Some tips to green up your winter

E ven though I love the deep, cold days – perfect for tucking in with a good book, especially a good gardening book – I also look for ways to stay connected with the garden. Here are some lovely possibilities for greening up the great indoors from Nancy Bubel, in her “Handbook of Gardening Projects for All Seasons.”

Brighten Your Home with Holiday Plants

Many of us traditionally bring in a Christmas tree and other greens for the holiday season and try to coax the most out of poinsettias. But there are other, longer-lasting options for winter-time indoor plants. Here are some of Bubel’s suggestions:

• Norfolk Island Pine (Araucaria heterophylla) – Despite its common name, this “pine” is not a pine. Native to Norfolk Island, off the coast of New Zealand, this conifer is not cold-hardy and must be grown indoors in our winters in a sunny location. It also needs a humid environment. Place the pot on a 1-inch deep saucer filled with pebbles, and keep the saucer filled with water.

• Ornamental Pepper (Capsicum annuum) – Do you have a sunny room in your house that doesn’t get much heat? A temperature of 55 to 60 degrees is perfect for these plants to retain their colorful red, orange, and purple fruits. (You can bring them out for display from time to time.) Keep the soil evenly moist but not soggy. They will also appreciate a pebbled saucer full of water.

• English Ivy (Hedera helix) – These plants, which come in a host of varieties – leaf size, shape, color – prefer bright, indirect light and deep watering only after the soil has dried out. About once a week, wash or spray the leaves thoroughly with water to prevent spider mites.

• Kalanchoe (Kalanchoe blossfeldiana) – These bright-blooming plants love bright light, and soil that’s allowed to dry out between waterings. For flowering, they require long nights. Either keep them in a room that’s dark for at least twelve hours overnight, or cover the plants with a black cloth.

• Gloxinia (Sinningia speciosa) – The reverse of the Kalanchoe, profuse-blooming Gloxinia needs eighteen hours of light per day in order to flower. (You’ll need fluorescent tubes.) When the plant is growing and blooming, keep the soil moist, and provide a bit of humidity with a saucer of pebbles and water as described above. Feed twice a week. The plants go dormant after they finish flowering. During dormancy, keep them cool and dry for about five/six months until signs of new growth appear in the spring. Then repot and resume watering.

Sprout an Avocado

If you have the patience, this is a fun and rewarding project for the slow winter months, and one that children will also enjoy; after a lot of waiting (up to a month or two) there’s that exciting moment when the big seed splits open and the plant begins to emerge.

To sprout, keep the seed in a warm, dry place for a day until the outer skin begins to crack. Then peel off the skin and plant the seed, larger side down, in potting soil in a 4- to 6-inch pot. Avocado seeds like a bit of light, so leave the top half-inch or so above the soil. Keep the soil moist. After the plant starts to grow, cover the rest of the seed with soil. Place the plant in a sunny window and water it when the soil is dry. Transfer to a larger container whenever the roots start crowding out of the pot.

Left on their own, indoors, avocado plants send up just a single stem. For a shrubbier plant, prune off the top two inches of the stem when the plant reaches about six inches. Continue to prune new shoots.

Note: This book is out of print, but available used through ABE Books and probably other online used-book sellers. Bubel’s “52 Weekend Garden Projects,” a similar resource, is still available through Amazon.

Pam Baxter From the Ground Up