Gardening tips Home (indoor plants and activities)
• Move houseplants to brighter windows but don’t place plants in drafty places or against cold windowpanes.
• Early blooms of spring-flowering bulbs can make good gifts for a sweetheart. Keep the plant in a bright, cool location for longer-lasting blooms. Forced bulbs make poor garden flowers and should be discarded as blooms fade.
Yard (lawns, woody ornamentals and fruits)
• Most trees and shrubs are best pruned in late winter, after the coldest weather has passed. The exceptions are spring-flowering shrubs, such as forsythia, lilacs and azaleas, which should be pruned immediately after flowering. You can remove dead or damaged branches at any time.
Birches, maples, dogwoods and other heavy sap bleeders can be pruned in early summer to avoid the sap flow, although bleeding is not harmful to the tree.
• Fruit trees also should be pruned now.
Garden (flowers, vegetables and small fruits)
• Order seeds before it’s too late for this year’s planting.
• Sketch garden plans for your ornamental and edible gardens, including plants that need to be replaced.
• Prepare or repair lawn and garden tools for the upcoming season.
• Test leftover garden seed for germination. Place 10 seeds between moist paper toweling or cover with a thin layer of soil. Keep seeds warm and moist. If less than six seeds germinate, then fresh seed should be purchased.
• Start seeds of cole crops, including broccoli, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower indoors under lights. You’ll have transplant-sized plants in about six weeks, ready for planting outdoors at the beginning of April.
• To get a jump on the herb gardening season, start seeds of basil, parsley, sage, and thyme indoors. Start seeds in flats filled with moistened seed-starting mix. Once the seeds germinate, place the plants under grow lights for 14 hours a day (timers make this easy) and keep soil moist.
• As you begin planning and planting your vegetable garden beds, remember to rotate crops: Avoid planting crops in the same family in the same spot more than once every three years. Tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant are in the same family; so are squash, cucumbers, and pumpkins. Many pests and diseases overwinter in the soil, so moving plants around can disrupt their life cycles and minimize your need for pest and disease controls. • Keep in mind that seed catalogs and packets often give “days to germination” which is the time for seeds to sprout, not the time until they are ready to plant outside.