are best but they should be deep enough so the bulbs can be lightly covered with the potting medium and still have at least 2 inches of medium below them. The containers should have good drainage.

Moisten the potting medium, add some to the container, and arrange the bulbs on top. To make the prettiest showing put bulbs close together. Bulbs with large foliage like tulips need a little more room in the pot but bulbs with narrow foliage like crocus can be planted with only a bit of a gap between them.

Plant bulbs with the pointed end up. Arrange any tulip bulbs so that the flatter side of the bulb faces toward the pot wall. The leaves will then droop over the pot sides and the blooms will be concentrated in the center of the pot.

Once you have arranged the bulbs fill up the pot with moistened potting medium. Remember to leave space below the pot rim for water.

After potting put paper whites, pre chilled bulbs and amaryllis in brightly lit place with temperatures above 65 degrees F. Keep potting medium moist but not soggy. They should sprout quickly and bloom anywhere from 6 weeks for paperwhites to 12 weeks for amaryllis. For all other bulbs follow the chilling process below.

The chilling process

Once pots are planted, they need a chilling period. (Remember paper whites, some other narcissus and amaryllis don’t need chilling.) If they don’t get this, flowers won’t form. The ideal chilling temperature is between 30-40 degrees F. You can achieve this by putting the pots in an unheated garage or chilly basement or in a refrigerator. If you are going to use the refrigerator don’t store fruit in it since the ethylene they give off can disrupt flower formation. A cooler or insulated box on the patio or deck might work.

You are trying to prevent the potted bulbs from getting too cold too. Bulbs planted in the ground are somewhat insulated because they are planted deeper and have more soil around them. When bulbs in pots are subjected to long periods of time below 25 degrees they often die.

One more note about using the outdoor weather to chill bulbs. How cold your fall and early winter weather are will affect how soon the bulbs can bloom. Remember chilling temperatures are below 40 degrees. If the late fall and early winter are warm the bulbs will take longer to bloom. If you want the bulbs to bloom near a specific time you need to use a refrigerator to control the chill period.

Pots need to be kept barely moist while chilling. Check your pots every other week and add a little barely warm water if they seem very dry. When a pot is too dry it feels very light and the potting medium may draw away from the pot sides. If the soil seems soggy, check to see if the drainage is obstructed and don’t water. Very wet pots cause the bulbs to rot.

Different plant species require different cooling times to form flowers. Crocus and grape hyacinths require about 9 weeks of chilling, snowdrops require 15 weeks, species tulips that bloom early in the garden require about 10 weeks, other tulips require 12-16 weeks. The later they bloom outside the more chilling weeks they require. Daffodils and narcissus need about 12 weeks. Hyacinths need 12-15 weeks. Iris reticulate and alliums may need 15 weeks.

When the chilling period is over, wake the plants up by gently by moving them to a little warmer area of 50-60 degrees, in indirect light. Water the pots with warm water. After a week move them to a sunny spot above 60 degrees. Keep the pots moist but not soggy. Most will be sprouting by then and will bloom in 2-3 weeks.

If you have a specific time you want bulbs to bloom you can safely leave bulbs to chill longer. If you have lots of chilled pots stagger the times you wake up the plants.

You can grow it inside

If there is one thing that legalizing marihuana has done is that it has resulted in an explosion of new products aimed at growing plants inside. Even if you don’t have a greenhouse or sunroom anyone can now grow plants inside, whether it’s your medicine, or some kitchen herbs, beautiful hibiscus, succulents or juicy tomatoes. You aren’t limited to houseplants or a windowsill.

If you like vegetable gardening, it’s now fairly easy to grow things like tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and strawberries inside all winter. You can use your basement, attic or even a closet. There are small systems for herbs and greens that can be set up in the kitchen. You can have healthy home-grown food all winter even without a greenhouse.

Grow lights

Grow lights are one of the best innovations to come from the cannabis industry. The new grow lights can be used to supplement light from a window, which is not sufficient for many plants even in a south facing window. This is especially true in northern winters. And if you don’t have good windows to put plants in, or enough windows, grow lights can let you garden anywhere.

