Eating great-tasting fresh greens out of the garden is one of the special pleasures one gets from growing one's own vegetables. But you don't need an acre plot of land to do it in--even a small area will work just fine. With just a little planning and ingenuity, you can grow salad greens just about anywhere.

All you need is a large planter box, or several smaller ones, if you plan on moving plants in and out. Put in some of our great potting soil and you're in business. If you don't like to bend over, add legs to the sides of the box, or place it on a table--and you can have a raised planter at just the right height. You can grow from seed or transplant seedlings, whichever you prefer.

Salad greens perform their very best during the cooler seasons. You can even make your planter look colorful by combining different varieties of lettuce, spinach and field greens in the same box. Make sure to feed your greens some organic plant food on a monthly basis to help bring out the best flavor.

One of the plants that we always look forward to after a long winter is the forsythia. This early blooming plant is a focal point of early spring, heralding the warming months with a brilliant display of golden yellow blooms. Forsythias bloom before they leaf out, and during full bloom the bare stems are completely covered from base to tips. In early spring, they become the focal point of the landscape, then blend in well with other plants when the rich green foliage emerges after blooming.

These deciduous shrubs are native to eastern Asia, where they have been used in Chinese medicine for their antiseptic effect in treating wounds. They are fast growing with dwarf varieties reaching 4-5 ft high and almost as wide, while taller growing varieties can reach 8-10 ft high and half as wide. The plants have great structure with an upright arching growth habit that has a somewhat fountainlike effect.

Forsythias not only look great in the landscape, but their branches also are perfect for flower arrangements, thanks to the uniformity of blooms on the branches. They are frost-hardy and easy to grow in well-drained fertile soil. They grow best in a full sun location, so are often used as a living privacy fence after they have fully leafed out. The taller varieties make great individual specimens in the landscape, and can also be used for erosion control on slopes.

Most people prefer the somewhat wild natural look of forsythias, but they can be shaped with regular pruning. This is best done after they have finished blooming, because they flower on the prior year's growth (pruning either too late or too early interrupts the growth/blooming cycle). But no matter how you shape this hardy plant, it will reward you with years and years of spectacular color every spring!

We carry Spring Glory, a large grower with height and spread of 8 feet or more. Gold Cluster will grow 5 feet in size and the flowers are spaced almost on top of one another for a dense foxtail look on the stems. Magical Gold will also grow to 5 feet, with the extra large golden flowers Lastly, we carry Gold Tide. This forsythia grows 2 feet tall and 8 feet wide, making it a wonderful groundcover shrub with soft yellow flowers in the early spring.

Although many cymbidiums start to flower in December, some bloom as early as November. Most bloom between February and May, a few in May and June, and just one or two bloom year round. Choose wisely, and you can have these exotic orchids decorating your home, patio, and garden for six months or more. Protect cymbidiums' bloom spikes from snails when they are outside. Stake the spike to avoid breakage, but allow each spray to maintain its natural arching form. Allow miniatures in hanging baskets to cascade naturally. Continue to feed the plants for bloom with a fertilizer rich in bloom ingredients like Grow More Orchid Food until buds open. Once they bloom stop feeding the plants; keep them damp but not soggy. For longer-lasting flowers, move blooming plants into more shade and keep away from bees if they are outside. (The flowers "blush" and fade after pollination.)

Once cymbidium spikes have set buds, you can force some into bloom ahead of their natural schedule. Wait until the buds on the bloom spikes are full size and look fat and ready to open. Then place the plant in a warm area with bright light. The warmth plus the longer "day" will open the buds quickly. Move back into a lower-light area for longer lasting blooms. There's one drawback to forcing--plants you force into bloom early won't perform as well next year. You'll get a few spikes but not as many. This is also a factor to consider when buying new varieties. Some may have been forced into bloom, and you won't get as many spikes the following year. Wait for the third year and they'll be loaded with blooms.

The primary reason for keeping our tools sharp is so that the cuts they make are cleaner, allowing the plant to heal more efficiently, and resulting in a healthier plant that is better able to fight disease, insect infestation, and natural stresses. Most arborists prefer diamond files because of their ease of use, even for a novice. You’ll need three levels of coarseness, or grits: coarse, fine, and extra fine. These files, with their long life spans, will be a part of your gardening arsenal for years to come.

But let’s begin with a “bath.” First coat your tools with WD-40 or Sap-X, leaving it on for 30 seconds. Then put on heavy gloves for the remainder of the project. Take coarse steel wool or a wire brush and apply elbow grease to remove all of the dirt that’s accumulated. Be sure to clean the back of the neck as well. After the gunk is gone, switch to finer steel wool for polishing the shine back into your pruners. Take a cloth and wipe down the tool, removing the little bits of dirt and metal that your efforts have created. Now for the files. Prior to using them, pat them with a moist cloth; the water will keep the file from clogging with the tiny bits of metal you’ll be removing from the blade. Begin with the coarsest file and progress to the finest for the best edge.

