The next meeting of the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society will be on Wednesday, April 19. at 7:00 p.m. at SIGN on North Street. Our special guest speaker will be Warren Crossman talking to us about “Ornamental and Native Grasses For The Local Area”. Grasses add a beautiful, airy element to our gardens, and give wonderful new textures to our plantings. It will be great to learn about grasses that will do well here! Everyone is welcome!
A while ago, someone was telling me about their Christmas cactus, and said it wasn’t blooming. I know we talked about this before, so I thought we could review why this might be happening. First of all, we have to cut down on watering. We should water only when the top one inch is dry. By giving the plant less water, we are encouraging it to become dormant, and it needs that “plant vacation” in order to bloom.
Next, we will have to move our plant to a cool spot where it will get at least twelve hours of darkness. This helps buds to form. Then during the day, give it bright, indirect light. This special treatment should be continued for six to eight weeks. Once we start to see buds forming, we can move the plant to a sunny area (but not direct sun). We must also remember that the plants don’t like a draft. Plus, they like being cozy in their pot — no need to put them into a big spacious pot.
And speaking of plants that like to be pot-bound, the beautiful hoya falls into this category. Getting a hoya to bloom requires the right conditions. It likes bright, indirect sunlight; we could give the plant a balanced fertilizer, but not during the winter months. The hoya likes humidity, so we could mist our plants three or four times a week. We must remember not to deadhead the plants, because new blooms will come back from these same spots. And hoyas like to be potbound — that feeling of coziness prompts them to flower. Remember, too, that some varieties of hoya do not flower until they are three or more years of age.
Only 61 more sleeps till the May long weekend — it’s hard to believe how our gardens will transform in that short space of time, from being snow-bound to bursting forth with the tender buds of spring! If you have been keeping notes in your garden journal, you might review last year’s notes and see what things you really liked and what you might want to change. Now is the time to think about that, because once you and I start visiting greenhouses, our garden resolutions often get forgotten when we see all those beautiful new plants!
We probably all have a list of “must-haves” for our gardens or containers. And let’s also make a firm resolution to try something new! I’ve heard it said that things stick around because they are consistently good and reliable; and that’s true to a point. But it doesn’t mean we can’t find a new favorite as well. So let’s make a gardener’s pact: at least one new thing in our gardens or containers!
Any maybe this year, in honor of Canada’s 150, we might want to do one special planter in a red and white theme. We can stretch our gardening imaginations to see what interesting plants we can find in red and white! With gardening there’s always something wonderful to think about!
Happy garden planning — have a great week!