There are huge, powerful halogen and sodium grow lights, and people still use fluorescent and CFL grow bulbs but there is also a plethora of smaller LED grow lights that are economical to run and not much of a fire hazard. I strongly recommend using LED lights for houseplants and things like tomato and herb plants you are growing inside your home.

Most LED lights plug in and don’t require an electrician to wire them in and you can get them for as low as $20. There are grow bulbs that screw into a regular light socket too. You can use inexpensive fixtures from the hardware store with many grow bulbs. I have a mixture of fixtures with grow bulbs and commercial grow light set ups, some things are better for one situation over the other.

While the purple toned lights are still available and plants seem to love them, there are now good and reasonably priced “full spectrum” lights that have light much like natural sunlight. Those are the lights I like for plants you want to see in their natural colors. A bonus is that they help cheer up people with seasonal depression. I don’t like being around the purple lights, but I do like the full spectrum light, which is usually a strong, “white light” to the eye.

While grow lights may seem very bright to you, they normally do not harm plants by being too bright. Plants that like shade outside still grow well under bright grow lights. In fact, you may be amazed how well they grow.

Two types of plant lights, a floor lamp type at left
and a clamp light fixture with grow bulb on the right

When you are searching for grow lights read the comments and ratings other people have given that product. See if they give off heat and what the size area they light up. Check out how the bulbs need to be suspended. Many new grow lights now clamp onto something and the lights are on adjustable arms. I really like these, but they may not work for you.

Some lights can be suspended under a shelf or cupboard with screws. I have suspended lights with small bungee cords that run across the light and over a shelf edge.

Some lights hang and you’ll need to think about how you will hang them. For best results most lights need to be a foot or so above the plant top. Some plants will be fine with lights that are suspended farther away. You may need to be able to adjust the lights as plants grow.

The square footage a light covers varies by the shape and wattage of the bulb/light. It also varies by how high it is suspended over the plants, the further away the more area covered, but the light quality and strength gets less. Measure the length and depth of the area where you want to put plants and multiply them, to get the square footage. For example, 3 feet x 2 feet = 6 square feet. Check the product description and then see how many bulbs you’ll need to buy.

Look at the wattage and lumens ratings. The higher the wattage and lumens the more expensive the light will be. The term equivalent is referring to the light given off by a similar wattage incandescent bulb. So, you’ll see grow bulbs listed from 25-watt equivalent to 300 or higher watts. You may also see the lumen rating listed.

Wattage actually refers to the amount of power used; lumen is the term that describes how much light the bulb gives off. Most LED grow lights do not actually give off the wattage equivalent/lumens listed; it ends up being somewhat less in practice. But listing wattage gives you a reference range anyway. And as grow lights age, they lose some of their brightness. Many people change them after 1 year of daily use.

For lighting typical houseplants use the lower wattage and lumens bulbs. They usually are sold as 40-60-watt equivalent bulbs. For larger flowering plants like hibiscus, gardenias, brugmansia, go up a notch to medium wattage/lumens,75-100-watt equivalent. For growing tomatoes and peppers it’s suggested you buy lights with at least a 300-watt rating. (For growing pot, you go way beyond this if you listen to the experts.)

Homeowners gardening inside will want to avoid lights that give off a lot of heat, or that get hot to the touch, to lessen the chance of fire or injury to kids and pets. This is also important if you are going to set up in a closet or other enclosed space. Too much heat can limit flowering and fruiting.

CAUTION: electricity and water don’t mix well. Make sure water can’t drip on grow bulbs, timers, extension cords and so on. Use caution when watering not to splash bulbs, they may crack or even explode.

I added a simple reflector type light to my unheated porch
for winter plant storage.

Timers

Many grow lights now have built in timers but some of those timers can be a headache to get programmed right. You can buy inexpensive timers, under $10, to use for light systems that don’t have timers. Timers make sure your plants get a regular schedule of light. You don’t have to worry when you are driving to work that you haven’t turned on the plant lights.

Most indoor plants do best with 10-12 hours of light. Plants do need some dark time so don’t leave lights on all the time. Some houseplants will do well with only 6-9 hours of light. When growing plants like tomatoes and strawberries you may want to go to 14 hours of light. Some plants need a certain schedule of light/dark to initiate bloom. Set your timers to give them what they need.

