The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

Millions of Easter Lilies are flowering in homes all across the country. Most of them get tossed out after they are done blooming.

A small percentage of people plan to keep their plant hoping to have it bloom next Easter. “That ain’t gonna happen”, as one famous pawnbroker on TV likes to say. There is an art and science to getting Easter Lilies to bloom exactly on Easter weekend. And that is way beyond the skill of nearly all gardeners.

Remember Easter lily flowers are brilliant white so take that into consideration when deciding where to plant outside.

You can however, save your lily and have it bloom in your garden next summer. All you need to do is keep it in good shape for the next six weeks or so.

The most common problem you are likely to see is water-logged roots. This happens when the foil pot wrapper is left on the pot. Since water has no where to drain, it collects in the foil and pot, drowning the roots. So, pour out any extra water from the foil wrapper or take off the wrapper completly.

Keep the plant in a cool, bright spot in your house so that the leaves can do their thing with photosynthesis.

In mid-May or after the last frost, plant the lily into a flower bed in full sun. Water and fertilize it along with the rest of your plants.

Then, next summer and each summer after that, your lily will bloom and become a permanet part of your landscape.

Bob

Earlier this week, my friend Phyllis asked me what she should do with her amaryllis now that it has stopped blooming.

By following a few steps it’s fairly easy to encourage an amaryllis to re-blossom.

The first step is to cut off the old flower stalk. Then just treat the plant as if it were a house plant. Keep the soil somewhat moist and fertilize it once a month with water-soluble houseplant fertilizer.

Over Memorial Day weekend, move the pot outside in a brightly lit area away from direct sunlight — you don’t want the plant to get sunburned.  You can either leave it in its pot or transplant it into a flower bed. Fertilize it regularly throughout the growing season. During this time the bulb will grow larger and store energy for blossoming later on.

Sometime around September the leaves will begin to turn yellow — this is a signal that the plant is starting to go dormant. At that point, stop watering and let the leaves die back. Cut the leaves back to about an inch above the bulb.

Move the bulb to a dry area and let it rest for about eight to ten weeks.

Around Thanksgiving wake up your amaryllis by moving it back into a bright spot. Then start watering and fertilizing again. It will soon re-sprout leaves and eventually bloom.

A well cared for amaryllis will re-bloom year after year.

Bob

Someone mentioned to me today that they had traveled to Northern Michigan last weekend to see the fall colors. He said they were the best he had ever seen in his life. That’s a pretty big statement coming from someone who is over 70 years old. I’ll have to take his word for it because I missed it.

Looking at huge vistas of fall colors from the comfort of your car is a lot of fun. Sometimes you need to get out of the car and appreciate the small color displays up close.

In a spot in our yard that we keep wild,  we have three different species of  wild asters thriving.  There’s the dark purple New England aster growing along side a lighter purple aster and a white species.

Driving along at 55 mph you might catch a fleeting glimpse of our native Michigan asters while on your color tour. But to really appreciate them, you need to get out of the car and look at them close up.

The cannas had a nice long growing season but the hard frost brought that to an abrupt end.  Now, a gardener has to make a decision – do you dig and store them, or let them freeze and buy new ones next year?

Since I have such a hard time throwing out plants, I always dig them and find room for them somewhere.

It’s easy enough to save them for planting next spring.  First cut the tops off, I like to leave a couple of inches of stem attached to the roots.  Then dig the rhizome clumps out with a garden fork.  Set them in a garage or some place away from freezing temperatures and let them dry.

Move the clumps — soil and all — to a spot where they won’t freeze.  They should keep until spring.  Some gardeners like to crate-up and pack cannas in dried peat moss.  That allows more efficient use of storage space, especially if you have a lot of rhizomes to deal with.

I usually let potted cannas stay right in their pots over winter.  It takes up more space but takes less time than removing them from the pot.

There are reality TV shows about hoarding things and animals;  do you think they’ll ever do one about hoarding plants?  Maybe the Michigan Film Office will be interested in that idea.

Bob

Not long ago I stopped by a neighbor’s house to see how her remodeling project was going; she’s putting the house up for sale.  She asked me about a row of plants growing on the north side of the house.  Her plan is to remove the flowerbed and plant the area into grass.

Years ago, a previous resident planted a row of Ajuga — sometimes called Bugleweed.  The foliage on these plants is a beautiful bronze color.  I’m not sure of the variety, it’s probably ‘Bronze Beauty’.

The plants are doing quite well in the shady area.   Ajuga has a tendency to spread but these are behaving themselves and staying put in the garden bed.

Ajuga makes a great ground cover growing best in rich moist soil, which describes the growing conditions of this bed of Bugleweed.  They will adapt to drier and less fertile areas if they have to.

In mid-spring, blue flowers appear on Bronze Beauty.  Other varieties produce purple or white flowers.

The owner says these plants have to go.  Normally, I’d wait until spring to move them but, since I have no choice, I’ll have to dig them within the next few days.

With some snow cover this winter, they should over-winter just fine.

Bob