Hardening off indoor plants helps them adjust to outdoors
Question: Do I need to harden off transplants that I am growing indoors and any I purchase at the garden center? If so, how do I do this?
Answer: Transplants growing indoors or in a greenhouse benefit from hardening off. This process helps transition the plants from the protected environment indoors to outside. Hardening off helps the plants more rapidly adjust and recover from the move.
Start the process about one to two weeks prior to the recommended outdoor planting date. Move the transplants to a sheltered location near the warmth of your home, in the shade of a tree or other protected spot. Stop fertilizing and water the transplants when the soil starts to dry. Start by exposing the plants to an hour of sunlight. Increase the amount of sunlight the plants receive each day. Make this process easier by placing the flats in a child’s wagon, plastic sled or wheeled cart. Move the plants indoors or cover them when temperatures drop to damaging levels. After two weeks your plants will be ready for their permanent location outdoors.
Those plants set outdoors at the garden center are generally ready to move into the garden at the recommended planting time.
Q: I am planning to add a rain garden to my landscape. Do you have any general guidelines I should consider when selecting a location?
A: Keep it at least 6, preferably 10 feet away from the foundation of your house. The last thing we need is more water collecting near our homes. Avoid planting under trees as the majority of their roots are in the top 12 to 18 inches of soil. Digging a rain garden to the proper depth under the tree’s canopy can be damaging to the tree and very difficult to do. We want to keep these long-lived members of our landscape healthy as they not only provide shade, but are also great at managing stormwater.
Try to design the rain garden with the widest part perpendicular to the water source and if possible twice as wide as the sides. That provides more space for the water as it comes pouring out of the downspout or swale into the garden. You can find more information at freshcoastguardians.com and on the recording of my “Planning, Planting and Caring for your Rain Garden” webinar. The recording and my handout are available on the Milwaukee Public Library YouTube Channel, bit.ly/ 40cWR2v, under Green Ideas.
Q: We have a Miss Kim lilac we prune each spring after it flowers. We only trim the tips and notice the branches at the bottom are bare. Is there something we can do to fix this?
A: Remove several of the older, larger in diameter, stems close to ground level. Repeat over the next few years. After several years you will have reduced the overall height of the plant, promoted new growth at the base of the plant and have leaves from ground level to the tip of the stems.