The frail fluttering of moths in December’s dusk was once perhaps the inspiration for a meditation on enduring life, fragile in the face of winter. Nowadays, though, we are well aware what their presence implies: Come spring, another season of ravaged foliage and blighted fruit, brought to us by the fall cankerworm and winter moth. And another round of spraying that has adverse impacts on the entire food chain of sprayed trees.
Car headlights and porch lights illuminate the small pallid moths. The flightless females may be seen crawling up tree trunks and shingled walls to lay their overwintering eggs. At this time there is not much action that can be taken — perhaps sticky bands around specimen tree trunks — but springtime conditions will determine the severity of the problem. Everyone hopes the outbreak will be minor.
Gardeners in winter
While the outside garden slips into dormancy, indoors it can still be colorful. There are ways for gardeners to brighten up their houses during the darkening days as the winter solstice approaches, apart from “decking the halls” with wreaths and roping.
Cheerful year-end houseplants and bulbs to consider growing are the several holiday cacti (now all lumped under Schlumbergera), cyclamen, lachenalia, veltheimia, chincherinchee, amaryllis (Hippeastrum), and citrus plants in fragrant bloom. General advice: Water sparingly from the bottom, and keep in good but indirect light, and in as cool a temperature as possible. Look for these at Brent and Becky’s and Logee’s, or Google for specialist suppliers. (The once sterling McClure & Zimmerman has been bought by another company; according to garden blogs its quality is unreliable.)
We tend to leave poinsettia production to the poinsettia pros, but there is no reason not to attempt carrying them over from year to year. Paperwhite narcissi have been a standby for over a century. Most varieties can be forced in water and pebbles without special equipment or the need of an elaborate conservatory.
Some paperwhites have such heavy fragrance that people with certain allergic conditions cannot bear them, and even to some who are not allergic, the scent seems unpleasantly musky. ‘Ariel’ and ‘Nir’ have lighter scent; shop for them in future if you have a paperwhite problem.
Geraniums respond to a technique where you pinch out the growing tips and flowerbuds relentlessly when you bring them indoors. Once the pinching-out is stopped, plants explode into a frenzy of flowering. Remember to administer regular additional feeding with soluble fertilizer to support the hoped-for growth.
This is the time to root cuttings, too — geranium, petunia, scaevola, helichrysum, nasturtium, ivy — so that they have enough time to grow and size up for next summer. Fill a six-inch plastic pot with moistened soil. Use any good potting soil, but add additional perlite so you have a free-draining mixture supplying air to roots. (Or fill a quart Mermaid Farm yogurt container with perlite, add water, and stick the cuttings directly in that.)
Take cuttings that are more or less four inches long, making a clean, slanted cut just below a node; strip the lower leaves and pinch out any flowerbuds, and insert around the edges of the pot. Cover with a plastic bag if you like, but the cuttings will root anyway if they are not allowed to wilt. Pot on individually once roots form.
The various holiday cacti respond well to a similar treatment. After blooming is complete, prune sections of the jointed branches in the length of about five inches. Dip in rooting hormone (or not) and INSERT IGNORE INTO bulb pans filled with a potting mix similar to above. Mist or water well, and leave in a shady place, perhaps the floor, for a while. It might help to tent the pots if your house has very low humidity, but these plants want to root, so do not worry too much about it. By the following year you should have several gift pots of holiday cactus for friends and family.
Outdoor planters that bloom for extended periods, even into December, are prized; I am thinking especially of public spaces without regular care. Many so-called annuals are quite cold-hardy, petunias, helichrysum, salvias, and lobelia, for example. The ranges of hybrid forms of verbena have expanded greatly over the past decade (17 colors of Proven Winners’ Superbena alone, plus several others), and they are still going strong in planters and containers all over the Island as I write. Augment the above with decorative ivies and kales. They can be spruced up with evergreens and berried woody cuts.
Outside, colored fall foliage is drifting down to the ground and silently making its garden exit. However, let me direct your attention to the genus Abelia. These attractive semi-evergreen shrubs with glistening foliage pick up quite a lot of autumn coloration, and retain much of it over the winter nowadays. Lovely!
Otherwise, subtle and elusive are the qualities the winter garden manifests: the gloss and richness of evergreens in winter light, or glowing shadings of browns, ochres, and gold supplied by seedheads, grasses, sedges, or perennials such as Siberian iris.
That is, unless you have planted some of the colorful willows, shrub dogwoods, or bright-stemmed Japanese maples. Our three spring-planted Cornus sanguinea ‘Midwinter Fire’ already animate the morning’s outlook. Try a little maintenance on tools as you store them for winter: “Buy good stuff and take good care of it.” Attend to deer barriers; deer are already browsing plants.
My “Vineyard Wild-Caught” shopping bag attracts attention in grocery store checkout lines and eliminates plastic. And $20 to Martha’s Vineyard Fishermen’s Preservation Trust gets you one. Contact mvfishermen@gmail.com.
Polly Hill Arboretum conducts one of its wonderful winter walks Saturday, Dec. 12. Dress for the weather, and meet at 10 am at the Visitor Center.