If your lights aren’t as strong as you think your plants would like, leaving them on a little longer can help compensate. Later in spring if plants are getting strong natural light from a window you may want to decrease the grow light time.

You can set the lights to turn on and off in a way that suits your schedule, and you don’t need to follow the natural light cycle outside. For example, you can have the lights come on at 5 am when it’s still dark outside and go off at 5 pm, before you start watching TV and the lights cause a glare on the screen. Or if you are gone all day and worry about a fire starting from your lights in the basement, have them on at night while you are home and could hear an alarm.

Grow bags and pots

Grow bags are another innovation that cannabis growers have given home gardeners. These are actual bags woven with a rot resistant fabric. Grow bags are better for plants that aren’t in the main living area. They come in various sizes and are inexpensive and reusable. Use them for growing things like tomatoes and peppers, or your cannabis plants.

If you are going to be growing food crops inside and they aren’t part of your room décor you can improvise many good containers. Use cheap buckets or trash cans with holes drilled in the bottom for large plants. I have seen greens and strawberries grown in sections of gutter or pieces of large diameter PVC pipe slit lengthwise. Everything does need drainage.

A grow store or your local box store probably has a wide range of simple plastic pots for growing also. If you are just growing food crops or if you aren’t trying to match your home décor these will be an economical solution. Make sure any pot you buy has drainage holes.

Hydroponics

You can now buy kits that have everything you need to start a hydroponic set up. They are much less expensive and easier to set up than in the past. There are a variety of ways these work, you need to do a lot of research before deciding which system seems to fit your needs. Personally, I think that for home growers, hydroponic systems are too much work.

For all but the smallest hydroponic systems you should probably have a room with a floor drain, like in the basement. I wouldn’t set them up on a carpeted surface. There will be leaks and spills. You’ll also need easy access to water.

The self-watering pots are kind of a hybrid between hydroponics and regular pots. They are better now than they were 10 years ago, but there is still a wide variation in how well they work. You still have to remember to add water to the water well.

Fertilizers, pesticides

If you are growing cannabis for the first time, you’ll be amazed at the types of fertilizer formulations you can get at a grow store. Let an expert give you some tips on what to use when. But if you are growing houseplants or vegetables inside just look for simple balanced fertilizers. Most fruiting plants and regularly harvested herbs and greens are going to need fertilization. Houseplants under lights may grow more than plants on a windowsill in winter and need more fertilizer to support growth and bloom.

You can use commercial fertilizers from any store for growing indoor plants. Just remember to follow the directions for indoor plants. Using too much fertilizer inside leads to serious problems. I would not use manure, or garbage like eggshells and coffee grounds on inside plants. These cause smells, mold and pest problems.

Sometimes indoor plants develop pest problems. White fly and aphids are common. When considering pesticides for indoors remember you may be breathing the air pesticides were sprayed in. If you aren’t eating the plant using systemic pesticides is probably best method. If you are harvesting herbs or growing things like tomatoes to eat, you’ll need to use pesticides for food crops just as you would outside.

Other things for indoor growing

Indoor gardeners growing in enclosed spaces may need small fans to circulate the air. Depending on the plants being grown humidifiers may be needed too. Please have working fire alarms in the home when using grow lights for gardening.

If you are growing plants in a closet or small room you may want to line the walls with a reflective surface, like foil, to maximize light. Special materials are sold for horticulture purposes, but the home gardener can improvise with reflective insulating panels or even heavy-duty aluminum foil. Glue or tape it to cardboard for easy handling.

Thermometers and humidity gauges are good to have when growing plants inside. These are also inexpensive. If your grow area is outside your living space, you’ll need to know if it’s warm enough- or too warm. And humidity levels can be important for successful indoor growing too.

Roasting pumpkin seeds

Pumpkins make nice decorations, but they also have seeds which make an excellent tasty and nutritious snack. Clean the seeds out of one or more pumpkins and try to remove as much of the orange “goop” as possible. Place the seeds in a colander and wash with cold water.

