Check out gifts for green thumbs

During winter, gardeners dream about next year’s garden by browsing garden catalogs and gardening books.

The first book on this list is perfect for wintertime indoor gardening. Gardening Under Lights by Leslie F. Halleck is a detailed guide for seed starters, plant collectors and anyone who wants to garden indoors any time of the year. Part one starts with the basics of photosynthesis, the science of light and how to accurately measure how much light a plant needs. Part two provides an overview of the most up-to-date tools and gear available. Parts three and four offer tips and techniques for growing popular ornamental plants (orchids, succulents, bonsai

and more) and edible plants (arugula, cannabis, oregano, tomatoes and more), independent of the constraints of volatile outdoor conditions.

Grow What You Love by Emily Murphy is perfect whether you’re starting your first garden or looking for ways to optimize your existing garden. Illustrated with more than 250 photographs, it focuses on plants that are the stars of both the kitchen and the garden, and it includes recipes, personal notes and ideas for growing a garden in the space you have on hand.

Botanical Interests is a grower of quality vegetable, flower and herb seeds. They also bundle some of them into special collections such as the cat collection, which allows you to grow felinefriendly plants just for your cats. They also have a sprouts collection that comes with large trays that you can divide into four kinds of sprouts at once.

The sprouter lets you store your sprouts in the refrigerator.

They additionally have the Kitchen Garden Kit that can grow microgreens and baby greens. It is a practical way to get healthy vegetables into the kitchen and on to the dinner plate. The kit includes Wonder Soil Organic Seedling Mix, a perforated growing tray, a solid drip tray and a clear dome lid to ensure high humidity.

When you are done gardening, you need to wash the soil off your hands. Specially formulated for gardeners, Botanical Interests’ Gardener’s Scrubbing Soaps are made with natural and organic ingredients to gently wash away dirt while moisturizing and softening skin. A soap gift set includes four 1.1-ounce luxuriously scented vegan and gluten-free bars that are handcrafted in Colorado.

Find the Botanical Interests’ products on their website.

With regard to kitchen gardening, what do you do with all the left over vegetable scraps? You can compost them, but why not let worms do the work? They transform food scraps into nutrient-rich fertilizer. The Worm Farm Composter from Gardener’s Supply can be placed in a kitchen, mudroom, hallway or pantry. Once the process gets underway, you can add up to a half-pound of scraps per day to the worm composter, about the average food waste for a family of four. A spigot on the bottom dispenses nutrient-rich compost tea for use on houseplants and garden plants.

In the cold

If you don’t live in the West Coast or southern Florida, you probably experienced some cold temperatures in previous weeks. It was very cold in a lot of places that are supposed to be warm this time of year.

Plants are not all created equal. Plants native to areas near the equator are called tropical plants. As a group, they don’t do well if the temperature drops into the 50s. Subtropical plants are native to areas closer to the poles and at higher altitudes than tropical plants and can often survive a frost. Temperate plants are native to lands that always expose them to frost or freezing.

All cold weather is not the same, either. The exact same cold system in November causes a lot more damage to plants than in January because plants are not

prepared for or acclimated to the harsh November weather.

Temperate and subtropical plants exposed to shorter days and cooler temperatures develop more antifreeze that helps them survive cold weather. This process takes time, and some plants may not have been entirely ready for the recent cold blasts.

Every individual landscape has microclimates that cool off slower and warm up quicker, so the total amount of time that the temperature is below freezing is less in certain parts of the landscape. The sun warms south-facing walls, and trees trap warmth released from the ground, even when the branches are bare, keeping areas near buildings and under trees slightly warmer. All of these differences mean that each time there is a cold spell, the plants exposed to the cold are going to react differently. A temperature of 25 F in one cold spell may kill plants that survived an earlier 20 F cold spell. A plant in the shelter of a building may survive the night that kills the same kind of plant farther from the building’s warmer microclimate.

The first symptom that is going to show up on cold, damaged plants is dead, brown leaves. Lawns and evergreen shrubs often show symptoms first. Plants without leaves will have bark and bud damage that won’t be visible for a few days or weeks. Scratching just under the bark should show green tissue, not brown.

The preferred treatment of frost-damaged plants is to leave them alone until spring. Dead leaves don’t always mean a dead plant. Don’t try to force growth by fertilizing or watering. There may be more cold weather coming that would damage a plant that is trying to grow new leaves. Pruning should only be done on plants that have begun growing again, when live wood can be determined.

Covering plants works best if the cover is waterproof, goes all the way to the ground, doesn’t touch any leaves and insulates the plants. A blanket and plastic work better than either alone. Covering works best for a frosty night, not a cold weather system lasting for days. Plastic touching leaves transfers heat and allows the leaves to freeze.

Palms cannot replace freeze-damaged, water-conducting cells in the trunk like other plants. A frozen palm may look fine until all the water in the trunk is consumed, and then it will suddenly wilt and die. The central growing point of a palm tree already has next spring’s leaves. If they are damaged by the cold, they will come out distorted and brown and may need to be pruned at that point.

While seeds may be strong, flowers and fruit are the most frost-tender parts of almost every plant, which is why the citrus trees survive, but the fruit does not. Leaves are often expendable, even on broad-leaved evergreens like hollies, palms and rhododendrons.

Cold-damaged plants will be more susceptible to disease in the spring. You may need to have a certified arborist look at any trees you think are having problems. Fungicide and fertilizer treatments may be necessary to restore health to freeze damaged trees.

On the bright side, many insect pests were also probably not prepared for the cold, and there may be fewer pests in the spring.