North Mississippi Gardening Tips
November 2011
Caring for Holiday Gift Plants
The flowering poinsettia is by far the most popular flowering plant for the holidays. Today’s poinsettia breeders have greatly widened the color range of these beautiful plants from every shade of white, red, and pink to variegated combinations of these. If you are the one purchasing the poinsettia, always examine the flowers. No, not the colorful petals, they are actually modified leaves called bracts. The tiny buds located at the center of the whorl of bracts are the true flowers of the poinsettia and are called cyathia.
Select a plant, if possible, that still has the flower buds tightly closed rather than fully open displaying the fuzzy yellow stamens. Definitely pass over plants that do not have any cyathia or are missing some. These are old plants because after flowering, the cyathia abscise and fall from the plant.
For more information on poinsettias contact your local county Extension office and ask for Publication 2573, Selecting and Maintaining Poinsettias.
If you’ve never had a Christmas Cactus you should give these beautiful plants a try. These succulents can be forced into bloom—actually we’re not forcing anything, but taking advantage of a natural process called photoperiodism, the triggering of flowering or other growth responses of a plant due to changes in the length of the light and dark periods. Rather than manipulating the light period to initiate flower formation, you can take the easy way out and purchase a plant whose buds are showing color. Carried-over plants from last year should be kept in a semi-dormant state with little water and reduced light from September to October. Leave it outdoors during the cool nights and short days of these two months so that flower buds will form. Bring it indoors on those nights that frost threatens, and put it in a room or closet that can be darkened for more than twelve continuous hours. Put back outside during the day.
After the buds begin to form increase the light and lightly water until color shows in the buds. When buds are showing color, it is safe to move the plant indoors to a cool, sunny location for flowering. While blossoming, do not overwater them, but keep the soil slightly moist. After blooming, they start their growth stage and should be given more water and fertilized as new growth increases. They will continue to grow until you harden them off in September. Christmas cactus bloom best when slightly pot-bound. For more detailed information on these plants and other holiday plants call your Extension office and request the new publication, “Holiday Houseplants,” #2309.
Bulbs
Some people cannot abide the up-close smell of the blooming paperwhite narcissus. My husband swears it smells just like a bowl of rotten fruit. I, on the other hand, possess a more accepting view and think it smells just lovely, thank you very much. Besides, being a gardener, I am always looking for ways to bring the garden indoors during the winter, or ways to “hurry-up” spring. Potting up a group of paperwhite narcissus bulbs and bringing them into bloom is one easy way to do this. If you don’t pot them immediately after purchase, store your bulbs at 70 degrees F. To prevent them from drying out, cover with dry sphagnum moss or vermiculite. Storing them this way allows gardeners who don’t ever have enough winter flowers to buy a quantity of bulbs now and plant a pot full every two weeks for continuous bloom till spring!
After potting and the foliage begins to emerge, extending the day length by the use of supplemental fluorescent or grow lights will keep foliage shorter. I hedge my bets, by sticking some pretty-shaped tree branches such as winged elm into the pot to provide support for the emerging foliage.
Some stories have a sad ending and I’m afraid this is one. Paperwhite narcissus should be discarded after bloom because they will not easily bloom again for you. It doesn’t work to plant them in your garden either, in the hope that they will bloom next spring with the other daffodils. Unlike other narcissus, the paperwhites are considered tender bulbs and are hardy only in USDA plant zones 8-10. As surely as I’m writing this, there is a reader in Starkville shaking her head and going, “Why, those bulbs bloom for me every year in my garden!” Yes ma’am they might do it, but for most of north Mississippi they don’t. If, however, you just can’t bring yourself to throw them away after flowering, box them up, express mail them to Aunt Sookie in Biloxi with instructions to plant them in her garden posthaste and she will bless you.
Selecting a Christmas Tree
Christmas is just around the corner and it’s time to put up that tree. If your family’s holiday tradition includes a freshly cut Christmas tree, your search for “The Tree” has probably already begun. Nowadays, most folks who use fresh-cut trees buy them from a retail outlet. What should the discerning shopper look for in a Christmas tree? Freshness is the number one consideration. Be bold and ask a salesperson where the trees were grown. Why? Because the closer to home the trees were grown the fresher they will probably be. If they were shipped in from Canada or other far off places up North the trees were more than likely cut weeks before the more locally grown specimens. Can’t find out where they were grown? Do the tree freshness test recommended by the National Christmas Tree Association: grasp a twig between your thumb and forefinger approximately 6 inches from the tip and pull your fingers toward the branch tip. If any of the needles come off in your hand pass that tree by.
Once you get the tree home, keep it in a humid place until you are ready to bring it inside and decorate. If you know the tree had been cut several weeks or more before you bought it, recut the trunk at least four inches to help the tree absorb water before placing it in the tree holder. Keep the holder filled with water at all times.
Lelia Scott Kelly, Ph.D., writes North Mississippi Gardening Tips monthly and is the state consumer horticulture specialist for Mississippi State University Extension Service. Her office is at the North Mississippi Research and Extension Center in Verona.