“In January everything freezes,” wrote the poet Ogden Nash. “We have two children. Both are she’ses/This is our January rule:/One girl in bed, and one in school.” This New Yorker’s advice was to “spend the winter at the bottom of Florida and the summer at the top of the Adirondacks.”
Meanwhile, out in the garden, flyer delivery and mailmen taking a short cut between houses are compacting snow on the lawn into ice. This prevents air from reaching the grass. The result? Next spring expect a trail of dead turf.
Shovelled snow mounded into heaps over dwarf shrubs alongside paths and drives may have a similarly detrimental effect. If possible, spread out evenly: easy when using a snow blower, not so when shovelling by hand.
While outside, check the bird feeder. Our feathered chums are anything but delicate diners. They even defecate on their dining facilities. This, say ornithologists, is a major cause of disease amongst wild birds. Take down, empty and wash or wiped weekly with a weak bleach solution. The same applies to birdbaths. No, most birds don’t need a bath in winter. They do need drinking water, however. Clean drinking water at that, uncontaminated with bird droppings.
Diversion No. 1
As of 1st January, Edward “Ned” Friedman became the new director of Harvard’s famed Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts, only the eighth in the 138 year history of the 265-acre institution. Research scientist Friedman moved from the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he and his wife, a research botanist, were keen gardeners. Last fall, they put down 80 quarts of tomatoes while Ned, who grows hops, brews his own beer, says The Boston Globe.
Bulbs brighten the winter home. This month sees the commencement of ‘forced’ spring bulbs such as tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocus, muscari and more starting to appear in every local grocery store, supermarket, florist and garden centre. When purchasing, choose those with the flower buds just showing colour, never in full bloom. They have several features in common: they soak up water like a fish; do best in cool temperatures; and require bright light. Hidden under gaudy foil wrapping is a plastic pot. This is liable to tip from the weight of the blooms; remove gunky wrappings and drop, plastic pot and all into one of clay. All the blooms, and especially those of the deliciously scented hyacinths, may require staking to keep them upright. Giving the pots a daily half-turn assists but may not be sufficient. Cut back the blooms as they die back but retain the green foliage. Move the pots to an out-of-the-way window and keep watering until the ground thaws in spring, then plant out. ‘Forced’ bulbs will take a season or more to recover but it seems ungrateful not to give them a second chance after the soul cheering display they gave to dispel the winter blaahs. The only ones too tender for this treatment are ‘Paper White’ Narcissus. Regrettably they must be unceremoniously dumped following their perfumed display.
Diversion No. 2
A couple of glasses of tomato juice a day helps fight osteoporosis, according to researchers at the University of Toronto. The key ingredient is thought to be lycopene, the antioxidant already credited with reducing the risk of prostate cancer in men, as well as protecting against heart disease. Some of questioned about reliance on commercial tomato juice, often loaded with salt, while a plaintive inquiry from Clare of Toowoomba, Australia to the Daily Mail asked whether it was with or without vodka
Shorter days, often overcast do little to relieve the gloom cast upon houseplants. Those grown principally for their foliage should be encouraged to take a rest. Cut back on watering to a bare minimum, refrain from fertilizing and spritz daily to remove the grime for leaves that interferes with photosynthesis. Spritzing also discourages that deadly enemy spider mite which, like small boys, hates water.
An occasional precautionary spray with insecticidal soap may not go amiss. Fuchsia, hibiscus and bougainvillea overwintering inside seem particularly prone to aphid and whitefly attack. Palms and weeping figs (Ficus benjamina) attract spider mites like iron filings to a magnet. The real fault is the dry air in homes overwinter that is good for neither plants nor their patrons.
Diversion No. 3
Three score and ten shalt thy life be on Earth, according to one usually reliable source. Clonal trees get around this by sprouting identical colonies over vast areas, notes New Scientist. A stand of clonal quaking aspens, Populus tremuloides, in Utah may be one of the oldest such examples. While the existing trees seem to be no more than 130 years old, parts of the roots have been dated to around 80,000 years old, says the weekly publication.
Towards the end of the month is a great time to commence propagation – plants that is. And by asexual rather than sexual methods, the latter of which more shortly. Asexual, or vegetative propagation to use a less provocative term, is often achieved via stem cuttings. January and February are excellent months for clipping back ‘mother’ or ‘stock’ plants saved last fall, dipping their bases in hormone rooting powder and inserting into preparations such as ‘ProMix.’ Candidates for such treatment are abutilon, fibrous-rooted begonia, bougainvillea, fuchsia, geranium, hibiscus, and impatiens, to name but a few.
A few of the dahlia tubers that were lifted and stored safely away last October can be potted up now. Three to four weeks later, shoots about four inches or so tall will have emerged. They may be similarly harvested as stem cuttings. The tubers can even produce a second crop of cuttings and then saved for summer bedding along with their progeny.
While you have the hormone rooting powder out, why not try leaf cuttings? Idea candidates are African violets. Carefully detach a leaf with the entire stem, dip the end in powder and plant in ‘ProMix.’ Within in a few weeks, several new plantlets will have formed, although it will take some time before they are ready to be removed and start life on their own.
Diversion No. 4
Gene Stone, the best-selling health writer chews a daily clove of garlic, he informed Kate Fillion in a Maclean’s interview. Never mind the smell, she inquired, what about the taste? He always has a piece of dark chocolate afterwards, he told her. He carries “a bulb of garlic everywhere I go, much to the consternation of the security guards at the airports, who probably think I’m Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”
On to sexual propagation or, as those already initiated in such matters know, means by seed. To be ready for planting out in late spring, impatiens seed must be sown this month. Geranium seed has also been available for some decades but most gardeners have not been over-enthused with the resulting blooms. These also require sowing in January though. Despite seed packages commencing to be offered in stores it is unwise to start much else for several weeks, although purchasing the most desirable now is a wise move before they all sell out.
This should keep you safely indoors, out of raw gales. Or, to conclude on yet another observation from Ogden Nash: “I do not like the winter wind/That whistles from the North/My upper teeth and those beneath/They jitter back and forth.”
