EASY PLANTING FROM SEEDS

Enjoy your plants from you own planting from seeds. There is nothing more rewarding then seeing your own plants growing from seeds you planted. It is very easy no trick or not a single green thumb necessary.

Here are quick easy steps to germinating(producing) from a seed.

1) Save your seeds from plants, best time is when the plant stops producing flowers, wait until the plant has fully produced the seeds usually in the Fall time period. If the seed is dark in color and dried usually that is the time to harvest.

2) If you picked the seeds early and seeds are not ready be harvested according to step 1 - don't worry, just let the seeds dry out in the sun or somewhere it will be dried eventually.

3) When seeds are completely dried your next step is to save them in nice dry place to be planted later in Spring time. Remember any moisture and mildew will damage the seeds. Oh yeah, make sure there are no little bugs on the seeds because they will create infestation.

4) Planting your saved seeds is the next step. Put dried seeds two to three inches in the ground and keep moisture on them. The trick here is the ground must be moisted and the warmth from sun (artificial heat is ok too) will aid in the germination. If you have a hard seed like an acorn or redbud seed just soak it in water or nick it with knife before sowing it in the ground, this process help breaks the skin of the seed to get it germinated quicker.

In summary, a seed must dried, then planted in moisted and warm ground before it can germinate. Follow these steps and you will have plenty of plants.

Happy Planting!

YOUR HAIR IS FOOD FOR YOUR TREE

Did you know that you can feed trees with hair, yes the hair on your head. It is a slow releasing form of nitrogen.

Don't pitch your hair in the trash next time you get a hair cut but save it as food for your trees.

What you need to do is to mix the saved hair with oatmeal and some of water then ball it up about a fist/softball size. Put the balled up hair and oatmeal under the roots of the tree and cover it up really good with dirt. Try not to damage the tree roots.

Best to time to do this in the fall and I am pretty sure you could do this anytime. Remember this is a slow releasing nitrogen to your tree and you will not notice your tree's growth spurts quickly but your tree will gradually grow larger and healthy in time.

Happy Planting!

MULTIPLY YOUR MUMS AT NO COST

Mums are pretty in the fall when everything else are brown and dead. Mums which is short for Chrysanthemum comes in all colors and they will bring beauty to your front door or garden when all other plants are loosing their leaves and flowers. One way to get more mums at no cost is to propagate from cuttings.

Mums are pretty hardy and will survive anywhere in the ground even with not roots. Here is what you need to do if you want to multiply the quantity of your mums, take a stem or cutting or tip of the mum plant and stick it in the moist ground where there is not a lot of sun. Keep the ground water regularly maybe once a day. It is better if you remove the foliage from the planted stem so the focus would be on rooting not wasting energy on producing the leaves. You will not need any fertilizer or root stimulator chemicals to help with rooting because mums stem has soft tissue that adapts to wet ground really well and produces roots with a week.

Once your mums stems are producing new growth or shoots which is an indication of good roots it is ok to tansplant them anywhere. I would recommend growing mums in a pot only if you don't want them to take over your garden, they will spread like mint does.

Keep your mums tightly trimmed so the blooms are nicely together and attractive. Trim mums to promote new growth and more flowers.

Next time you think about buying more mums don't if you already have some at home to multiply.

Happy planting

WINTERIZE YOUR PLANTS(TREES OR BUSHES)

Winter is the time when plants rest and recuperate for next growing season but they are not totally in hibernation like bears. When I was a kid I often thought that was the case that plants stop feeding when they are covered in snow.


Here are some of things I do to get my outside plants ready for winter and next spring: trimming, pruning, feeding, weeding, aerating, watering and mulching.

Trimming To Plants Health
Trim off all or as much as possible the dead limbs, buds or flowers from plants. Dead plant tissue is a good place for diseases or maybe pests. If you don't know if the branch is dead or alive just bend it and if it is brittle or breaks easily then it is dead. Live branch can be determined by color of the outermembrane/skin which is usually greenish or any color other than dull grayish brown.



Pruning To Shape
Shape your trees or plants by pruning. Two methods on pruning a tree or a bush to grow outward/ wider or inward/taller for new growing season. Pruning is easier after the leaves have falling off nonevergreen tree or bush. If you want a tree or bush to grow inward or taller prune away limb on left side of the bud or new growth which means the bud's up and to plant center. If you want a wider head on bush or tree growing more horizontal prune the limb on the right side of the bud so the bud is pointed up and away from plant center.



