Indoor bulb gardening

Forcing bulbs to bloom inside the house is a wonderful, easy way to get through the cold gray days of winter while adding fragrance and color to your life indoors. If you plan ahead, you can have red tulips for Christmas Day, pink and white hyacinths on Valentine's Day, and the fragrance of springtime in your home all winter long.

The term "forcing" refers to inducing a plant to produce its shoots, leaves or flowers ahead of its natural schedule and out of its natural environment. To force bulbs, you need to mimic and compress the process the plant would undergo outdoors naturally in the garden.

Small-sized bulbs, such as snowdrops, scilla, muscari, chionodoxa, and crocus can be forced just as easily as larger bulbs such as daffodils, tulips, and hyacinth. Early blooming varieties are better suited for forcing than others. It's also important to select varieties that don't grow too tall.

Narcissus (paper whites) hyacinths, amaryllis, and lily of the valley will grow indoors in water. You can use a bulb vase or a shallow dish filled with clean pebbles or marbles to stabilize the roots and to support the bulbs above the water. Just wedge the bulbs among the pebbles, close to each other but not touching, and cover the pebbles with water. Allow air space between the top of the water and the bottom of the bulb to prevent rot.

For other bulbs, half fill a shallow container with . Fill this layer, small end up, with as many bulbs as will fit in your pot without touching each other. Then add more soil between until they are completely covered. With hyacinths, amaryllis, and narcissus, allow the necks to protrude slightly.

After planting, place the pots in a cool, dark place, such as a cool cellar, garage, tool shed, the bulkhead stairs leading down to the basement, a barn or unheated building or refrigerator to initiate root and shoot growth. If necessary, set boxes, pots or black garbage bags over your potted bulbs to keep them dark during the cooling period. Keep the soil moist through the rooting and cooling period. After five or six weeks, the roots and growth should emerge.

Then move the bulbs to a cool location indoors. The bulbs should be placed in indirect lighting and should not be allowed to dry out. Forcing will take about 12 weeks for the early blooming bulbs (snowdrop, crocus, and daffodil) and about 16 weeks for tulips. The potted bulbs should be placed in indirect light and should not be allowed to dry out.

Feed weekly with a half-strength solution of a good houseplant fertilizer. Turn the pots every couple of days to help the flower stems grow straight and strong. When the foliage and buds are well developed, move the pots to a bright, sunny window in the house. Once the flowers begin to open, take the plants out of direct sunlight to prolong the bloom. Keep potted bulbs as cool as possible and they will last longer. Then sit back and enjoy the early breath of spring indoors!  

When flowers fade, cut the blooms only off the plant. Treat the plant as a potted houseplant for 6 weeks so the foliage can rebuild the energy it took the plant to make the flowers originally. Now place the pot of bulbs in the basement and stop watering so it will go dormant. Plant in your garden in the spring as you would new bulbs from the nursery. They will bloom the following spring at their normal flowering time.

Preparing your roses for Winter

Before you get caught up with all the holiday activities, here are a few final things to do in the yard and garden. The weather is still favorable to work outside now and the time spent in the garden can save you time and money--and save your plants from winter damage. There is nothing more frustrating than losing plants during the winter, because we did not know how to protect them properly--especially plants we worked so hard to develop this past season. Knowledge is power in your garden and here are a few things that will help you and your plants to have a better winter.

One of the most popular plants for the garden is the rose bush and for many of us, losing plants after the first winter that a rose bush was planted in our summer garden is tragic. The result is discouraging, and instead of increasing the size of the rose garden to add new varieties and colors, we replace the dead plants with perennials or annual flowers. Growing rose bushes is a lot of work but the reward is incredible as the plants produce the most sought-after flower in the world.

Here is what I want you to do in the next couple of weeks. Don't panic, because you still have time. Purchase a bag of bark mulch or compost, a bale of straw, or go down to the beach and collect sea weed and place it in your garden, but not on the plants yet. Right now the mice are still looking for a place to make their home for the winter and organic plant insulation will attract them to your garden and they will eat your plants during the winter. I want you to wait until Thanksgiving to create a mound of material around your plants.

Step one is to NEVER prune your roses in the fall of the year! Your plant is covered and sealed with strong bark that helps prevent moisture loss caused by winter winds and sun. Every time you cut back a branch from your plant, you are creating an opening for moisture to escape from the plant--resulting in branch die back or plant kill. If you live in a climate where winters get cold and temperatures dip down to the teens or colder, spend under a dollar a plant to give them additional protection by spraying them with an anti-desiccant sealant like Wilt-Pruf or Wilt-Stop. Before you use your insulation around the plant around Thanksgiving, apply the anti-desiccant product. That is something you can do now while the temperatures are above freezing during the day. Anti-desiccants sprays need 4 hours to dry on the plant when temperatures are above freezing to be most effective.

After Thanksgiving, build your mound with the product you have chosen to use to protect the plants for the winter. The mound should be 12 to 18 inches wide and high around your plants, and in the shape of a Teepee. If you live near the seashore or the rose garden is in a very windy location, you can also use a burlap bag to cover the plant for extra protection. NEVER use a plastic bag to cover your plants, because the bag will trap the daytime heat, causing wide temperature swings that will cause early sprouting during winter warm spells. Burlap is porous and breathes, allowing the heat to escape from around the plant and keep the plant dormant. After Christmas, recycle your Christmas tree and cut the branches from it so you can lay the evergreen branches against the plants for additional protection; as the needles dry, the smell will give your early garden great fragrance--and those fallen needles also become great organic matter to improve the soil around your roses.

