'Preen' and new bulbs/tubers
kris2001
15 years ago
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gardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
15 years ago
kris2001
15 years agoRelated Discussions
Washing dug up tender bulbs/tubers ?
Comments (5)For your begonias in pots - you can put them away without cleaning. Pot and all. In spring, when the new shoots start showing through shake out the old mix and repot. The shoots arrive before the roots. They're a lot like Cyclamen in that regard. If the tubers are very small - say you've bought at the end of the season - try to keep them a little bit moist otherwise they dehydrate beyond recovery. (In this zone they overwinter in the garden with not much except leaf fall as mulch. There's usually lots of rain. The frosts aren't crackers, maybe up to -7C. That's shown me that total dry is not that important unless you expect deep chilling in your storage area.) Store them with a tag or similar so you don't have to wait until you get buds to remember what the colours and forms were. It's a pest finding a cascade where you expected an upright!...See MoreHelp! How to Overwinter these Non- Hardy Plants, Tubers, Bulbs?
Comments (4)I'm not sure how much help I can be, but I'll give it a shot... First of all, there is no one-size-fits-all watering schedule a grower can keep when it comes to containerized plants. Each plant will use water, and water will evaporate, at a different rates... based upon plant type, size, pot size, location, medium used, weather, humidity, etc... So, any potted plant should only be watered when it needs to be watered. I use a combination of my finger/sense of touch, and the wooden skewer method, to determine the moisture content within each pot. Even when soil feels dry to the touch near the surface, there could be plenty of moisture deeper within the pot, hence insertion of a wooden skewer to test for moisture, and a rather dry feeling medium may even contain moisture molecules at a small percentage that we can't feel with our own sense of touch. The Tulips, Lilies, Allium, and Hyacinthoides can be kept potted, and the pots buried up the rim in a garden, then mulched for the winter... as long as they're buried at their recommended depth, those types of bulbs are hardy to northern climes. However, squirrels and other rodents love to feast on them, so once the pots are buried, you may want to lay some screen over them before mulching... then remember to remove it early enough so the new shoots can get through. Some of the other plant types you mention are not hardy to your zone 5, and will require being kept in relative warmth. I don't think covering anything that sits up on a pedestal will do much good, as windchills can be quite devastating to plant roots that don't have the protection of being at ground level or buried, and protected with mulch of some kind. Hopefully, someone with more knowledge of your various plant types will be along to help... I'm in zone 5b, and bring all my tender potted plants indoors for winter, and try to place them where they will get the most light, treating them more as houseplants that are just resting for winter. Anything hardy to my zone either gets planted and mulched, or goes into an unheated, and otherwise unused, garage building once dormant. I group my potted perennials and shrubs together in plastic baby pools inside the garage, and I close up the building until early spring. I will check occasionally to see if the soil is dry, and if so, I will spread a few shovels full of snow over them to simulate nature and its winter moisture source. When dormancy breaks in spring, I begin opening the east facing garage doors to let in light, and as soon as I feel the weather is stable enough, I bring everything back outside for another growing season. I don't know how much I've helped you, but I wish you luck. :-)...See Morenew: garden decorating rr/oct. bulb/tuber swap!
Comments (81)Hello Diene When I worked full time at my 'career' I spent a lot more on skin care than that at a certain department store cosmetic counter. But these days my budget just wont stretch that far. (starving artist syndrome, ha ha) Anyway... it is still too warm here to plant bulbs, but I have planted over 100 daylilies and an equal number of TB Iris, mostly of the mixed NOID varieties, should be pretty exiting around here next summer. I have also planted Hostas and calla lilies and LambsEars. We were planning to plant a lawn this fall but without water it is just not practical, the clover and speedwell and plantain and wiregrass are getting a reprieve. Tracy Thanks again, my flowers have been lovely, but most of them (the annuals) bought the farm in July and August. With the water restrictions and 100+ degree temperatures I could not keep them alive. The perennials were started from seed last winter and held up much better but didn't bloom much. Next year will be better. I am planning to atart around 20 flats of drought tolerant and native perennial plants for next year... A garden is a work in progress, and my work is just begun. Frances...See Morepulling tubers/bulbs in fall - techniques? tricks? devices?
Comments (5)When I was looking up old discussions about wireworms for someone, I came across this series of comments from 2013 that you might find interesting... Hmm if you were concerned about brittle tubers you could make a modified bulb cage , maybe deeper than the one in the photo but with a cutout on the top for the stem , going to build some myself next year to make lifting bulbs easier Cici Vacation Hamari Accord and Light Accord both have very long thin tubers that are really easy to break during digging. One grower uses open-bottomed pots around the starter tuber to encourage new tuber growth to point down, allowing safer digging in the fall. Interesting That's an idea. I think with the wire bulb cage you'd end up with the wires in the tubers as they expand through a hole. Rather like a tree trunk or branch growing around fence wire....See Morekris2001
15 years ago
Chemocurl zn5b/6a Indiana
15 years agonpublici
15 years agoChemocurl zn5b/6a Indiana
15 years agogardengal48 (PNW Z8/9)
15 years agoChemocurl zn5b/6a Indiana
15 years agotxmom
15 years agosperritt
11 years ago
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