Garden Party

Gardening Jobs by Month - February

Re-invigorate your houseplants by removing the top 1/4 inch of soil and top-dressing with fresh potting soil.

Spider mites are apt to thrive in warm, dry houses. Frequent misting under the leaves of houseplants will discourage them. A solution of 1 cup flour, 1/4 cup buttermilk, and a gallon of cool water, applied in a mist, is a good organic deterrent.

Houseplants will be sensitive to overfeeding at this time of year. Provide lots of sunlight, fresh air, and frequent bathing for plants that seem a little worse for the winter.

Forced paper-white narcissus will bloom more quickly now than earlier in the season.

Shop early for seeds from catalogs and garden stores. The early shopper gets the best choice of seed varieties.

Want colorful salads this summer? Order seeds now for red iceberg lettuce, ruby Swiss chard, and purple pod beans.

Plan some window boxes. Good choices for plants: zinnias, nasturtiums petunias, geraniums, begonia. Edible choices: cherry tomatoes, lettuce, kale, and herbs.

Test the germination of last year's surplus seeds before ordering new ones. Place ten seeds between damp paper towels. Keep them consistently damp and in a dark place. Check germination rates to determine how many seeds to use for your real planting.

Take an inventory of your preserved foods--in the freezer, in cans, or the root cellars. This should help you decide your seed order for the upcoming season.

Spread wood ashes around lilacs to benefit growth and bloom in the spring.

Test buds of peaches and other sensitive fruits for freeze damage. Bring in a few twigs cut from the trees and place them in a vase of water. If the twigs bloom in a week or two, expect blossoms in the spring and a crop next fall.

Set up birch branches that may have been bent by snow or ice, as soon as possible. If neglected, the branches will permanently adopt their leaning position.

Cut poles for peas, beans, and other climbers now. Peel off the bark and set them in a dry area until they are needed.

Keep this in mind while pruning. Fruit usually grows on the horizontal branches, rather than the vertical ones. Vertical branches may be trained to become horizontal by weighting them down for a few weeks. This may also be done in the summer.

A barrel or other covering placed over rhubarb plants will hasten the spring crop.

Start onions from seed now. They'll be ready for setting out in April. Onions from seed are generally firmer and longer lasting than from sets.

Start parsley indoors now. You may think you have successfully wintered over the plant, but it is a biennial and will soon go to seed.

Take cuttings of wintered-over lantana, coleus, fuchsia, and begonia for plants to be set in May or June.

Climate Zones

Rainier –Olympia wa

ZONE 4: Cold-winter areas of the north coast and mild-winter areas of Alaska and British Columbia

One of the West’s most narrow, linear climates, Zone 4 runs from high in the coastal mountains of Northern California to southeastern Alaska, losing elevation as it moves north. It gets considerable influence from the Pacific Ocean, but also from the continental air mass, higher elevation, or both. As it extends north, the zone first touches salt water in northern Puget Sound and is almost entirely surrounded by salt water in southeastern Alaska. In the contiguous states, Zone 4 has more cold than neighboring Zone 5,more snow, and a shorter growing season. Compared to neighboring zones in Alaska and Canada, however, it has less winter cold and a longer growing season. No zone grows better perennials and bulbs; people who like woodland plants and rock plants love Zone 4. But beware: though you can grow winter vegetables in the southern part of Zone 4, it doesn’t get enough winter sunlight in Alaska to sustain them. Average winter lows in Zone 4 range from 34°F (1°C) down to 28°F (–2°C),with extreme lows averaging 8 to 0°F (–13 to –18°C). The growing season is 150 to 200 days long, but because Zone 4 summers are temperate (highs average from the low 60s to the 70s), plants take more time to develop. If you’re growing vegetables, for example, add at least 50 percent to the days-to-harvest figure listed on the seed package, or start your garden from transplants.

