The second week of January is the best time to order seeds for spring planting and to get ready for any indoor or greenhouse seed planting by organizing the potting soil, containers and lighting you will need for the busy planting month ahead.
This is also a good week to prune forsythia and bring the bare branches indoor for winter forcing. January is for dreaming and scheming so surround yourself with the inspiration of garden books and magazines and plot our your perfect garden while the weather keeps you indoors.
Q. I have a bowl of sedums that I brought indoors for the winter. They started to grow taller and spindly and now all five are limp and falling apart. Not sure what I did wrong. I have kept them fertilized and watered. D.B. , Enumclaw
A.The bad news your sedums have most likely rotted and you won’t be able to save them, The good news is you have learned a lesson about trying to grow sedums indoors in Western Washington. Our long dark days mean they will stretch out from lack of sunlight and if you bring a succulent indoors where the air is warm you need to cut way back on the water to force them into winter dormancy. Feeding and watering sedums and succulents during the winter is exactly the wrong thing to do. Your only hope is to set the succulents in a cold garage or shed and do not water until spring. Then cut off the tops of each wilted succulent and perhaps you might force a bit of living tissue to send out a new sprout of growth.
Q. I have a rubber plant (I think) that has grown so tall that it almost reaches the ceiling. I want to cut it down to about a foot tall and let it start growing tall again. Is winter the right time to do this? Should I move it into a new container after pruning? L., Email
A. No. If your rubber plant (Ficus elastica) had your ear, it would say please wait until spring before any amputation surgery. This tropical plant craves sunlight to grow and we still have too many short, cloudy days in the winter. Sometime in April would be a better time as the longer days will help to encourage the pruned plant to start creating more fresh growth. You do not need to transplant your tall rubber plant into a larger container if you intend to slow down the top growth. Keeping houseplants in smaller pots helps to control their size by crowding the root system.
Q. I have a lot of hot sun and dry soil in my garden. I want to grow hellebores. I read that most hellebores like shade and cool soil. Does this mean there are some hellebores that will thrive in full sun? R.T. Email
A. Yes! There is a hellebore that thrives in full sun in Western Washington and it has pale green flowers and holly like evergreen foliage. It answers to several different names but the proper Latin name is Hellebore argutifolius. The more friendly sounding name for this tough perennial plant is Corsican hellebore or Holly leaved hellebore. I first laid eyes on this winter flowering plant on the island of Sardinia growing on rocky cliffs over the sea so figured it likes well drained soil in full sun. Then after growing it in my own garden I realized it also likes to grow in shade, part shade and even in moist soil as it seeds politely all over the garden. Winter is a good time to order this unusual hellebore from a local independent nursery. It is an impressive plant with a long bloom time but tends to sell out as soon as a nursery gets it in stock.
Marianne Binetti has a degree in horticulture from Washington State University and is the author of “Easy Answers for Great Gardens” and several other books. For answers to gardening questions, visit plantersplace.com and click “As The Expert”. Copyright for this column owned by Marianne Binetti. For more gardening information, she can be reached at her website, www.binettigarden.com.
