Every
year when we put our gardens to bed and get ready for a new year, I think of
all the similarities between plants and people.
Both respond to tender loving care.
I wonder if plants make New Year’s Resolutions? I read somewhere that each American makes 1.9
New Year’s Resolutions. If that is true
around the world, think how many millions of people resolve to improve! I wonder how many of those resolutions deal
with losing weight, exercising more and smoking less. We all want to be healthy, do things better
and become better people. Plants would
probably resolve to produce more and help clean our environment.
People depend on plants for nearly
everything, including food, clothing and shelter. Plants, like people, need nurturing to
flourish. This nurturing requires
attention, vision, respect, opportunities and protection. Nurturing plants requires a good
understanding of the nature and potential of different species and the purpose
for which a plant is cultivated – for flowers, foliage or fruit. This aspect of nurturing a garden reminds us
of our need to nurture our own bodies by means of good food, reasonable
exercise, adequate water, proper rest, cleanliness, and fulfilling our own
personal goals and inner nature. We know
we must weed out the influences in our lives that sap our energy and stunt our
own growth. We know we must supply new
ideas, knowledge and creative stimulation, to fertilize our minds. We know we must prune back excessive worries,
unneeded products, and old habits so that we might renew ourselves and
experience vital rebirth. We see how a
neglected plant withers and dies. As we
become more skilled at nurturing plants, we begin to apply these principles to
our own bodies and minds.
Nurturing Is A Year Round Chore
Yes, you can garden in the
winter. Actually, it is the best time
for making plans, as well as viewing your landscape and making decisions about
what wonderful effects you want to create in your garden next year. When the leaves fall and the annual flowers
are gone, you can see where a nice arbor or water feature might go.
Assess your landscape for winter
interest. Does snow cling to evergreen
branches? Do seed heads from ornamental
grasses and last year’s flowers dance in the wind? Do the birds swoop in for a cocktail of
fermented berries from the trees and shrubs?
When the landscape looks like a
black and white movie, count on conifers to colorize your world. These cone-bearing evergreens have needles
and come in all sizes, shapes and colors.
Yes, colors! Consider the popular
Colorado blue spruce, the gold thread-leaf Sawara Cypress, the orange golden
eastern arborvitae. Pines and junipers
boast a paint store palette of greens, plus shades of blue, yellow and hints of
red. With some, the color varies by
season. With all, the color lasts
year-long.
Some broadleaf plants also are
evergreens. Boxwoods, Hollies,
Rhododendrons and Wintercreeper (Euonymus) are options for color through
winter.
Ornamental grasses provide a
terrific vertical element in summer and then take center stage in fall and
winter. Grasses offer structure, style
and movement in the landscape. They also
vary in height, color and plume.
Landscape plants should be pruned to
maintain or reduce their size, to remove undesirable growth, to remove dead or
damaged branches and to rejuvenate older plants to produce more vigorous
foliage, flowers and fruits. In some cases, pruning is necessary to prevent
damage to life and property.
Late winter or early spring, before
new growth begins, is generally considered the optimum time to prune most
plants. This is when the plant wounds
heal quickly, without threat of insect or disease infection. However, plants that bloom in early spring
(before June 10), such as forsythia, magnolia and crabapples, should be pruned
later after their blooms fade. These
early bloomers produce their flower buds on last year’s wood, so pruning early
will remove many potential blooms.
HAPPY
NEW YEAR, HAPPY LIFE AND HAPPY GARDENING!!!
Tom McNutt is
a professor emeritus at The Ohio State University. and retired NBC4-TV resident
green thumb
