The holidays are behind us now and we wonder if we can wait until spring once again returns to our region. It seems oh so far away. Will it ever come?
For many of us all our trees are buried somewhere for the winter and won't come to life for another few months. How can we survive?
This is a good time for us to take stock of what we did last year, what we should have done, and what could have been done better. One of the shortcomings many of us share, I suspect, is that we are somewhat lax in the the rest of the year when it comes to recording our trees and their progress by making notes and taking pictures. It's too late for taking those pictures now, except for our tropicals, but notes can be made and updated or corrected so that somewhere down the line we'll know what we did to that special tree and when.
If we did record the changes in our trees with images, now might be a good time to peruse those pictures and to select several that we would like to display on our web site. An editorial in this issue will tell you just how to make that process easier for your editor. If the task just seems to be too difficult and involved, seek some help from a friend or talk to me at a meeting.
Hardy Evergreens And Deciduous Plants
Be vigilant. Sometimes in January we are treated to that special "January thaw" where all that snow disappears and temperatures climb, reminding us of what lies ahead a few months from now. As temperatures rise moisture in the soil evaporates, and our trees can be in danger of drying out.
Remember too that our four-footed "friends" may be getting desperate for a winter meal, and may just find your trees particularly desirable. If you set out traps earlier in the fall, check that they are still working and if you placed some bait out there for marauding rodents, see that it's still available and has not been carried off.
Tropicals
Keep rotating your trees weekly so that a different side of your trees is close to the light - doing so prevents trees from leaning in one direction as they try to get the most light that's available to them.
Many tropicals, just like your temperate trees, have also entered a dormant period during the winter. Some may even have dropped their leaves. In most cases, growth has slowed down significantly. In January, we should start to see new or more vigorous growth, as more daylight becomes available for our trees.
Longer days again naturally lead to new growth that we want to keep an eye on. If light is inadequate, growth may be thin and spindly, and internodes between leaves may be getting too long to keep our trees attractive. January is also a good time to start feeding your trees either with a slow release fertilizer such as Osmocote Plus or a good organic fertilizer such as Wegener's liquid fertilizer, or fish enulsion. Don't go overboard on the nitrogen since growth at this time of the year still tends to be slow.
This is also the time of the year that bugs that may have escaped your cleaning regimen in the fall when you brought your trees inside. They too may be getting more vigorous and multiplying and feeding on your trees. Keep an eye out for signs of infestation, and deal with it before it gets out of hand.
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