Gardening Tips – May

(USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 7-A)

by Bill Colvin

Reapply a Rose organic food mix (i.e. Rose-tone), Epsom salts, and alfalfa pellets to each established

rose bush.

One important factor for all flowering plants is to

deadhead spent blooms. On most plants, this will encourage more blooms.

Assuming a stable weather pattern with night time temperatures above 50 degrees, you can set

houseplants outside in a shady location for the summer.

Minor pruning can be done to shape plants as needed. Avoid any severe pruning until winter. All

spring flowering shrubs should be pruned and fertilized after blooming. Continue to cut back foliage of spring bulbs after leaves have turned yellow/brown. Plant summer bulbs (i.e. callas, dahlias, cala-diums, cannas, etc) when night time tem-peratures are consistently above 50 de-grees.

Relocating trees/shrubs should not be done at this time. Plants are actively growing and relocating will cause serious plant shock. Wait till the plant is dormant (winter) before relocating.

Crape Myrtles and hibiscus should be fer-tilized now (using Holly-tone or general purpose fertilizer) to assure abundant sum-mer blooms. Fertilize annuals and perennials this month. Do not fertilize tall fescue lawns until fall.

Pinch back mums, zinnias, salvia, celosia, petunias, marigolds, and snap dragons to slow down top growth and encourage more branching and blooms.

Fertilize (side dress) vegetables six weeks after planting. Plant tender vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, and melons. Plant herbs. Continue to plant annuals and peren-nials.

Make sure all newly planted plants are

watered weekly.

Hang up Hummingbird feeders, if not done in April.

Recommendations based on information from Forsyth County Extension Office.

Zephrin Drouhin

Climber, thornless, great fragrance, planted in my garden three years ago

Dreaming Your Garden: Questions to Consider

You probably have a vision of what you want in your garden, whether it's a personal garden for you or for your family, or, perhaps for a community program or school.

Planning is extremely important, Here are some questions to consider:

1. What will be the location of the garden. Is it sunny, shady or both?
2. How much do you and others want to be involved.
3. Is it a garden for socializing, viewing, play, or all? What else do you want?
4. If it's a community or school project....who, what, why?
5. Does your garden already exist and you want to expand or renovate?
6. Is it a new garden. How to you envision it two years from now.
7. Other questions?

I will provide you with a questionnaire before our planning begins.

Steps in the process:

• Complete the questionnaire and set and appointment.
• I will visit your site for a consultaion (one hour)
• We will determine what you need and how I might assist you.
• I will work with you as much as you want (to developa plan, including rough sketches, choose plant materials, plant and maintain.

I do not do any installation or planting. My role is to guide you through the process. I can even go with you to the nursery to select plants/flowers/tools if you need that.

I can also refer you to designers and contractors as well as good nursery sources.

The following photographs are examples of types of things where I have experience.

Home Shade Garden

Small garden for condo dweller.

March Tips

Gardening Tips – March

(USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 7-A )

by Bill Colvin

As you know, the temperatures this "winter" were much above normal. As a result, there are plants starting to grow early. Care should be taken when encour-aging them to grow more (i.e. fertilizing). Since March is usually a month of transi-tional weather, fertilizing of shrubs and perennials should be done based on cur-rent and projected weather conditions. If you do not fertilize early in the month, then you should fertilize by late March, or early April.

In late March, remove winter mulch from roses. Apply Epsom salt (Magnesium Sul-phate), alfalfa pellets, and an organic rose food mix to each plant. Prune non-climbing roses to remove any dead stems. Prune climbing roses after they bloom.

Fertilize non-spring blooming shrubs with a slow release fertilizer blend (i.e. Holly-tone). General pruning and fertilizing of spring blooming shrubs can be done as soon as blooms fade.

Apply a slow-release general fertilizer (i.e. Osmocote) to established perennials. Ap-ply a general purpose bulb food mix (i.e. Bulbtone) as the bulb foliage begins to emerge and again after flower has faded. Apply pre-emergent herbicide to control lawn weeds about the time Dogwoods bloom.