Angle is all-important. You want to angle your coarsest file to the beveled edge, about 10 to 20 degrees. This is where your gloves are particularly handy; with one hand, apply some pressure to ensure that the tool doesn’t slip. The gloves will also prevent fine pieces of metal from entering your hands. Starting at the inside of the blade, draw the file away from your body and toward the tip of the blade in a curving motion, always adhering to the shape of the blade. Make anywhere from 20 to 40 passes with the file, depending on the degree of deterioration. Switch to the finer file, making the same number of passes, and finish with the extra fine file, again matching the number of passes made.

Complete the process by wiping your tool with a cloth and a lubricant. Once a year, use a product designed for lubricating bicycle chains, and intermittently throughout the season, apply olive oil to the blades.

If you have a perpetually damp place in your garden that has always been a problem area for you, don't despair. Quite a few plants actually enjoy having wet (cooler) feet and will perform quite well in moist or flood prone areas with poor drainage or bordering a pond or stream.

Planted right, this area can actually become a highlight of your garden, creating a unique spot with intriguing foliage and flowers. It can also become a wonderful habitat for attracting wildlife to your garden. Make sure to include a footpath or elevated walkway through the garden to provide access for easy maintenance.

We stock a great selection of plants that perform well in boggy conditions. Some of our varieties can become a bit too happy in these conditions and may need to be pruned back some after a few growing seasons--but they will more than make up for their "enthusiasm" by providing loads of color throughout the year. Stop by the nursery today and turn your trouble area into a bodacious bog garden!

One of my favorite pleasures in winter is to be inside my warm house and look out at the wild birds at the feeder. I love to refill the feeders in the morning after a storm, pouring out my gifts to the birds. They know what to expect and start flirting into the bare trees around the feeders as soon as I open the door.

Feeding birds at home is like running any successful restaurant:
You need a good location, a comfortable, clean space and an appealing menu. Different birds have different tastes. So what you put in your feeder should depend on what you would like to attract. Serve a seed special. The superior sunflower seed is the small black-oil type. Most birds who frequent feeders love it.Mimimize the mess. Hulled sunflower seed are more expensive, but there’s less waste left behind. Shrubbery and trees offer quick escape routes if danger flies overhead or pounces from the shadows. A sunny spot out of the prevailing winds--near a small tree or shrubs, with a good view of the house--is a perfect spot for a feeder.

We have Niger for the socks for refilling, Suet for high energy needs and Fruit and Berry from Wild Delight.

If you are new to feeding birds, you might wonder what to offer. In short, offer seeds and water. Many of the birds we see in winter are seed eaters. They have to be: insects are hard to come by this time of year. By setting up a bird feeding station, you are taking your cue from nature, offering the kind of nourishment that the birds are adapted to. You provide a generous, reliable source of food, and the birds gladly come and help themselves, up close, where it’s convenient for you to watch them.

The hands down favorite bird seed is sunflower. It attracts many types of birds including woodpeckers, jays and finches. Buy the black sunflower seeds, sometimes called oil seeds. Birds prefer them to the grey and white striped sunflower seeds sold for people because they are higher in oil content. They are softer shelled, hence easier to crack open.

Another essential bird seed is niger. Finches adore niger. You may have dozens of finches visiting your niger feeder at once, which is quite a cheering sight on a winter day. Niger is a black seed, so tiny and light you can blow away a handful with a gentle breath. Buy a yellow seed sock or a hanging feeder specifically designed for niger, and hang it where you can see it from your best viewing window. Up close to the house, even under the eaves, is fine. Finches will become very tame and won’t mind your standing two feet from them, on the other side of the window, while they eat.

The only seed mix I have found my birds like is the dove and quail food. I scatter it on the ground for quail, doves, sparrows and finches. Other seed mixes have too much filler seed and the birds seem to kick it around and eat only what they like. Buy the seeds you know your birds want.

When starting up a feeding program, be patient. It may take as long as several weeks before the birds discover your feeders. While you wait, be sure to keep the feeders filled. Eventually, the birds will come... and then they will come back!

Sometimes conscientious people are concerned about whether feeding the birds will harm the birds. Will the birds become dependent on the handouts? And it's often advised that one should only start feeding birds if certain that the feeding can continue uninterrupted all winter.

However, the evidence indicates that feeding is not likely to be bad for birds. They don’t settle in and dine at just one place. Finches, for example, follow a circuit each day, visiting a number of feeders and wild food patches, as we know from studies of banded birds that can be identified individually.

