Now that it's getting colder outside, it's time to start to focus more on your indoor plants. Most indoor plants don't need as much water in the winter as they do in the summer. I usually water about once every two weeks to a month, depending on the plant. I usually check my plants every week or so to make sure that there aren't any that are drying out quickly after being watered. In the winter, its best to let the soil dry out (not bone dry) before you water again. Make sure to check the soil of each plant before watering, you don't want your plants saturated during the winter.

You will also want to pay close attention to any plants that were outside for the summer and make sure there are no pest infestations showing up. (I will post a longer blog soon with details about common houseplant pests and ways to control them.) As a part of my watering routine, I check all of my plants for signs of disease and pest problems. Even if the plant was never outside, you can still have problems with pest infestations.

I also have several plants that I brought in from outside that dry out very quickly and I find myself watering these more than once a week. This is a sign that these plants are root bound and need to be repotted. It's usually best to wait until early spring to repot plants, but if they are this root bound, you can repot them now. I will be repotting a bunch of my plants in January.

My to do list for this week...

• Finish packing away the summer decorations from the gardens
• Winterize and store rain barrels
  
• Clean garden tools and store them for winter
• Clean garage (this is going to take a while! :-)

Iris devastation!!

I love irises! After several years of wanting them, I finally got some irises in my garden two years ago. This year, they bloomed like crazy and were so beautiful!!! Look at how amazing they were...


















In my last post, I mentioned that you should throw your iris waste into the garbage and never throw it into the compost bin. Well, here is why...

Earlier this summer, in early July, I noticed that the foliage on several of my irises was turning brown and dying. Upon further inspection, I noticed that there was mushy stuff around the base of the foliage and top of the bulbs. I immediately suspected what the problem was....the iris borer!!! Oh no, no, no... please say I am wrong!!! Right away I dug up one of the bulbs and found a hole in the side. When I cut the bulb open, I was disgusted to see the nasty fat ugly worm happily eating my iris bulb. :-( I wanted to cry (I want to cry just thinking about it now). I killed the crappy little bugger and started researching what to do right away.

The prognosis was not good. Everything I read told me that the only way to get rid of the iris borer would be to dig up all of my bulbs, clean them, soak them in water (to drown the dirty rotten iris eating maggots) and then cut off all the dead and diseased bulb areas. WHAT?!?! That would be a lot of work! In hopes of a better solution, I went to Bachmans. Unfortunately, they told me the same thing. Ugh...what a chore, what a horrible job it would be!!!!

I have (err, had) a lot of irises in my gardens. I proceeded to dig them all up, clean them off (diligently throwing away all of the iris waste (in the GARBAGE) and killing all of the borers as I found them. I separated all of my irises into buckets to keep labeled so I would know which was which. I filled the buckets with water and a little bit of bleach, just like the instructions said. (I have to say, it was rather satisfying watching the borers trying to get out of the water as I closed the lids). After several hours of hard work, I left my irises to soak for a few days. Well, as my irises were soaking, I ended up getting sick and could not do any physical labor for several weeks. So my beautiful irises sat in buckets of water in the garage for weeks. By the time I was healthy again, my irises were mush. It’s a complete loss, and I am devastated.

This my friends is why it's so important to cut down your irises in the fall and remove the foliage from your property. Here are a couple of links to learn about the iris borer and what to do if you think you have them…

http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/ygbriefs/e122irisborer.html http://www.bachmans.com/tipsheets/insects/dealingwithirisborers.cfm

Garden season over?? Not quite...

Gardening season isn't over after we get our first few freezes! There are still lots of things that can be done in the garden this year. I have been busy, busy, busy collecting seeds and cleaning up the gardens. But, if you don't have much time to do garden cleanup this fall and are wondering what to do, focus on your spring blooming plants first. Your top priority should be to make sure and cut down your irises this fall to the ground and discard the waste from these in the garbage (do not throw iris waste in the compost to avoid the dreaded iris borer!!). Other early spring blooming plants that I like to cut down in the fall so they are ready to go in the spring are peonies, columbine and poppies. If there's time, I also like to cut back my daylilies, black-eyed susans, ferns, hostas and any others that look really bad right now. But those could just as easily wait until spring. I also try to pull out any of my annuals that are dead right now. There are some annuals that are still going strong, so I leave those in the garden until spring.

I don't cut down everything in the fall though, I like to leave some things for winter interest so I can see them above the snow during those long winter months when I really miss my gardens (and to feed to birds). I leave things like cone flowers, sedum, sunflowers, hydrenga and other tall plants in the garden until spring. It's not an exact science, it really depends on the weather and the amount of time I have to work outside.


Here is my to do list for this week:

• Continue garden cleanup
• Trim bushes (it's best to trim flowering bushes right after they bloom, but fall is a good time too. If you have lilacs, wait until late spring when they are done blooming to trim them.)
• Trim trees (fall is the best time to trim trees and to plant new trees)
• Dig up carrots (and any other root veggies still left in the garden)
• Continue collecting seeds
  
• Clean up leaves on the lawn and throw them into the fenced in veggie garden
• Mow the lawn very short (you can also keep the clippings and throw those in the compost bin, makes for great compost!!)

Let's hope for some nice fall weather so we can get out there and get busy doing some fall cleanup.