As bulb flowers fade, you can remove the flower stem, but leave the foliage till it turns yellow/brown. This is the most criti-cal point in the bulb’s development for the next flowering season. This is also the right time to divide crowded spring blooming bulbs. In dividing these bulbs, leave the foliage and plant bulbs to the proper depth – usually 2 ½ times the bulb size.

Do not plant tender plants till the weather warms consistently in April. It is all right to plant ‘seasoned’ plants (those that have remained outside in pots) now.

Recommendations based on information from Forsyth County Extension Office. For more information, please contact Bill Colvin.

FEBRUARY GARDENING TIPS

(USDA Plant Hardiness Zone 7-A )

PRUNING...this is the time!

WEEDING...you got to be kidding

• This is still a good month for pruning those plants that do NOT bloom in the spring. Trim diseased, dead or undesired branches from shrubs.
• Prune old flowered wood from deciduous flowering shrubs (those that bloom after midsummer).
• Prune grape-vines and blueberries before new growth appears and after most of the severe cold has passed. Prune Boxwood before new growth appears.
• Fruit trees should be pruned to keep height down and the tree open for good light.
• Prune Camellias after they finish blooming.
• Prune Butterfly Bush (Buddleia) back to three to four feet. Severe pruning of overgrown shrubs can be done in February as long as new growth has not started; however don’t remove more than 1/3 of total shrub. DO NOT PRUNE spring flowering shrubs until after they bloom. You don’t want to prune the buds before they flower!
• Hydrangeas are one of the most confusing of all to prune.  DO not prune until you are sure how to do it (http://www.hydrangeashydrangeas.com/ is a great site for recommendations.

WEEDING

      Look for those little weeds like henbit that are spreading through your garden and yank them out before they have time to flower and throw their seeds all over the place.  If you weed them out now you will save yourself a lot of trouble later.  I spent about two hours out in my garden today (yes, it was almost 60 degrees) and got rid of quite a few.  David Bare, garden columnist for the Winston-Salem Journal (journal.now, search David Bare) had a great article about this.  Check it out.

FERTILIZING
During February, only fertilize winter booming plants like Daphne and Lenten Rose. Trees and shrubs can be planted during the winter as long as the ground is not frozen. Apply one pound of  nitrogen per 1,000 sq. ft. to fescue lawn.

CLEANING UP
Trim liriope (Monkey grass) to remove old foliage. Trim ornamental grass to within two to three feet of ground. Cut back old growth on established perennials before new growth appears. When you rake up leaves from beds, deposit them into your compost bin.  Finished compost can be spread up to 3" on top of existing beds.  Remove any weeds that you see coming up.

PLANTING

Plant ground covers such as perennial geranium, epimedium, and liriope. Plant English peas, onions, Irish potatoes, radishes, rutabagas, spinach, turnips, and carrots. Start cabbage, collards, broccoli, cauliflower and lettuce indoors for later planting. Plant strawberries. At the end of the month, remove mulch from blooming plants. It is a good idea to have soil tested every three years. Winter is a good time to send amples into NCSU. Contact the Forsyth County Extension Office for instructions. Soil tests are free in North Carolina.

Sources:  Forsyth County Extension Office
               Bill Colvin, Master Gardener

 

USDA Unveils New Plant Hardiness Zone Map

From: USDA Office of Communications [mailto:usda@public.govdelivery.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2012 11:02 AM
To: Beth, Diane
Subject: USDA Unveils New Plant Hardiness Zone Map


