Lawn and landscape

       • Buy de-icing salts that are safe for plants. Read the label.

        • Use tree wrap to shade young, thin-barked trees such as maples and fruit trees to prevent bark splits from temperature extremes.

        • Use an anti-desiccant (non-drying) spray on evergreens to keep winter winds from drying them out. Read the label carefully before application.

        • Wrap young evergreens and boxwoods with burlap to protect them from snow and drying winds.

        • Prepare the planting hole for your “live” Christmas tree before the soil freezes.

Flowers

        • Use evergreen boughs to shade perennials that have evergreen foliage to prevent them from drying in winter sun and wind.

        • Prepare new garden beds by removing sod and burying it 8 inches deep. It will decompose over the winter and be ready for planting in spring. Add 2-4 inches of additional organic matter.

Vegetables

        • Leave parsnips in the garden throughout the winter until you wish to use them. The flavor improves with frost and cold weather.

        • Harvest Jerusalem artichokes when the foliage has completely died down. Dig only the amount to be used; harvest can continue throughout the winter.

Houseplants

       • Stop fertilizing non-flowering houseplants for the winter. Resume fertilizing in April.

        • Pot tulip bulbs for forcing indoors. Expose bulbs to eight-12 weeks of refrigeration before bringing the plants out to flower.

Eco tip

       Check houseplants — especially those that spent the summer outdoors — for pests. Use non-chemical controls whenever possible. Aphids, mealy bugs and mites can be controlled with rubbing alcohol dabbed directly on the pests, causing them to dry out. Diligence is needed to control stubborn mealy bug infestations.
       Source: Sue Trusty, director of education at the Civic Garden Center of Greater Cincinnati, 221-0981.
       

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