Keeping Your Poinsettia Alive for Another Christmas

Keeping your poinsettia alive for next season is actually pretty easy. Here are three great tips for doing just that from Organic Life Magazine.

It can live for more than one season: https://t.co/SWhvobRmGM

— Organic Life (@OrganicLifeMag) December 27, 2017

Christmas Tree Disposal by Carol King

Bottle Tree photo by Carol King

If you used a cut tree for your Christmas tree, chances are you are now trying to deal with disposal! There’s always the landfill of course; most trash companies pick them up without a thought. However, there are several options for your tree other than the landfill. 

Humane Society

Consider these:

• Recycle your tree. Most municipalities in the Denver area have recycling available. Contact your own city or county; many use chippers to convert trees to landscape or garden mulch. Never burn your Christmas tree in the fireplace (the pitch content in the bark and needles can cause them to burst into flames from the intense heat).
• Do something whimsical: right after Christmas, move the tree outside and decorate it with popcorn, fresh cranberries, peanuts in the shell, pine cones with suet and birdseed; apples, rice cakes, dried corn bundles. Use natural string, ribbon and raffia for hanging. The birds will use this material for nesting in the spring, after the food is gone. 
• Call your favorite conservation group. They often will place trees in gullies and arroyos to slow soil erosion.
• Trim off the branches, mulch those in the garden and use the frame of the tree to create a bottle tree. Place colored bottles of all kinds on the stub ends of your tree. Put in a location to glisten in the sun and enjoy! Tradition says that bottle trees protect the home from evil spirits by trapping spirits inside the bottles, where they do no harm. 

With a little imagination, dear gardener, your tree can provide enjoyment all year: the traditional tree at Christmas; a home for birds to gather and feed, garden mulch and finally a wonderful piece of folk art created by your family.

Merry Christmas 2017!

Winter Solstice 2017!

Photo Sage Goddess

It feels like the days just can’t get any shorter, and it’s true. Today we celebrate the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. 

The 2017 December Solstice (Winter Solstice) will arrive at 9:27 am in Denver, today December 21, marking the moment that the sun shines at its most southern point (in case you are counting, the sun is about 91.473 million miles from earth today).  This day is 5 hours, 38 minutes shorter than on June Solstice. In most locations north of Equator, the shortest day of the year is around this date. To the delight of many of us, this means that the days will start getting longer, however incrementally.

United States' First Christmas Tree Farm

Ever wonder where the first "farmed Christmas tree" came from?

In 1901, a New Jersey farmer planted a crop that no one had ever thought to grow before: Christmas trees. https://t.co/l1d69VVR47

— Modern Farmer (@ModFarm) December 17, 2017

Gardening Power to the People: Avoiding Critter Damage to Your Trees in Winter Video

Rabbits and voles love to snack on the trunks of small trees in winter. This video explains four easy methods to protect your trees from their destructive nibbling.

Holiday Plant Lore: Amaryllis by Carol King

Photo by Carol King

Amaryllis bulbs are everywhere during the holiday season. As one of the easiest bulbs to force and bloom, the United States imports more than 10 million bulbs from Holland and South Africa every year to keep up with demands.  We think of amaryllis as being a winter flower because they are commonplace during the holidays but in nature the amaryllis blooms in spring and summer.

Amaryllis is the perfect gift for a gardener in your life. Greek lore tells us the flower is named after a shepherdess, Amaryllis, who was madly in love with a gardener named Alteo.  As it would be, Amaryllis’s love was unrequited.  Alteo would not love her and said that he would only love a maiden who brought him a unique flower that he had never seen before.

Amaryllis went to the Oracle of Delphi for help in winning Alteo’s heart.  She followed his advice and appeared at Alteo’s door for thirty nights, dressed in white and piercing her heart each night with a golden arrow.  Alteo did not open the door until the thirtieth night and before him stood Amaryllis with a crimson flower that had sprung from the blood of her heart. When at last he opened his door, Alteo fell in love with the maiden surrounded by beautiful Amaryllis flowers.

Easy Tricks for Pretty Treats by Carrie Garczynski

Photo by Carrie Garczynski

We all have pumpkins this time of year – either for decoration or degustation. Instead of tossing or before composting, there are a few tricks you can do to elongate your autumnal enjoyment. Not only do you have luscious pumpkin flesh to create a tasty treat, you have a perfect decorative vase for the center of your table. Decor like this can also be composted when the season is over. 