WASHINGTON, Jan. 25, 2012--The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today released the new version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map (PHZM), updating a useful tool for gardeners and researchers for the first time since 1990 with greater accuracy and detail. The new map—jointly developed by USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and Oregon State University's (OSU) PRISM Climate Group—is available online atwww.planthardiness.ars.usda.gov. ARS is the chief intramural scientific research agency of USDA.
For the first time, the new map offers a Geographic Information System (GIS)-based interactive format and is specifically designed to be Internet-friendly. The map website also incorporates a "find your zone by ZIP code" function. Static images of national, regional and state maps have also been included to ensure the map is readily accessible to those who lack broadband Internet access.
"This is the most sophisticated Plant Hardiness Zone Map yet for the United States," said Dr. Catherine Woteki, USDA Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics. "The increases in accuracy and detail that this map represents will be extremely useful for gardeners and researchers."
Plant hardiness zone designations represent the average annual extreme minimum temperatures at a given location during a particular time period. They do not reflect the coldest it has ever been or ever will be at a specific location, but simply the average lowest winter temperature for the location over a specified time. Low temperature during the winter is a crucial factor in the survival of plants at specific locations.
The new version of the map includes 13 zones, with the addition for the first time of zones 12 (50-60 degrees F) and 13 (60-70 degrees F). Each zone is a 10-degree Fahrenheit band, further divided into A and B 5-degree Fahrenheit zones.
To help develop the new map, USDA and OSU requested that horticultural and climatic experts review the zones in their geographic area, and trial versions of the new map were revised, based on their expert input.
Compared to the 1990 version, zone boundaries in this edition of the map have shifted in many areas. The new map is generally one 5-degree Fahrenheit half-zone warmer than the previous map throughout much of the United States. This is mostly a result of using temperature data from a longer and more recent time period; the new map uses data measured at weather stations during the 30-year period 1976-2005. In contrast, the 1990 map was based on temperature data from only a 13-year period of 1974-1986.
Some of the changes in the zones, however, are a result of new, more sophisticatedmethods for mapping zones between weather stations. These include algorithms that considered for the first time such factors as changes in elevation, nearness to large bodies of water, and position on the terrain, such as valley bottoms and ridge tops. Also, the new map used temperature data from many more stations than did the 1990 map. These advances greatly improved the accuracy and detail of the map, especially in mountainous regions of the western United States. In some cases, advances resulted in changes to cooler, rather than warmer, zones.
While about 80 million American gardeners, as well as those who grow and breed plants, are the largest users of the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map, many others need this hardiness zone information. For example, the USDA Risk Management Agency uses the USDA plant hardiness zone designations to set some crop insurance standards. Scientists use the plant hardiness zones as a data layer in many research models such as modeling the spread of exotic weeds and insects.
Although a poster-sized version of this map will not be available for purchase from USDA, as in the past, anyone may download the map free of charge from the Internet onto their personal computer and print copies of the map as needed.
As USDA's chief scientific research agency, ARS is leading America towards a better future through agricultural research and information. ARS conducts research to develop and transfer solutions to help answer agricultural questions that impact Americans every day. ARS work helps to:
ensure high-quality, safe food, and other agricultural products;
assess the nutritional needs of Americans;
sustain a competitive agricultural economy;
enhance the natural resource base and the environment; and
provide economic opportunities for rural citizens, communities, and society as a whole.), or (202) 720-6382 (TDD).

How Can I Help You?

As a garden coach, I can assist you as you develop your garden. I can provide as much or little assistance as you want. My location is Winston-Salem, North Carolina so I am accessible to Forsyth County and nearby areas.

I prefer to work with people who want to do the work themselves but I can also recommend people who can help you in more ambitious tasks where a designer or contractor would be helpful.

My work as a Garden Coach addresses your dream of a garden, which could include:

• perennial border
• flower bed of annual flowers mixed with perennials
• butterfly garden
• herb garden or just
• containers on your deck and window boxes
• vegetable garden

I hope to assist you in finding just the right plan for your hopes and dreams.

JANUARY GARDENING TIPS..rest and plan but prune if you can!

Rest and plan but prune if you can!

