Moisture at the ready
Use polymers to keep living wreaths, container plants hydrated
One of the biggest challenges for gardeners in our area is keeping plants adequately watered during our hot and typically dry summers.
It’s especially difficult with plants installed in containers, window boxes or the lovely living wreaths many of us are attracted to.
Polymers that absorb water and then release it when the soil is dry were introduced a while ago as a solution to moisture issues.
But problems arose when gardeners used way too many. Because the granules hold 400 times their weight in water, one tablespoon of dry polymers will fill a gallon bucket when they are hydrated. So it’s easy to see why adding that much to a container can erupt into a gooey mess after the first rain.
Yvette Cutrer, who took her master gardener training through Louisiana State University extension, demonstrated how to use polymers correctly in living wreaths and other containers at the recent Home and Garden Show in New Albany, Miss.
Cutrer hydrates them for at least five hours in a bucket filled water, preferably rain water, and watches the crystals swell as big as quarters.
“Do not use them dry,” cautions Cutrer, who has been using polymers for about 25 years. “Give each plant its own polymers rather than working them into the soil.”
For best results, put hydrated polymers in the planting hole where the roots will rest. The depth will depend on the size of the plant and its root system.
Lightly trim the bottoms of root-bound annuals in small nursery containers so they are free to grow down toward the polymers. Living wreaths and container-grown plants will need less watering if polymers are added near their roots in the soil. Protected from the sun, polymers should keep rehydrating and releasing water for about 15 years.
In containers and wreaths, Cutrer ends up using about a 50-50 ratio of soil and hydrated polymers.
With polymers in the soil, she finds she can leave a large fern growing in a container for a week without additional water during the height of the summer. “When most people are watering their containers daily, I don’t have to and it really saves on my time and water bill,” she said.
Sunlight breaks down polymers, so always cover them with soil. They should keep rehydrating and releasing water for about 15 years.
Here’s another tip she shared. She fills the bottom of large containers with a layer of brown leaves several inches thick. It stops the soil and polymers from leaching out of the drainage hole and eventually decomposes into compost.
Here is how she makes her living wreaths:
Start with a large wire wreath frame, which can be purchased at some nurseries, online or through her website, polymers.com.
Soak some florist moss in water, squeeze out the excess and use it to line the frame. She prefers Oregon moss, which she also sells.
“Wear gloves when working with moss and make the layers thick to hold in the soil and polymers,” she advises.
Hollow out a space in the moss ring and fill it with soil. Then add a layer of hydrated polymers, also available at her website or at garden centers. Top with more soil and press to compact.
Cover with another layer of moss. Attach the back of the frame, or if yours doesn’t have a back, wrap fish line or fine wire around the wreath to secure the moss around the soil.
Select small plants such as succulents, flowering annuals, ivies, creeping Jenny and grasses like dwarf mondo. Tap them out of their nursery pots, loosen the root ball and insert them into the wreath by poking a hole in the moss.
Let the wreath lay flat for a few weeks until the roots get established.
Water the wreath about once a week or when it feels dry, depending on rainfall amounts and air temperatures.
Groom plants as they grow. Cut off spent flowers and wilted leaves and trim and reattach ivies when necessary.
GROWING MEMORIES
Dr. Leila Kelly only had to go into her own backyard to research her talk at the New Albany Garden Show. That’s because the Union County master gardeners asked her to speak about her favorite plants.
“My favorite plants evoke memories and have ease of culture — that means they are hard to kill,” said Kelly, a professor of ornamental horticulture at the North Mississippi Research and Extension Center who regularly regales audiences with good humor and good information.
“New plants are on probation for a while in my garden. If they behave and take care of themselves, they’re welcome to stay.”
She also prefers plants with special characteristics such as unique flowers, foliage, barks or forms.
High on her list of plants that evoke memories are hollyhocks.
“I love them as long as they are the single blooms,” she said. “The doubles look like carnations, not hollyhocks.”
Some other more exotic plants have also become favorites:
Crandall, a clove-scented currant, is a fast-growing heirloom shrub with abundant black fruits. Its intensely fragrant yellow spring flowers smell like cloves and attract hummingbirds. In the fall, the foliage of Ribes odoratum turns mahogany red.
People sometimes confused “Queen of the Night” with the century plant, but it is different in several good ways. Each dinner plate-size fragrant white flower blooms just one night, but the plants flower intermittently for three months. The century plant, an agave, blooms just one night and then the main plant dies, but offshoots may appear and live on.
The frost-tender epithetic plant, also known as the nightblooming cereus or Dutchman’s pipe, is known botanically as Epiphyllum oxypetalum.