Drain and spread the seeds on a foil covered cookie sheet that has been sprayed with cooking spray. Lightly spray the seeds with cooking spray or toss with a bit of olive oil, and salt to your taste. Put the cookie sheets in an oven set at 325 degrees and roast for about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally and keep checking on them, don’t let them get too brown. After roasting they can be stored in sealed containers.

For spicy pumpkin seeds try this recipe. Mix 1 ½ tablespoons butter, ½ teaspoon seasoned salt, 1/8 teaspoon garlic powder and 2 teaspoons of Worchester sauce in a bowl and toss the seeds in it before roasting. It will coat 2-3 cups of seeds.

Garlic salt, red pepper, parmesan cheese, and cinnamon are all good seasonings to try on pumpkin seeds. There are various flavored popcorn seasonings on the market, caramel, cheddar, ranch and so on, that can be sprinkled on the pumpkin seeds also.

"All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken."

— Thomas Wolfe

Kim Willis

All parts of this blog are copyrighted and may not be used without permission.

And So On….

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Newsletter/blog information

Tuesday, October 20, 2020

October 20, 2020 falling leaves and pumpkins

Hi Gardeners

It’s 52 degrees as I write this. We have had several freezing nights lately and lots of rain. The garden is pretty well gone although a few hardy things bloom on. The clematis by the barn is putting out a few blooms, that’s surprising. This week I start my bulb planting, weather and my arthritis permitting.

The oak tree is almost completely bare and the big maple in the side yard is shedding heavily. Fall color came quickly and is going just as quickly. Every night as I go to the barn, I hear great flocks of geese honking their way south. The farm fields around me are pretty well harvested. I can now see clearly across them and watch the deer gleaning the grain.

I have the urge to clean and bake now, and hoard away food like a squirrel. Hoarding this year might be more urgent and practical than in past years. With the virus and a snowy winter predicted everyone needs to stock up. Do you have enough toilet paper?

I turn my gardening to the inside now. Watering this jungle takes nearly an hour to do it right. The plants inside are blooming quite well, I have 2 hibiscuses in bloom, streptocarpus, bouvardia, pomegranate, lemon, begonias, geraniums, fuchsia, Ardisia, and gerbera daisies in bloom inside.

Streptocarpus

The plants inside all look good right now. As winter drags on some will get straggly but for now, everything is lush. The elephant ear on the porch is thriving and I so want to bring it into the main house. But it’s huge, the pot is huge, and even though I play around with new floor plans I can’t seem to find room for it. If I could convince my husband we don’t need to see the TV it might work. I do have a new grow light, Amazon deal. If I could just find a new place to plug it in…

This weekend I dug up some cannas and to do so I had to take out the sweet potatoes growing around them. The tops were mostly frost blackened but underneath there was still some surviving foliage. I forced myself not to pot them and rescue them. Instead I took some cuttings, which are rooting in water on the windowsill. So, I decided to write about rooting cuttings in water today.

Starting cuttings in water

I have been seeing and getting lots of questions about starting cuttings in water. Many people seem to be under the impression that you can take any piece of a plant, plop it in water and it will grow. That’s simply not the case. While some plants will start from the right pieces placed in water, many will not. And in many cases, it’s better to start cuttings in potting medium and not water.

A cutting that you want to root needs at least one node. A node is a place along a plant stem where new growth can occur. It’s usually where a leaf will sprout along a stem, leaf joint. It can look like a thickened area, or a bump along the stem. Some plants can put out both leaves and roots from a single node, but it’s usually best if cuttings have 2 nodes, one to make the leaves and one to make the roots.

There are plants that can start from a leaf stem without nodes or even from a leaf. But most leaf or flower stems without nodes will not produce a new plant for you. Think of a bouget. How many of those flower stems in the vase are going to put out roots? Not many. You can pluck a hosta leaf and stick the stem in water but it’s almost never going to root. (Miracles do happen.)

When plants produce aerial plantlets, like spider plants, you don’t take a leaf from the plant and stick it in water, you take the whole plantlet. Put the base in water, or better in soil. Plants like sanseveria (snake plant) and African violets, which can be started from a single leaf are best started in potting medium. Cacti and succulents are more easily rooted in sand or coarse potting medium.

