Caring for Your Valentine’s Day Bouquet

Did you come back to this blog to see if I bought my wife flowers or planted a tree for her for Valentine’s Day?  Or, were you one of the fortunate ones that received a bouquet of roses or other cut flowers for Valentine’s Day and want to know how to prolong their beauty?

Here are a few tips will help your flowers last longer, maybe even a few weeks!

First, recut the stems at least 1 inch shorter than when you got them. Use a sharp knife and cut at a 45-degree angle.   Immediately submerge the stems in warm water.  Even better is to cut the stems while they are under water.

Be sure and strip off any leaves that would otherwise be immersed in the vase water. Add a packet of flower preservative to the water.  Often this comes with the bouquet.  If not, you can purchase these from a florist or from the floral sections of some discount stores.  If you do not have or cannot find the floral preservative packets, change the water daily in the vase.

Avoid displaying your bouquet in a hot room or in direct sunlight.  You can make your bouquet last even longer is to put the whole thing, into the refrigerator every night before you go to bed and then take it out in the morning.  Putting the bouquet in a cooler part of the house will work to some degree as well.

Remember, cut flower bouquets do not last forever, so take a picture of you with your bouquet so the memories will last long after the flowers have faded.  Or you can press a few of the flowers between pages of newspaper to dry them.  They might not be as colorful but the will be a reminder of the good times.

As for my wife, I bought her a pot of yellow orchids.  And she is very happy!

A Special Arbor Day Celebration in 2014

Two very special things are happening next Friday – Valentine’s Day and Arbor Day in Mississippi.  Both are important days.  One keeps the significant other feeling loved while the other makes Mother Nature happy. So where is your emphasis going to be?

It is nice to have someone to keep you warm on these cold winter nights, but planting trees slows global warming.  The choice is which to celebrate.

Are you going to buy some roses that have been flown in from South America?  This contributes to both a warm body next to you and to global warming.  But stop and think about it for a few moments.  You will pay an excessive amount of money for flowers that will be thrown out in a week and degrade the environment to get them here.  Or you can plant a tree that will last for decades and will clean the environment.

I suggest you start a new trend.  Plant a tree dedicated to that special person on this Valentine/Arbor Day (and all future Arbor Days)!  Yes, you might have to sleep on the couch a few nights while trying to get her to understand this great thing you have done.  But some day when your children or grandchildren are swinging from this tree and the two of you are watching them in its cool shade, you will be seen as a true romantic and a hero saving the planet Earth.

Some of you might be wondering what choice I am going to make.  You will have to check back in the future to find out!

Arctic Blast: Part 2

     Remember in my last post I recommended waiting to clean up your freeze-damaged plants. Well, that was just in case we had another severe cold weather outbreak. Guess what is coming to Mississippi early next week: Arctic blast part 2.

     If you cleaned up your damaged plants, let us hope that you did not get into any undamaged wood. If you did, you might get additional damage and have to cut your plants further back. And this is not good for your plants.

     One thing you need to do before the cold air gets here is to check the moisture around your outdoor plants especially if you have any in containers.  The low humidity has dried things out a lot in spite of how cold it has been.

     You can bring your water hose indoors to limber it up before watering your plants.  Give them a good soaking.  This will give them added freeze protection.

     Now just hang on for another week of severe cold.  Long range weather projections are showing upper 60s the first week of February.

Plant Damage from Severe Cold

What a difference a week makes.  In Meridian the lowest low was 10 degrees, but there was over a 36 hour period below freezing.  As I write this, it is a sweltering 64 degrees!

I did a quick survey of my yard looking at damaged plants and am posting a few photos.  As far as to what to do about the damage, I recommend waiting at least a month before pruning it off.  The main reason for this is that winter is far from over.  If you cut off the damage and we have another arctic blast, then you might get more damage and you have to cut the plant even further back.

This is an 'evergreen' daylily.  This is Suburban Nancy Gale.

Sago palm has lost all its luster.  I will have to remove all fronds this spring.  In areas further north than Meridian the sagos were probably killed.

This is the freeze burned tip of a lime tree.  This damage actually occurred during an earlier freeze event - low 20s.  The plant in a container was covered but damage occurred where leaves touched tarp.  During this last cold event I put all my container-grown citrus indoors.

Protecting Your Plants from Freeze Damage

Tomorrow is supposed to be moderately warm.  This brief break gives you time to add some protection to you plants before the extremely cold weather floods over the state.

Most established and, especially, adapted plants, probably will not be affected by this cold spell except may be in coastal counties.  It has been cool to moderately cold in northern areas of Mississippi, so adapted plants have fairly well hardened off.  However, the minimum temperature during a freeze, when it occurs, and for how long it occurs are all factors that gauge how damaging a freeze will be. If we have a really prolonged duration of freezing conditions, this is when the most damage will be done.

Protect plants that are in containers either by placing them inside a protective structure (house, garage, greenhouse, or shed) or by placing a protective covering over them.  Container plants are especially susceptible to cold temperatures because their roots are above ground. Roots that are damaged by cold temperatures may not show immediate signs of damage, but these plants will show signs of stress when temperatures increase.

Push together container plants that are left outside and mulch or cover them to decrease heat loss from the sides of the containers. Wrap the base of the containers in plastic, burlap, or blankets to reduce heat loss.

We have not seen weather this cold in the last several years.  There have been a lot of plants established in areas marginal to their cold tolerance.  Two that I have seen are frequently planted are palms and assorted citrus trees.  There are varying degrees of cold hardiness among citrus tree with kumquats and satsumas being some of the more cold tolerant.  The temperatures that are being predicted will injure even the most cold-hardy of these without some form of protection.

The same can be said about some the palms planted along the coast.  Even the most cold tolerant of them can be injured by temperatures in the mid-teens.

Some things you can do to help all plants during this cold spell is to apply mulch to the roots to insulate them.  The mulch will also keep winter weeds under control and reduce the need to water the plants.  If the soil around your plants is dry, water thoroughly.  Remember, as water freezes it gives off heat.

For plants such as small citrus or small palm trees, you can build a frame over the plant or plants, cover with plastic, and seal plastic to the ground with soil. This plastic traps moisture and warm air as it radiates from the soil. It also knocks off the cold wind. Be careful not to allow plastic to come in contact with plants or damage will occur at the points of contact.  Put an incandescent light bulb (if you can find them) in the enclosure if temperatures in the teens are forecasted. 

If you only drape material over a plant to protect it, make sure the cover comes all the way to the ground.  Blankets or tarps are better than plastic, but anything is better than nothing.  Again, foliage in direct contact with the cover might be damaged but the plant will be saved.

If the plants are too large to build frames, place Christmas tree lights (not the LED type) in citrus trees or around the trunk of palm trees.   You could also used water pipe heating tape to wrap trunks.  If you can protect and save the trunk of citrus trees, they will grow back.  Palm trees are more difficult to protect since their growing point is in the tip of the tree.

Another option for citrus tree is to spray them with water during the freeze period.  Especially coat the scaffold branches with this freezing water.  An ice-coated citrus tree is a sight to behold!   You will probably lose a year of production but you will not have to replace the tree.

After the freezing event it is best not to do anything for a few weeks.  Allow enough time for a freeze damage to show up in the plants.  You might even wait to new growth starts in the spring.  This is early January so there is a lot of time left this winter for more freezes. Typically our coldest time of the year has not arrived yet.