Garden Talk: Get your indoor and outdoor plants ready for fall

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 a selection of questions and answers from the Sept. 8 show:

Q: What should I do to prepare my garden and yard for fall?

A: When night temperatures read 2 or 3 deg C covering any remaining crops to add a little extra time to anything that hasn’t quite ripened yet. We had a late start to spring, so we need to extend the harvest season a little bit.

Gardeners can replace fading plants in pots with a fall chrysanthemum or a kale or even a grass and extend the season. Or throw a pumpkin in the middle for a great filler that will add a little bit of fall flair.

There are also some neat ornamental gourds you can use to get the fall theme going. On social media people are taking a skewer and sticking it in the end of gourds then poking that into their container. That works great if you want kept something for about a week or two, and the kids don’t knock them out of the pot all the time but the skewer allows bacteria to get inside and the pumpkin or gourd will start rotting. If you want it to last a lot longer, don’t puncture it.

When you are choosing plants for your yard, don’t choose ones that finish at the same time so you can have some fall colour — sedums will bloom right up until the first frost, rudbekia and heliopsis bloom in fall, and Karl Foerster grasses give a nice harvest look to a yard.

September is a great time to apply fall fertilizer to a lawn, like GroundKeeper, which is sulfur-based, and slowing down on watering. Shrubs and trees should not be fertilized now.

It’s still a great time to prune maples and birches and it is legal to prune elm trees right now. Don’t wait until November.

Q: Is it too late to plants trees and shrubs in fall? Even really big trees?

A: Most trees and shrubs are no problem but cedars are best planted in spring. Many will do better when planted in spring or summer months so they have time to get established before winter but spruce trees are an exception.

Spruce trees can be planted and moved all fall — even when they 12 feet tall. As soon as spruces set their terminal buds, they can be moved.

If your garden has a microclimate and you are able to plant Zone Three or Four trees and shrubs that aren’t as hardy in Saskatchewan, spring is the best time to plant. A hardy Zone Two tree or shrub will be fine. If you plant a Zone Three tree or shrub then mulch them in a 30-inch ring at the base.

If a plant or tree is already dug up or in a pot it’s okay to plant it but it might not be the best time to disturb a new root system or cut all the roots on an older tree to move it in the fall. Moving a tree is stressing it, and we could be going into a harsh winter.

Water anything planted now really well. Make sure to get the soil around the root ball soaked, especially if there’s still green leaves on the tree. Water at the trunk of the tree to keep the root ball hydrated so the leaves don’t to suck all the moisture out and stress the tree going into winter. Watering it once a day as if you’re watering it in the pot, not filling the hole that you dug.

Q: How can I look after my plants still sitting in pots for the winter?

A: Don’t put them in the garage! The best thing to do is dig them into a garden area that has loose soil — dig a hole and put the whole pot in the ground and cover it up. The ground is a heat sink and it protects the roots. Put mulch around the top. Snow a great insulator but we can’t predict when we get it.

If you have small pine, spruce or cedar trees plant in a pot in the ground on the north side of a garden shed so they don’t have the sun on them in March and April. You can also put some stakes and wrap them with burlap.

Leave the top open and wrap the burlap to six inches above the ground so snow can fall in — that’s very important.  If there is an area around the tree that doesn’t have any snow, it goes through the burlap right to the roots and freezes the plant. We don’t wrap trees to keep them warm, we wrap them to protect from the sun and wind — and the reflection of the sun off snow. Take the burlap off after the ground thaws.

Q: If my trees that are dropping leaves had a disease or pests, what should I be doing with the leaves?

A: If it’s a fungal disease throw them away. If it’s just a regular leaf drop don’t put them all in the green bin. Put some in plastic bags, tie them up and if we get a brown Christmas they can be used to protect plants like hydrangea or strawberries. Put the bag in the compost in the spring if you don’t use them.

Don’t remove all your leaves because good bugs live in them, like ladybugs. Clean up the majority of your leaves, but leave some for some of the good bugs.

Q: I’m noticing lots of aphids on my plants. Is insecticidal soap effective against them? What do I do to get rid of them?

A: There are so many colours of aphids and in Saskatchewan we are seeing more red aphids this year than ever before. They’re different because they stand like little soldiers up the stem with their butts sticking up in the air.

If you have aphids, usually you will also have an ant problem, as they feed on what the aphids secrete. Ants can cause a problem by aerating the soil and drying out the roots, but they’re not doing anything to the leaves. Aphids are sucking every bit of moisture they can from the leaves. A bad infestation of aphids for too long will kill a plant, so it’s to stay on top of it.

Keeping your plant healthy and watered will help combat them but the insecticidal soap also works. End All works really well. There’s a product also called Bug-X Out you can use on larger plants.