If you want to reproduce a plant from a cutting look up the culture (care and growing) of a plant. Most references will list the best ways to reproduce the plant. If stem cuttings are mentioned, you may be able to put the cutting in water to root. But not all plant cuttings will root in water, some do better when the cutting is inserted into potting medium, vermiculite or sand.

In general cuttings that will root in water are from plants with soft (herbaceous) stems. Many of the common plants rooted in water are houseplants. Plants with woody and semi-woody stems root better in solid mediums. There may be certain times of the year when cuttings are more likely to root. In general, this is when a growth spurt is happening, usually in spring.

If you will be keeping the plant growing in water then starting it in water is the right method, providing it’s a plant that will root in water. But if you are going to plant the cutting in potting medium or soil at some point, then start it in soil or potting medium.

When plant roots begin in water, they produce certain kinds of root cells to deal with the environment. When you take them out and pot them, they have to shift those cells to deal with the soil environment. This takes lots of plant resources. Many plants can handle this but there will be a growth setback. Some plants though, will die.

So, if you are gong to try to start a plant cutting in water here’s the basics.

Make sure it’s a plant species that can root in water.

Take the right kind of stem cutting. It should have at least 2 nodes, at least one that will be under water and one above it. Don’t make cuttings too long -3-4 nodes long is best.

Cut your plant piece so that there is very little stem left below the last node in the water.

You can leave the leaves on the cutting top, those parts above water. Cuttings without leaves can be started also. No leaves should be under water.

Containers should hold at least a couple inches of water. They can be clear or any color. You’ll want heavy containers that don’t tip over easily.

Use clean water to fill containers and keep them filled to the same level as water evaporates. If the water starts to blacken or smell dump it and refill with fresh water. You don’t need to use distilled or rainwater.

If cuttings are going to root in water, they probably don’t need any rooting hormone, although liquid rooting hormones are now available. Do not add fertilizer, copper pennies, Epsom salt, or homemade brews of various things. Just use plain water.

If cuttings turn black and mushy discard them. Some cuttings take longer than others to root but if you have seen no signs of rooting after a month, the leaves have dropped off the top part and there are no new leaf buds developing, it’s probably dead.

Keep the container of cuttings in bright light but not in direct sun as they root. Warmer room temperatures, above 50 degrees F, are best for the majority of plants.

Don’t use any fertilizer until the cuttings have good roots and are growing new leaves. Then you must be very, very careful not too add too much if you want to add fertilizer. You will burn the roots. Plants manufacture their own food but can benefit from some trace minerals in fertilizer from time to time when growing in water. Use commercial water-soluble fertilizers, not things like fish meal or manure, which can cause bacterial rot and certainly smell up a house. A tiny pinch, like wetting your finger and picking some fertilizer up on it and dipping it in the container, is all that’s needed.

If you decide to pot the cutting in potting medium you don’t need to add soil gradually to the container. Just pot it up. Keep the soil moist but not soggy. Soggy soil will rot the roots, even if they were used to water. If you are going to grow the plant in soil or potting medium get it out of the water and into that medium as soon as you see roots developing.

Here are some plants that will start easily in water. Pothos, philodendron, bridal veil, inch plant, purple passion plant, Boston ivy, Swedish ivy, coleus, wax begonias, sweet potato, pilea, setcreasea, zebrina, geraniums (Pelargoniums), impatiens, mints, tomatoes, lucky bamboo, thyme. Some of these plants will need transplanting into soil fairly soon after rooting in water to continue to grow.

In general plants with long stems, like many trailing plants or prominent nodes along a fleshy stem are candidates for water rooting. Plants where the nodes are producing little “bumps” around them are also prime candidates.

Some succulents like jade plants and holiday cacti might root in water but are more likely to successfully grow if rooted in a solid medium.

Plants with no easily seen stems, (crown type plants) and plants with woody stems are not likely to root in water.

Let’s talk about deer

Do you know what the country’s most dangerous animal is? Yep, Bambi. A report done last year indicated that the number of car-deer collisions averages 1,332,322 each year. The number of human deaths from such collisions averages 440 each year with about 229,000 additional injuries each year. Elk, antelope and moose also cause a few deaths every year.

