Last few days has hammered us with snow, just went for a walk, it was so beautiful, the snow still fresh and white, should have taken my camera for a couple of shots.  One thing I love is plants, and actually have two in my apartment, a geranium who isn’t too happy, and a nice little jade.   Found the plant food, think they needed a little nourishment.  Maybe the geranium will bloom again, but i doubt it.  What i have is a 10-15-10 formulation (NPK) the P helping the overall stem growth.

One thing I wanted to discuss is pruning house plants to help them grow better.  The three areas that stimulate plant growth are the cambrium, the root tips and the shoot tips, so pruning will stimulate the growth.  The best was to prune is at a node, or junction where the new growth will be more shoots, fuller growth. The node in the picture is where the leaf grows, and as you see, there is also the start of a root at that point, also.  If you cut at the node closest to the pruner, then remove the next leaf up, that stem could be planted because roots are starting to  grow.  And where the cut was made, right above the node, a new leaf will begin to grow.  Philodendrons will grow in any area, they do well in either high or low light, cool or warm areas, sunlight or indoor lighting, if well watered or forgotten for awhile.  If your’s is getting longer and longer, sometimes it is best to cut it back, root the stems in a glass of water, and new growth will come, filling out the plant.

Happy Planting, and now that it is the first day of winter, we can look forward to the days starting to get longer!

Now that winter is almost officially here, we got a nasty cold blast of icing, causing power outages, limbs down bringing power lines, making walking and driving particularily dangerous. Thank goodness my power did not go, so i can be doing this blog!  This is when the damage to trees and bushes is the worst, and sometimes i like to go out and try to gently break off some ice to help save the branches.  But what i love the most is how beautiful this dangerous scene is.

So I have not been  writing with any regularity, this is new to me and I am hoping my learning curve will hurry up and let me get this!!!  It has been cool and beautiful last couple of days, today rain comes, and cold front following tomorrow into the next week or so, guess winter is really here.  Shucks.  One thing we like to do is start ordering seed catalogs; then later, when the snow falls, and are snuggled up next to the fire, we dream about how much better next year’s garden will be.  Making lists of new seed to try, ogling over pretty pictures of beautiful plants and how they should look!  Wondering if we should make garden bigger, or smaller, or some other major earth-moving innovation.  The list goes on and on…but it is what gardeners are all about.

I am open to hearing from you, where ever you are, and what ever you wish to ask about, I am hoping that we can interact through this web site, but so far do not have many hits, so spread the word, and keep dreaming of gardens to come!

[Photo  Flickr via creative commons license.]