Brighten Your Space with Indoor Citrus By Olivia Tracy

Etrog Citron (Citrus medica); photo courtesy of Olivia Tracy

This winter, if you’re hoping to cheer up your indoor space, why not incorporate the bright color and invigorating scent of a citrus tree? While some citrus varieties are too large to grow indoors, there are dwarf cultivars of lime, lemon, orange and tangerine that can grow in containers, including the ancient Etrog Citron (Citrus medica; pictured); sour citrus does particularly well, as it requires less heat to ripen.³ While many nurseries are now closed for the season, you can still mail-order dwarf citrus trees from reputable seed and plant distributors. 

Some Indoor Citrus Varieties Include:^1,2,3 

LIMES: 

Bearss Lime (Citrus latifolia)

Kaffir Lime (Citrus hystrix), grown mostly for the leaves

LEMONS:

Meyer lemon (Citrus x meyeri)

Variegated Pink Lemon (Citrus x limon)

TANGERINES AND ORANGES: 

Mandarin/Satsuma Oranges (Citrus reticulata); actually a tangerine, with fragrant flowers and the familiar ‘orange.’

Calamondin Orange (Citrofortunella mitis), a small, sour orange; often grown as an ornamental.

Forcing Paperwhite Narcissus Bulbs by Carol King

Photo brighter blooms.com

Paperwhite narcissus are classic holiday flowers that display the spirit of Christmas. They are available to purchase everywhere during this season. Classical mythology states that a young man named Narcissus was vainly staring at his own reflection in a pond and he fell in and drowned, then legend says that the first narcissus plant came up where he had lost his life. They’re sold this time of year to give us something pretty to grow during the darkness of winter. 

Planttalk Colorado has this advice for planting these lovely bulbs:

"Paperwhite narcissus (Narcissus papyraceus) are one of the easiest bulbs to force for cut flowers or ornamental displays in the home from December to March. They are a form of daffodil that can be forced without a chilling period.To force paperwhites, fill a bulb pan with about one to two inches of potting soil, then position the bulbs in the soil so they are nearly touching each other with pointed end up. Add enough potting soil so that only the top half of the bulbs remain exposed, then water well.

Gardening Power to the People: Wrapping Your Trees for Winter Protection Video

Protect trees from winter sun scald by wrapping them now! Here's how:

Feeding Birds in the Fall and Winter By Joyce D’Agostino

Photo by Joyce D'Agostino

Like most outdoor wildlife, birds depend on the natural surroundings for food, water and shelter. Often some areas have little open space for wildlife to thrive and providing supplemental nutrition during the fall and winter can help birds survive and cope with the changing weather.

In a previous blog (10/19/2017: Love Birds and Pollinators? Don't Clean the Fall Garden by Carol King) we discussed how not removing some of your flower seed heads can provide a good source of seeds for the birds.  So instead of doing a full scale clean up of your landscape to remove dried seeds and pods, leave some for the wildlife to enjoy. 

Providing seed and suet blocks for the birds throughout the cold weather months is also a good and acceptable way to give birds an extra source of nutrition.  

There has been some discussion as to whether filling your birdfeeder with seeds is good for the birds or if they should depend solely on natural foraging and finding open water sources. Research shows that providing food for the birds is acceptable and focusing on the right seed such as the black sunflower seeds which is high in nutrition, plus fresh water, provides an important and healthy supplement to the bird’s diets. 

For water, you don’t need to invest in an expensive birdbath, a shallow durable dish will work just as well. Change the water often so that it doesn’t freeze and remains clean is important. Electric or solar water heaters can also be purchased to keep the water from freezing. 

When it comes to choosing the best food, before investing in a large amount of certain seed, first start with the black sunflower seed. If you then want to test another type of seed, start with a small amount.  

Choosing the right bushes and trees to add to your landscape also is very important to provide shelter from the weather and predators. The bulletins below provide good research based information on feeding your birds and other wildlife and suggestions for shelter plants:

Winter Bird Feeding

Feeding Wildlife Puts Everyone at Risk

Plantalk Colorado: Attracting Birds