You can also buy predatory bugs like ladybugs or praying mantis  and release those in your yard in June. One thing to remember about the beneficial bugs is that you’re not going to get rid of everything. They’re just going to keep a balance so the plants can survive.

Q: Why are my hydrangeas droopy even when they are watered?

A: They need more water more consistently. Cut them back to one-third to one-half in spring and install a peony hoop around them and let the hydrangea grow up through that to help the flowers flopping.

Soil pH is very important for hydrangeas. Use aluminium sulphate, hydrangeas love it more acidic and they’ll also be hardier. If you haven’t put it on all year, put some on this fall. Depending on the size of the plant, put three or four tablespoons around the plant and water it in or you can put it in a pail of water, dissolve it, and then water the base. The plants do way better and the colour is more vibrant on the flowers.

Read more

• Garden Talk: Should weeds in new lawns be removed?
• Garden Talk: Blooming heck, my hydrangeas look like broccoli!
• Garden Talk: How to deal with a lily beetle invasion
• Garden Talk: To prune or not to prune?

Q: What can I do about browning cedars?

A: Two things cause browning cedars. Spider mites or a fungus.

Spider mites are bad this year because we’ve had a drought. You can hit them with a product called Malathion, or just blast them with cold water or sulphur.

For fungal infections spraying with a prevent a fungicide called Bordeaux or copper spray. Spray the cedar three times with about 10 days in between.

Q: I have tropical plants outside, how to I decide what can be saved over winter?

A: Look at your indoor space and decide if you have space for the plants you want to keep indoors and if you are able to care for them. You need a bright area or use grow lights. Grouping plants together helps themfeed off each other’s humidity, but you can also put humidifiers in that area too because our homes are very dry in the winter. Don’t feel guilty if you don’t have the space to keep them, you enjoyed the plant.

You can also keep a plant indoor over winter as an experiment. When we’re only getting six hours of sunlight a day, is that plant going to stretch? Am I going to try and propagate off of it?

Bring tropical plants indoors when night temperatures are hitting around 10 deg C. Once we get below 5 deg C, any still outside are going to get black tips. Take them out of any mixed containers and put them into their own pots.

Then debug the plant using End All or using insecticidal soap. Spray it until it’s dripping. Do that first spray outside. Look for things like spider mite or mealy bug. Spider mite you’ll see light webbing underneath the leaves. Mealy bugs are cottony type bugs you’ll see around and in the base of the stems, and on any new growth. Aphids you’ll see on the new growth and the base of the stems or on the flower buds. So there’s these different things that you’ll start to see on the plants.

If a plant is badly infested you’re going to have to do about five or six applications of spray, but make sure to still keep it separate from any other house plants before you bring that inside.

When you do bring tropicals in, expect changes as they adapting to a new environment. So you might see a little bit of change in the leaf colour or there might be leaf drop.

If you’re bringing a citrus plant in for the winter, it might drop all of its leaves and then start to fruit for you with no leaves. The stress of moving it is what is forcing it to bloom or to fruit. If you’re bringing something in like a hibiscus or mandevilla, strip off the blooms because a lot of bugs hide in them.

You can also take cuttings. When you’re taking cuttings off of a plant outside and bringing it indoors is mix up a small bucket of insecticidal soap and dip the cutting in it then rinse to get rid of any bugs that might be on there.

See Dutch Growers guide to beating mealy bugs here.

A mealy bug infestation.(Dutch Growers websit

Q: How can I care for my indoor plants?

A: Fungus gnats are the No. 1 pest. You will see little black flies like fruit flies flying out of the soil. You would have either the nematodes called Pot Poppers.
Wet them and sprinkle them on your soil and keep it moist. They will eat the larva in the soil. You can use those in combination with Sticky Stiks, which are little yellow flags that will attract the adult ones.

The second bug that you will see is spider mite, which can make a plant will look really dull and almost dusty. Flip the leaf over. If you see a web going from branch to branch that’s a house spider. But if you see tiny webbing almost going between vein to vein and speckling on the leaf it is spider mite. To combat that, you want to increase the humidity. Add a tray underneath your plant with rocks on it, and fill it with water. Sit your plant on top of the rocks so that it’s not sitting in the water, but the water’s able to evaporate around the plant. Having a bucket or vase of water nearby can work, too. If you do have a bad infestation, use End All and spray both the underside of the leaves and the top. .

Mealy bug, is a cottony looking bug usually in the stems.You see it alot on succulents. You’ll see it on dracaena and palms as well. End All works well but you can also use rubbing alcohol mixed with water and misted onto the plant.Do about three or four treatments of that, about 10 to 12 days apart.

These questions and answers have been edited and condensed.

Read more

• Garden Talk: Should weeds in new lawns be removed?
• Garden Talk: Blooming heck, my hydrangeas look like broccoli!
• Garden Talk: How to deal with a lily beetle invasion
• Garden Talk: To prune or not to prune?