October through December are when the highest number of deer collisions occur. So of course, all drivers should take extra precautions this time of year. Dusk is the most likely time for a collision to occur, but deer can magically appear in the road at any time of the day. Slow down, especially in rural areas. Areas with farm fields on one side and wooded areas on the other are prime crossing areas.

Because deer are often chasing each other this time of year they don’t pay as much attention to roads as they normally do. And when you see one deer cross the road, slow down drastically or stop. This time of year there are almost always more deer coming.

If you see a deer in the road brake but do not swerve. Most people who die from deer collisions swerved and hit the deer anyway, plus something else. Some deaths that were caused by people swerving to avoid deer may never be counted as deer collisions deaths because the deer didn’t get hit and disappeared from the scene.

Deer damage in your garden may increase

It’s rutting (mating) time for deer and gardeners should take steps to protect their gardens from deer damage done by bucks rubbing their antlers on small trees. They can scrape the bark off, killing the tree, or they can bend and break small trees. And since winter is coming and deer and other animals may eat the bark off trees, girdling and killing them during winter, it’s time to protect your trees.

Young trees are most at risk for both rutting damage and winter girdling. Deer like trees with soft bark and diameters of less than 12 inches both for rubbing on and eating. Trees that have an open area around them, such as ornamental trees in the landscape, are preferred for rubbing. Sapling trees on the outer edges of woodlands are also targets.

Young trees should be protected at planting if you are in deer country – and few places aren’t in deer country anymore. This can be done with a “cage” of wire fencing, or for trees that go dormant in winter, a tree tube. To keep small animals like rabbits or voles from eating bark at the tree base, the bottom 3 feet of your cage should be wire with small openings, like ½ inch hardware cloth. Chicken wire can keep out rabbits but not voles.

As a temporary aide to keeping deer from rubbing on trees you could put things close to and around the tree like lawn chairs, buckets of earth, lawn art and so on. They may or may not be kept away by spraying commercial products on the trees like “PlantSkydd.” It depends on the deer population in your area. Bars of soap, human hair, peeing on the tree rarely work to stop rubbing.

If you are in an area with a big deer population and have experienced deer damage in the garden, stop fooling around and get a good fence, wire or electric. Or learn to live with the damage.

Deer eating your plants

Autumn also means winter is near and winter and early spring is when most deer feeding damage occurs to landscapes. It’s time to protect your plants. The only way to stop deer damage completely is to eliminate the deer from your garden with an 8 feet high fence. Barring that, electric wire is the next most reliable option. Shorter fences and spraying with commercial deer repellants help to some extent. Repellants must be applied frequently.

Folk remedies like Irish Spring soap, bloodmeal, various scents and urine products, human hair and so on, may work for a short time, but ultimately will fail. In areas where deer are used to human activity, noises, dogs barking, tin pans flapping in the breeze and so on, are often ignored by deer.

Some favored trees and shrubs can be protected with plastic netting or chicken wire. Burlap on strong stakes can offer wind protection as well as deer protection. There must be no gaps in netting or burlap barriers, they must be tall enough and far enough from the plants that deer can’t lean over it to reach the plants. There should not be so much space between the barrier and the plant that deer can leap over and land safely. About 3 feet of space seems to work.

I have had some success with strands of solar powered twinkle lights set on a “chasing” mode and strung on posts around the garden as a barrier. They come on automatically at dusk. Lights on a steady mode or just blinking don’t work. It has to look as if the lights are moving. The solar panel needs to be in the sun and on a post, so it doesn’t get buried in snow.

A problem with the lights is that deer sometimes run through them, in daylight probably, and break the wires. Then the lights don’t work. If I don’t catch that right away damage gets done. And some long stretches of dark skies can also cause outages, although even a partly cloudy day is usually enough to power them.

I’m in a rural area and the lights don’t bother any neighbors. You might get complaints if you have close neighbors and the lights are bothering them. I use the lights all year around and all I can say is that when they are working, I don’t have deer damage to my ornamentals surrounded by them.