Potted roses should be stored in your garage, tool shed or under your deck for the winter. This protects the plant from the winter weather but keeps it dormant. Plants stored inside an unheated building will need to be watered well before they are put away for the year and adding a bit of additional water during the winter to keep the roots moist. Those left outside under a deck or porch should be watered well and laid on their side to prevent the pot from filling with water and creating a ball of ice around the roots during the winter. Plants left outside should also be treated with an anti-desiccant before put into winter storage. If the weather gets nice out during mid-March bring the containers outside so the plants can gradually adapt to the changing temperatures. You don't want your plants to begin to sprout in the garage or tool shed as the days begin to warm up, and then have the new sprouting buds hurt by cold weather.

Now, the pruning of the rose bushes should be done in the early spring. Always wait until the baseball season begins in your home town--not during spring training. Prune to control the size of the plant, remove any branches that dried out during the winter and turned brown, also remove any small shoots or suckers that have formed at the base of the plants. Keep the most vigorous branches, as they will produce the most new growth during the summer and more flowers for you to enjoy. I also like to apply the anti-desiccant spray on the plant again in the spring after pruning to seal up the cuts made on the plant and hold moisture in the plant until it is ready to grow. If you're only making a few cuts on the rose bush and have no anti-desiccant spray left, just light a candle and drip some wax on the cuts you just made to seal the plant until it is ready to grow and care for itself. Make your cuts at an angle so rain and watering can roll off the branches to prevent rotting of the stems.

Fertilizer is applied in April when you begin to notice that the buds are beginning to pop and green foliage is forming. You can also begin to apply your first application of a systemic insecticide to the plant so it has time to move up the roots of the plant and get established in the new shoots that develop. That way you're ahead of the insects before they get a chance to get established on the plant. I also like to apply All Season Oil and a dormant fungicide to the plant to control any overwintering insect eggs left on the plant in the fall and disease spores from last year. This is most effective once you have pruned the plant in the spring and are getting the garden ready for the new season.

I don't care what people tell you about growing roses, it requires work, but the end results are well worth the effort. If you have never planted roses before, give it a try next spring but prepare your soil properly and choose a location with sun all day long, that's the key! If you're new to growing roses, ask for a gardening book about roses for Christmas and read up on how to grow them during the winter so you're ready when spring arrives. After the holidays, go on the internet and sign up to receive the new rose catalogs in the mail, so you can select the color combination for your garden. Those catalogs will also be full of additional helpful information when you get ready to plant the garden. If you follow these easy steps you can remove from your vocabulary to following phrase, "I never promised you a rose Garden because it is too much work." Can you imagine Valentine's Day without roses? Now imagine your garden with rose bushes growing in it; imagine cutting roses from those plants and placing them on your dinner table this coming summer. You can do it and you will enjoy your time in the garden with your rose bushes. Enjoy.

             THE HISTORY OF WILT-PRUF PLANT PROTECTOR

Just after World War II ended, US building construction came alive once again. Homes were built to help returning service personnel. With the buildings came landscaping. Whether it was winter or summer, the weather was always a factor. But horticulturists knew that some plantings would not make it through the hot or cold windy weather and drought that was destined to arrive. A gardener by the name of Dr. Luther Baumgartner developed a chemical mix that he felt would reduce evaporation from foliage. Luther experimented with his invention at a nursery in Hawthorne, NY and it worked. He was able to get a well known Chemical Co. to bottle his formula which he called Wilt-Pruf. He sold his new product to his neighborhood nurseries to help them protect their plantings. Wilt-Pruf became successful almost overnight, so Dr. Baumgartner sold his Wilt-Pruf to a company in Connecticut who was familiar with the lawn and garden distribution process.

The chemical formula being used back then was a bit difficult to use for several reasons. It was sticky, difficult to clean up, could not be frozen, and had a limited shelf life. A company in Pennsylvania produced many agriculture sprays using pine resin as their base material and they felt they were a natural to make Wilt-Pruf. After extensive experimenting and testing, Wilt-Pruf was now ready to be produced, bottled, stored, and shipped from this company in Pennsylvania. Not only was Wilt-Pruf a very useable garden spray, but Wilt-Pruf also boasts being organic, biodegradable, and non-hazardous. It has an indefinite shelf life and is not damaged by freezing.

Now that Wilt-Pruf was in demand throughout the country, a distribution system had to be determined. New ownership was necessary and the product was sold to its present owner over forty years ago. Sales representatives were hired and lawn and garden distributors were solicited to sell Wilt-Pruf to garden centers and other retail outlets.

 Now Wilt-Pruf was entering a new era. Gardening was growing by leaps and bounds. Wilt-Pruf has been accepted nationally as a much needed plant protector during periods of water stress. It is being distributed by some of the country's largest lawn and garden distributors as well as many highly professional smaller garden supply stores. Wilt-Pruf is currently in demand overseas with customers in England, Belgium, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, and South Korea.

Wilt-Pruf spray dries to form a clear transparent and flexible protective coating without interfering with plant growth or materially affecting respiration, osmosis, or photosynthesis. Ultraviolet rays from outdoor daylight react with our film polymer which produces a continuous flexible film which forms a coating similar to having numerous bed sheets on a bed. When the top sheet is removed there are still many more sheets left. The same phenomenon is true with Wilt-Pruf. As the outside layer wears off with the sun, wind and rain and powders away, another layer has formed. This process continues until all layers have worn off which takes three to four months and sometimes longer depending on climatic conditions. Wilt-Pruf is the only horticulture anti-transparent that has the ability to provide this long lasting protection during severe periods of water stress.

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