Let’s hope you made up a list of the tender things that should have been dug before frost. But unless you have had very cold weather and the ground is frozen there is still time to dig gladiolus, dahlias, fancy leaf caladiums, tuberous begonias, achimenes, tuberoses, tigridias, yes, even your large flowered amaryllis. Just because your glads happened to live over last winter when you forgot them doesn’t mean that they will do it again.

If they are growing up against the house foundation where they are getting heat from the cellar it is possible that even some tender plants such as dahlias may live over from year to year. If you have any four o’clocks this year, try digging up some of those roots and storing them in slightly moist peat or sand in the cellar over winter. If you are successful you will get four foot high plants instead of three foot ones (but the colors will be just as unattractive).

There is still plenty of time to sow the seeds of hardy perennials and hardy annuals. Instead of trusting the ordinary flower bed I always like to sow them in a cold frame. The easier growing ones may be sown right in rows in the frame, but the less easy ones you may want to put in three-or four-inch flower pots. Instead of treating the seeds with a chemical, try putting a layer of equal parts fresh sand and new peat moss on top of the soil in the frame. This gives you a weed free, practically sterile seed bed. If you ever use it you are going to be amazed at the results. Just cover the seeds with the same material sifted through your second best soup strainer.

Seed Starting

If you have never tried growing your own trees and shrubs from seeds there is no time like the present to start. Try gathering the seeds of barberry, privet, honeysuckle, Washington thorn, cotoneaster, any of the privets. Remove the pulp from the seeds and sow the seeds about a quarter inch deep. I like to take ordinary tin cans and cut two or three holes on the side at the bottom with a beverage can punch to give drainage. Sow them in a mixture of soil, sand and peat; after labeling them just put them outdoors where they can get the winter rain and forget them. Seeds will start coming up, depending on what kind you have planted, from Mareh until June. You will have a lot of fun if you include some flowering crabapples and some of the varieties of Japanese quince.

Hope you didn’t forget to drain the water pipes in your yard in case you have your yard piped as I do, so that a 50-foot length of hose will reach any part of it. Since I am lazy I don’t like to drag around a hundred feet or more of hose.

As I visit gardens here and there I am always disappointed that so few have a little nursery bed, even three by six feet where plants raised from seeds or cuttings may be grown. Instead the gardeners put them in among bigger plants where they have all too little chance of survival. A small nursery bed really pays big dividends. Place it away from trees and large shrubs, in a well drained spot. Prepare the soil at least ten inches deep by mixing it with equal parts of soil and peat. Maybe even add quite a bit of sand. How the little plants will grow in this mixture if you add a complete fertilizer at the time you prepare the bed!

Keith Markensen with years of experience in growing plants freely offers tips, advice and helpful resources on topics like croton house plants. Take in the variety of subjects at www.plant-care.com – save time and money when searching the web for indoor plants, landscaping, lawns and patio.

Posted on 8 February '10, under Gardens.