In the summer the sprinklers that detect motion and turn on with a noise and water spray are pretty effective. You need an electric and water hookup for them, and they don’t work when temps are below freezing.

Do not feed the deer if you like your garden undamaged

You can never feed the deer enough to keep them from eating your garden. They can eat corn for an hour, then decide they feel like a bit of arborvitae for dessert. Deer like variety and there are some plants they crave whether plenty of food is available or not.

The more food you put out for the deer; the more deer will show up. Soon you will have hordes of deer, at least in winter when they are not very territorial. They will trample plants as well as eat them, leave piles of poop for your dogs to roll in and empty the bird feeders.

You may think it’s fun to watch the deer come and eat from your yard. But if you are a gardener who likes a variety of nice ornamentals and spends a bit of money on them, you’ll soon need to decide which thing you like the most- your garden or watching deer. Deer do not understand that the corn and apples you put out are ok for them to eat but they should leave your arborvitaes and tulips alone.

When you feed deer, you aren’t doing them a service. Experts tell us it’s not good for the deer’s digestive system to eat corn and other grains. In winter their body normally adjusts to get nutrition from browse, that’s young trees and vegetation left above the snow line. If your grain suddenly stops it will be very hard for their digestive system to quickly adjust. Yes, deer glean grains form harvested fields but that usually is gone before winter. They also have to expend more energy finding it than eating from a pile.

Feeding deer habituates them to humans and makes them easier targets for hunters, it makes them more likely to damage gardens in summer too, when there is plenty of food. Where deer are crossing roads to get to feeding stations, they endanger drivers. Where deer congregate to eat, they also spread disease.

Some deer are meant to starve in winter, it’s natures population control. But in most rural agricultural areas and suburban areas deer rarely starve over the winter, even if people don’t feed them. And extra food means extra babies, does have triplets instead of singles or twins. This is not sustainable over time. Eventually they do begin to die from disease and starvation due to over population.

And to those people who say –“the poor deer- where do you expect them to go? We took over their habitat”, the answer is we didn’t take over their habitat. Instead we have created more habitat, protected it from hunting and added extra food. There are far more deer in this country than there were when Europeans arrived here.

In a great many areas of the country the deer population is a big problem, the numbers exceed what is healthy and sustainable for the area. They are destroying native endangered plants and diminishing habitat for other animals. They are bringing in ticks to backyards and diseases to livestock.

Plants deer don’t like

Every gardener who has had deer damage gets the idea to just grow plants deer don’t like. That’s often not a good solution. There are very few plants deer won’t eat if they are hungry. And what they will eat in one area they may not eat in another. And that’s the reason deer proof plant lists vary from area to area and person to person. Native plants are not immune to deer feeding. In fact, some natives, like trilliums, are their favorite foods.

There are certain plants deer seem to dislike more than others but just remember they are not deer proof, no matter what some people will tell you. I’ll list some of those here that are perennial. Intermingling these plants can help protect others in some cases, but don’t count on that either.

Spring bulbs; alliums, daffodils and narcissus (I have had deer eat the flowers but rarely), fritillaria, snowdrops, star of Bethlehem, hyacinth, grape hyacinth, crocus (I have had deer eat these), corydalis

Herbs- mint, rosemary, sage, lavender, catmint, tansy, lemon balm

Onions, garlic, chives, horseradish

Ferns- ostrich, bracken, most ferns are safe from damage

Trees and shrubs; Many pines- white pine is eaten when young, spruce, junipers, hollies, paper birch, katsura, boxwood, sassafras, witch hazel, barberries, paw paw- deer will eat the fruit

Other perennials; ajuga, iris of most types, foxglove, peonies- (I have had occasional damage), poppies, ligularia, Bishops weed, bleeding heart, baptisia, pulmonaria, dames rocket, larkspur, bamboo- many types escape being eaten, yucca, Russian sage, salvias, buddleia, potentilla, sweet woodruff

Natives; Jack in the Pulpit, lilies of the valley, mayapple, bayberry, bearberry, elderberries

This list doesn’t include all plants that deer avoid and reflects my own growing area. In the south and west there may be other species deer avoid.