Seattle Wa

ZONE 5: Marine influence along the Northwest coast, Puget Sound, and South Vancouver Island

Mild ocean air moderates Zone 5, allowing it to produce some of the finest rhododendrons, Japanese maples, and rock garden plants anywhere.Heaths and heathers thrive in sandy soils along the coast and inland, and katsura trees reach their prime, rarely scorching as they may inland. It’s also fine country for native woodland ferns, trilliums, piggyback plants, vine maples, and dogwoods. Summer highs run between 65 and 70°F (18 and 21°C) along the coast, and between 70 and 75°F (21 and 24°C) inland and around Puget Sound. Such mild temperatures favor leaf vegetables, which are slow to bolt, and flowering ornamentals like begonias. Steady breezes and lower temperatures, especially along the coast,make windbreaks and warm microclimates critical for heat-loving plants.

Average January minimum temperatures range from 33 to 41°F (1 to 5°C),with annual lows averaging a few degrees colder, and 10-year extremes ranging from 20 to 6°F (–7 to –14°C). Some locations (Coupeville, Raymond, Long Beach, Tillamook, Newport) get 10-year lows between 6° and 10°F (-14° and –12°C), but much of the region, especially along the Oregon coast, is mild enough to let gardeners get away with growing plants like Washingtonia robusta and hardy forms of Agave americana. Big freezes do considerable damage when they come very early or very late. And while these occasional disasters clear the slate of most borderline plants, they should not serve as a general gauge of plant hardiness here. Though the growing season averages between 200 and 250 days, heat accumulation is low, and warm-season vegetables develop slowly.

Kneeland, CA

ZONE 17: Marine effects in Southern Oregon, Northern and Central California

The climate in this zone features mild,wet, almost frostless winters and cool summers with frequent fog or wind. On most days and in most places, the fog tends to come in high and fast, creating a cooling and humidifying blanket between the sun and the earth, reducing the intensity of the light and sunshine. Some heat-loving plants (citrus, hibiscus, gardenia) don’t get enough heat to fruit or flower reliably. In a 20-year period, the lowest winter temperatures in Zone 17 ranged from 36 to 23°F (2 to –5°C). The lowest temperatures on record range from 30 to 20°F (–1 to –7°C).Of further interest in this heat-starved climate are the highs of summer, normally in the 60 to 75°F (16 to 24°C) range. The average highest temperature in Zone 17 is only 97°F (36°C). In all the other adjacent climate zones, average highest temperatures are in the 104 to 116°F (40 to 47°C) range.

Arcata Eureka CA

ZONE 15: Chilly winters along the Coast Range

Zones 15 and 16 are areas of Central and Northern California that are influenced by marine air approximately 85 percent of the time and by inland air 15 percent of the time.Also worthy of note is that although Zone 16 is within the Northern California coastal climate area, its winters are milder because the areas in this zone are in thermal belts (explained on page 28). The cold-winter areas that make up Zone 15 lie in cold-air basins, on hilltops above the thermal belts, or far enough north that plant performance dictates a Zone 15 designation. Many plants that are recommended for Zone 15 are not suggested for Zone 14 mainly because they must have a moister atmosphere, cooler summers, milder winters, or all three conditions present at the same time. On the other hand, Zone 15 still receives enough winter chilling to favor some of the coldwinter specialties, such as English bluebells, which are not recommended for Zones 16 and 17. Most of this zone gets a nagging afternoon wind in summer. Trees and dense shrubs planted on the windward side of a garden can disperse it, and a neighborhood full of trees can successfully keep it above the rooftops. Lows over a 20-year period ranged from 28 to 21°F (–2 to –6°C), and record lows from 26 to 16°F (–3 to –9°C).

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Thursday, June 10, 2010

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Thursday, June 10, 2010

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Daily Moon Phases

Dig in Dirt Garden Directory

Star Gazer Lilly

Garden Links of Interest

Gardening Jobs by Month - February

Planting by the Moon

Subscribers

Blog Archive

Petunia in a Tea Pot

Slideshow

Slideshow

Bleeding Heart

Climate Zones