How's Your Garden

BY LOIS TRIGG CHAPLIN

A Tropical Christmas Tree

Norfolk Island pine (Auracaria heterophylla) is a houseplant often sold during the Christmas season because it looks a bit like a Christmas tree – especially when decorated with lights and ornaments. Small trees do well on a table top, and larger ones make good floor specimens that then remain as a nice houseplant after the holidays. Not really a pine, this tree is a tropical relative of the monkey puzzle tree. In New Zealand, where it is native, trees grow to 200 feet tall. No worries, it won’t burst through the roof. Here it makes a nice potted plant that must be protected from freezing weather, but will stand well on a patio in spring, summer and fall. Indoors it needs bright light on a sun porch or south-facing window. If you are looking for something a little different for another room of the house, or even as a gift for a houseplant-loving friend, consider the bright-green-needled, Norfolk Island pine.

Norfolk Island pine makes a good houseplant Christmas tree.

Wheat in a Container?

A plant with many faces, wheat isn’t just about the grain. Wheatgrass, the tender young seedling leaves of wheat plants, are regarded as a healthy dietary supplement for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. They contain many vitamins and minerals, too. Seedlings are sometimes seen in produce departments for folks to include in a morning smoothie. Trays of wheat seedlings sown so thickly that they look like sod also provide a munchy for cats and dogs that live exclusively indoors. And for gardeners, it’s also a pretty, tall, wintertime green grass for containers! Planted in fall or late winter, the seedlings grow during mild weather to make a nice pot of green grass through winter and early spring. The green is so fresh and bright that it doesn’t matter if there are no flowers. And the tall, grassy texture is interesting and different for use as a winter annual. So, if you are looking for something different for an empty garden pot, sprinkle some wheat seeds into a pot and see what you get.

Wheat makes a pretty annual grass for winter and early spring.

These Herbs Can Take a Chill

With a little help from their friends, a few culinary herbs will yield regular harvests of leaves through winter. Even a small plant can be useful since it is used only a pinch at a time. Although garden centers may not have herbs at this time, potted plants are often found in supermarket produce sections at this time of year. It’s a logical way to market fresh herbs to cooks, but we gardeners know how to take them further. These plants will be tender because they have come out of heated environments, but the naturally hardiest species – dill, rosemary, cilantro, thyme and mint—can be carefully moved to a cold frame, greenhouse, or low tunnel during a mild spell to acclimate and grow through winter. They will respond with spring-like growth, especially after the days grow longer. In spring, the rosemary and thyme, which are perennial, can be moved to permanent places in the garden. The dill and cilantro are annuals, so they will bloom and die. Mint is best moved to a container because its runners can spread like a weed. Next winter, the garden-acclimated mint, thyme and rosemary will withstand frost.

Rosemary is one of the most cold-hardy herbs.

A Good, Easy Gardener Gift

No matter how hard they might be to buy for, most gardeners are usually happy with a Christmas present that they can use outdoors. This year consider a simple bird feeder to add to the list of potential gifts. Hummingbird feeders are especially economical for the recipient because sugar water is much more economical than bird seed. It takes only one cup of sugar to make a quart of sugar water that will last for several days. It a nice touch to include an ant moat that can be the difference between success and frustration by keeping ants from getting to the sweet treat inside the feeder.

Hummingbird feeders make a nice gift.

Help Greens Through Winter

The on-and-off nature of winters can be hard on leafy greens. A freeze following a period of unseasonably warm weather is more likely to damage lettuce, mustard, and other leafy greens than a slow, steady chill. And, when we experience an unseasonably long cold spell, winter greens such as lettuce, mustard, collards, and many others just don’t grow much, especially during the shortest days. However, a little help from a frost cloth can provide just enough freeze protection or extra warmth to keep the plants going. Once the days start to lengthen, the plants that have been protected respond with continued growth yielding well into spring. We cover all of our greens under a low tunnel fashioned from gray, ½-inch-diameter, UV-sunlight-stable, schedule 40 PVC conduit as the support for a 7-foot-wide length of frost cloth. To make the hoop, each end of the PVC length simply slips over a short piece of rebar pushed into the ground a few inches.

It’s easy to make a low tunnel to protect greens.