ARTICLES :: Winter Gardens/House Plants Jan 2010

Winter Gardening                    

By:  Melinda Sperl

Come see me at the Katy Home & Garden Show this weekend, Jan 30^th & 31^st at booth #602.  I will have a great giveaway for you to register for.  The show is at the Merrill Center just behind Tractor Supply across from Katy Mills on 1463.

If you followed these articles and didn’t cut your plants, then I am sure you are very calm with the freeze this weekend. Although your plants may have some really ugly unsightly limbs left on it, those limbs really help your plant survive what is left of our winter.  If you started trimming though, you may need to cover your plants this weekend.  If you can, hold off until at least the weekend AFTER Valentines Day to trim your plants. 

What you can do now is to work on your indoor gardening.  It is very true that our houses need air cleaning too and indoor plants can help with that and if you already have indoor plants, now is the time to clean them up.  Pull them out of their pots and look to see if their roots are root bound or condensed.  If so, you will need to either repot or trim the roots before you put it back into the same pot.  Either way, shake all the existing soil that you can off the roots without disturbing them too much.  Then fill the new or old pot with first, small rocks for drainage, and then some really rich, composted potting soil. 

This is also a good time to look for any insects on the plant.  Spider mites are big culprits on indoor plants.  To find them take a sheet of white paper and place it under a leaf or branch and then shake the plant.  If there are some very small red dots that slowly move on the paper, you have red-spider mites. It is fun for kids to look at these in a microscope.  To treat indoor plants it is very important that you only use non-toxic insect killer.  I recommend either dish soap and water or rubbing alcohol, depending on the insect.  Contact your local county extension agent for help with this.

Happy Gardening!