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Jill and Rick Van Duyvendyk answer all your gardening questions in Garden Talk on 650 CKOM and 980 CJME every Sunday morning from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Here are some questions and answers from the Dec. 15 show:
Q: How do I get my amaryllis bulbs to re-bloom?
A: If they are growing up already, they need to rest. They need an eight to 10 week cooling period after they’ve been actively growing. When you slow down on watering, the leaves will start to start to get weaker and slowly die back down into the bulb. You can cut the leaves off when they start to get yellow.
Put the bulbs into cold storage — the crisper of a fridge away from any fruits and vegetables or a cooler basement, cellar or the corner of a cooler shed at 3-5 C would be ideal. After eight to 10 weeks of cool storage, plant them and they will bloom four to six weeks after that.
Christmas trees have a lifespan. Extra humidity in your home makes a big difference. (zigmunds/Depositphotos.com)
Q: How can I fix a Christmas tree that has stopped taking up water and is losing needles?
A: Use a cordless drill with the biggest bit you have and drill on an angle down below the water surface to open up some new pores. Make sure the tree is well anchored while you’re drilling and it’s a good sharp bit. Don’t use much force. Don’t use a corded drill — water and electricity don’t mix well.
Christmas trees are all going to stop picking up water eventually, even when you use a tree preservative. After drilling the holes drilled add tree preservative as well.
The key in the first five or six days is not to let the reservoir dry out or air pockets will form in in the pores and that will stop the water from going into the tree. Christmas trees have a lifespan. Extra humidity in your home makes a big difference, too. Even just putting a tray of water underneath the tree can help.
Q: Does dried fertilizer or dried plant food have a shelf life?
A: As long as it’s sealed and it doesn’t gather moisture both do not really have a shelf life. Repeated freeze-thaw situations will cause humidity in those bags, and moisture can wreck the fertilizer by leaching out some of the nutrients.
If fertilizer and plant food is mostly dry, in a plastic container and closed up both will keep fine. Keeping it sealed is important because nitrogen can evaporate into the air.
These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
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