January and February are the best time to prune your trees and shrubs.  With the really cold blast we are getting in Winston-Salem right now, you may want to stay inside and just hunker down with all the catalogues that are rolling in. I just got Johnny's Selected Seeds and it is great with all the new vegetable offerings.

However, I've been waiting for January so I got get my pruners out for shaping and renovating my srubs. See "how tos" below.

I still have some daffodil bulbs to plant and the only way I think I can do it is to add some new beds with new soil...or to use containers. This is the price I pay for procrastinating. Since bulbs need 12 weeks of dark and cold, I can still make it if I do it this week.

• When the temps do get down into the 30's or below, it is a good time to prune trees and shrubs. Do not shear unless you really like the look. It's better to reduce size and produce more compact growth, by cutting out undersirable limbs from inside the plant. Do not cut all limbs at the same height. The "rule of 3" is good by cutting almost to the trunk one of every three stems/branches for shrubs. Tree pruning is a bit more complicated. Try googling tree pruning techiniques for your locale. For perennials like butterfly bush, prune to 18 inches from the ground.

• Apply lime to your vegetable garden as needed.  You can get a soil test from the NC State Extension service as well. The report they send will be helpful next spring.  See my other blog at http://www.kirbyplant.blogspot.com/ for step by step instructions for soil testing.
• Mulch:  if you haven't already done it mulch your shrubs, perennials and trees for winter protection.  This will prevent the dreaded "freeze and thaw" problem that can kill plants, especially perennials. Mulch holds the ground to a more even temperature. Good mulches are pine needles, wood chips and soil conditioner.
• Tidy up the garden by cutting to the ground anything that is not pleasing to the eye.  Leave ornamental grasses until late spring when new growth appears.  Their "structure" provides winter interest.
• Plant indoor bulbs.  Paperwhite narcissus and amaryllis are among the most popular.  They take about four weeks after planting to bloom (narcissus can be put in a vase with rocks and water..Just keep half the bulb above water. Cyclamens and Christmas/Thanksgiving Cactus are also nice to have for indoor color in the winter.
• Start thinking about "winter sowing".  I tried it last year and it was fun. Again, see my other blog at http://www.kirbyplant.blogspot.com/ if you are interested.

Tips used  (with my additions and adaptations) from booklet "LANDSCAPE GARDENING GUIDE", NC Cooperative Extension Serice, Forsyth County Center.

Winston-Salem, NC Garden Nursery Reviews (Zone 7)

If you are gardening in Winston-Salem, here are some nurseries that I have used and found really good. Ratings are mine. I give an extra star for knowlegeable and friendly staff. Having worked in a botanic garden, I am especially interested in high quality and diversity in plant choices.

House of Plants,  Small selection of annuals and perennials but high quality; also have one of the best selections of clay pots, bird baths, benches, etc. Lovely gift shop and indoor house plants too.

Reynolda Nursery and Landscaping, 5353 Reynolda Road, west of the intersection of Reynolda and Shattalon (where Old Town School is). Go past the road to Bethania and continue up the hill. Nursery is on the right. Great knowledgeable staff, high quality plants and large selection; includes a shop for tools etc. *****


Shouse's Nursery, Reynolda Road about half mile on right after intersection of Yadkinville and Reynolda. Has basic annuals and some perennials, shrubs and trees. Knowledgeable staff.****

Farmstead Nursery. Corner of PeaceHaven at Robinhood. Good selection of annuals and perennials. Seasonal. Spring and summer only.***


L.A. Reynolds. Biggest nursery in Winston-Salem. Has wide variety of good quality flowers, shrubs and trees, including good selection of roses. Includes many pots, soils, mulches, etc. also.
Styers Ferry Road. Prices are higher but quality is good.****

Myers Nursery. Stratford Road just northwest of intersecton with Stratford Rd. Small and diverse nursery. Very knowledgeable and friendly staff. Some vegetables they have been grown from seed. Good prices.
****

If you have others to add, please let me know. I can assist you in choosing plants and/or determining which plants are best suited for your situation. Ellen