With many households feeding birds, it’s unlikely that a bird will starve because one feeder goes empty. All the same, birds that come into your yard at dusk on a cold evening are hungry, and one does not like to disappoint one’s guests. It’s my pleasure to make sure that they always find something to eat in my yard.

by Tamara Galbraith

Attention: Anyone who received an amaryllis as a gift over the holidays...don't throw that bulb away just because the flower stalk is now withered and ugly! With a little coddling, you can enjoy the same beautiful blooms next year.

After the blossoms shrivel, cut the flower stem 1 inch above the base with a sharp knife. Continue to water and feed the remaining bulb regularly, and provide plenty of light. Amaryllis can be planted outdoors - pot and all - in partial shade and then into full sunlight during the summer.

For Christmas blooms next year, bring the plants into the garage in late September and place the pots on their sides. Cut off all water. This gives the plants a couple of months to rest before preparing to bloom again during the holidays.

In November, remove any dead leaves and replace the top couple of inches of potting soil. Resist the urge to pot up, as amaryllis like being jammed into a small space; there should only be about 1" between the bulb and the pot. Thoroughly water, place in a sunny window indoors and wait until growth emerges.

Once a flower bud becomes evident, continue watering when soil becomes dry, and make sure the plant is receiving plenty of sunlight. Water well during blooming, but put the plant in a less bright spot to help the flowers last longer. Then, when the flowers begin to fade, it's time to start the whole process over again.

If you're in USDA hardiness zone 7b or warmer, amaryllis can also be grown outdoors like any other flowering bulb, although many of the Dutch hybrid types will not do that well. Just make sure the soil is well-drained and rich in organic matter. Space bulbs about a foot apart and barely cover the bulb tops with soil. Select a sunny spot in the garden that receives some shade during the afternoon hours. Avoid placing the bulb where it will dry out excessively; a light layer of mulch will help retain moisture and keep the bulb from overheating in hot weather.

The hellebore is an unusual and beautiful winter flower. Winter-flowering hellebores such as Helleborus niger (Christmas rose) are frost-hardy, but their pale blooms are often only just above soil level. If you want to cut the flowers to take indoors, covering the plants will reduce mud splashes and keep the blooms clean and in good condition.

Protect low-growing winter-flowering plants such as H. niger with a cloche if you want perfect blooms to cut for indoors. Though frost-hardy, the flowers tend to become splashed with mud and damaged by the weather.

If you do not have a cloche, improvise with a piece of polythene over wire hoops or a pane of glass supported on bricks.

Keeping your houseplants healthy during winter months may seem difficult. Light from windows is reduced, days are shorter and humidity may be lower due to heating. But by making a few changes, you can help keep your houseplants healthy.

Keeping things light

In winter, your plants receive sunlight for less time and in less intensity. Houseplants out of rainforests that are used to lower light will be fine with that, but most plants need more light. Try to move your plants near a brighter window (S/SW exposure) to get them more sunlight.

If you have no brighter windows (due to shade trees or apartment living), you might want to consider the purchase of plant lamps that are designed to provide the full spectrum light your plants need. They can be mounted under shelves over plants or on specially-designed plant stands. Leave them on about eight hours a day, and they'll give your plants the light they need.

You can also use cool fluorescent bulbs as close as 6 inches from the top of plants.

Temperature

Most plants do not do well when subjected to rapid fluctuations in temperature. Keep them away from hot air sources and cold drafts alike. Run ceiling fans on low if the house is closed up. Fans break up stagnant air; that's healthier for both you and your plants.

Humidity

Some symptoms of low humidity are brown leaf tips and wilting. Low humidity makes your plants work harder to get moisture from the air and soil, as well as keep what they have inside.

One way to give your plants some extra humidity is to mist them two or three times a day. The water will evaporate off the leaves and provide a cloud of higher humidity around the plant. For a less labor-intensive method, put a layer of pebbles in the bottom of a tray and fill the tray with just enough water to cover the bottom of the tray (below the top of the pebbles). Place potted plants in the tray.

Fertilizing should be done less often for most plants in winter.

Other

Give your plants a good washing. Dirt, dust, grease, and other particles can settle on leaves. Leaves that are dirty can't absorb as much sunlight as clean ones. Gently wipe clean the leaves with a soft sponge or cloth dipped in plain water. Sturdier plants can even be given a quick shower in the bathroom with tepid water.

How can I tell if a plant is fully rooted?

Answer:

Stand back, look your plant straight in the eye, and ask it! No beating around the bush (forgive the pun); simply ask it in a straightforward manner.

No, seriously, most plants take at least 3-4 months--sometimes a complete growing season in colder climates--to become rooted and established.

If you pull up gently on an established plant, there generally will be no "give." New growth on the plant tips is another sign that your plant is safely on its way.

Incorporating a starter fertilizer into the backfill of the hole and then watering in with a rooting hormone will give your new plants an added boost to help them set down good, solid roots in their new environment.