Pruning and trimming is very good way to promote new growth and strong healthy tree or bush. Sometimes a plant can be stagnant because it might not get enough sun because one of it's nonproductive branch or limb is blocking it from sun or that branch could be invaded by pests or dieseases.


Feeding
Plants will need to be fed. You could work in the ground near the roots with fertilizer high in phosphorus for flowered trees or bushes and nitrogen for non-flowered plants. If you want slow releasing nitrogen for your plants mix oatmeal with hair, yes hair, and ball them up and stick the ball under the roots. When spring rolls around apply epson salt which is high magnesium if want your plants to have very deep green foilage.



Weeding is cost saving
Weeds are costly to you and your plants. If you don't remove weeds you will have to spend more money on keeping your plants alive and healthy. Weeds will take take away your plants' nutrients, sun, air and space and your plants will not grow to their potential. Several ways to keep weeds down are to spray them or lay a mesh sheet material over the dirt.



Aerating for oxygen
Bush and trees need to breathe. Well aerated dirt will be soft and crumbly. If you dirt is dried and pack down you need to work it in with mixture of little bit of sand and a lot of top soil from any local home improvement stores. Every once in a while use a shovel or garden trowel move or rotated dirt so air could get in. Earthworms/red worms also are very important your dirt richness, the more earthworms/red worms you have the better.



Watering
Plants will need water even in the winter time. I know it is impossible to water in the frozen snow but you could prepare the plants before hand. Water the plants as much as possible before it gets too cold or covered by snow. When plants are hydrated they are not susceptible to frost damage.



Mulching
Mulch your plants with cedar mulch because it rot and pest resistant. Mulching help saves watering and keeps weeds down. Mulching with rocks can be very expensive because dirt sinks and then you will have replace them. Mulching with dried leaves is not recommended because it could lead to dieases, mold and unwanted pest in the ground, plus it traps dirt from breathing. Use mulch material that keeps weeds down, saves watering and allows ground to breathe.



If you have done all or most what have been discussed above you should enjoy your next growing season and your plants is going to love you and at the same time you will be saving time and money.



HAPPY PLANTING!

PLANTING BUSH CUTTINGS

I was curious on what bushes I could propagate from cuttings because they are so expensive at the nuseries and local home improvement stores.



I decided to start with 6" to 8" cuttings from the following bushes: Dogwood, Rose of Sharon, Goldmound Spiraea, Boxwood and Euonymus. I have succeeded with all the plants except for Boxwood. Some started faster than others.


Dogwood and Euonymus cuttings were the fastest and easiest to generate roots about one to two weeks depend upon conditions of the soil. Rose of Sharon and Spiraea took about 3 weeks to generate roots. Boxwood cutting is temperament and it didn't do any rooting for me maybe because I didn't do it right. I heard other people have success with Boxwood cuttings.



The methods I used are my own modified steps and very simple. No green thumb required here. You don't have to follow to the "T" but just the basic steps.




First, cut a 6" to 8" new soft tip from the bush, if you go longer it doesn't really matter but I find shorter lengths work better. Only 4.5"-5"length is needed to be covered in dirt which is approximately 70%-80% of cutting. Remove any cutting's leaves or sprouts or buds leaving just the stem before planting it in the dirt because the focus here is producing roots not new growth.




Next, you will only need to find a moist shady spot in your yard about at least 65%(more is better) of day to planting your cutting. The key is to keep the dirt or ground damp most of the time, cover with plastic if required but poke holes for some ventilation. Planting cutting in a pot works but it is hard to keep right temperature range for the cutting to produce roots unless you are able put in contained environment. Ideally, temperature controlled room is the way to go but for majority of us like me it is not feasible.



In uncontrolled environment best time of year to do cutting planting is early Spring. I have sticked cuttings in the ground before ground freezes and the cuttings do just fine. It depends on the harshness of Winter. Sometimes, I do early planting because Winter could be bad in Kansas that the ground is frozen until April. Yes, Kansas Winter varies from year to year maybe not as harsh as Northern states and regions.




Finally, you wait and wait and wait...I didn't say this was a fast process. For good growth of roots give it as much time as possible maybe up to a month. When the cutting is producing new healthy sprouts, it is indication of good roots.



Some people use the root stimulation power and chemical but I found it works just as well without. I hate wasting money on chemicals that could be harmful to other things in the yard...sorry that is a different topic.



Happy planting!