Henny Penny Farmette

Rose cuttings will become new bushes

The roses, fruit trees, vines, and bushes need pruning, I’ve been itching to get to them, but it’s been raining. Storms have been moving through but with breaks. With rain predicted well into February and March, I don’t think it’s a good idea to put off the pruning. Warm weather will start everything sprouting.

A Level 2 storm moved through today with high winds and rain. I waited until almost lunch time before venturing out. The winds are still fierce, but there are patches of blue in the sky. I filled pots with soil, took cuttings of my roses, dipped them into root hormone, and inserted several in each pot. These will become new bushes for the flower gardens out front of the house.

Brightly colored narcissus bloom when little else shows color in the garden

I love this time of year when the stack of seed catalogs grows daily and nurseries are gearing up for the bare-root season. Already my family is asking when can we plant spring peas, pointing out that the onions and garlic are up and the rhubarb root has set up new leaves.

I did a walk around recently and noticed that with all the rain and warm temperatures, my Desert Gold peach trees and the Bing and Black Tartarian cherries are covered with buds. The buds are swelling but no blossoms yet.

Dwarf nectarine needs to have its limbs pruned back by about one-third

Grass and weeds are up nearly eight inches and growing like crazy. My lavender and the earliest bulbs are blooming. All this lovely growth seems weird after four long years of intense drought.

Even songbirds and honeybees seem happy as they flit around the farmette between the storms. Surely, these signs are harbingers for the glorious spring to come. All the more reason to get busy pruning between these storms.

These fragrant lilies return every year and bloom mid-summer

After the recent rainstorm, I walked around my farmette and noticed small slivers of green sprouting up. They seemed to be everywhere.

I could understand the grass coming back, but the sight of summer-blooming lilies shooting through the soil was quite surprising. The sight of them got me to thinking about planting some bulbs for a springtime bloom.

The bees are drawn to the sweet scent of narcissus that have naturalized in the yard and bloom in the spring

Over the weekend, I dug a bed for some tulips and planted nearly 100 bulbs–some early and others late-blooming.

I also will plant some sweetly fragrant grape hyacinth. The bees are attracted to the pollen because of the scent. Honeybees especially love foraging for pollen on violet-hued tulips.

Honeybees need to find pollen all through the year, so planting bulbs that bloom before the spring wildflowers makes sense for those of us who care about the bees.

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Narcissus jonquilla are picture-pretty and smell divine

If spring hasn’t arrived in your corner of the world, be of good cheer. You can effectively bring spring indoors by forcing bulbs to open or branches of spring-flowering trees to bloom in your home.

Trees that bloom in the spring need to have sufficient chilling hours before they break their dormancy, so it’s advisable to try forcing blooms during the months of January and February rather than in December.

Choose half-inch branches  of golden forsythia, pussy willow, coral quince, or almost any fruit tree. Using sharp pruning shears or a knife, cut diagonally above a bud so that you have two- or three-feet long branches to force into bloom.

After bringing the branches indoors, you’ll want to cut slits into the bottom of the branches to ensure water is more easily absorbed. Put the branches in a container of water. Every other day, trim the stems and change the water. Bring in new branches every few days to ensure continuous blooms.

Nothing beats the paper-white narcissus or buttery yellow daffodil for brightening a kitchen on a dreary winter’s day. Choose healthy a bulb (or bulbs) free of bruising, cuts, of infection. In a bowl, glass, or saucer, place glass marbles or pebbles. Add water.

Position the bulb or bulbs securely so that the roots can grow down into the water, but the bulb remains out of the water sitting on top of the marbles or pebbles. Ensure that the water level beneath the bulb remains constant and add more water as necessary.

Paper-white narcissus, purple hyacinth, and certain daffodils add not only spring color to an indoor environment but also a lovely sweet scent wherever they are placed.