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Jill and Rick Van Duyvendyk answer all your gardening questions in Garden Talk on 650 CKOM and 980 CJME every Sunday morning at 9 a.m. Here are some questions and answers from the Dec. 7 show:
Read more:
- Garden Talk: Choosing and caring for a vibrant Christmas poinsettia
- Garden Talk: What do I need to know about snow melt products and salt?
- Garden Talk: What do I need to know about grow lights?
- Garden Talk: Tips to help your Christmas cactus bloom
These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
Q: Can I replant an orchid in a three-inch pot?
A: Orchids are probably one of the plants that is the easiest to take care of and will bloom the most out of any houseplant.
Usually to repot an orchid you use orchid bark but when it’s that small you can use a regular type of soil. Orchid bark is best, or you can use clay pellets that hold moisture and also let the water go through.
Make sure you have an orchid type of a pot with either larger holes on the bottom or holes in the bottom that come about a half inch up the side as well. Natively they grow in the crotches of trees where all the compost is and have air roots that pull moisture out of the air.
If you have a decorative pot or sleeve you want to use, buy a plastic pot and drill holes in the side of it. Put a few rocks or something like that on the bottom of your decorative pot so when you sit the other pot inside it’s sitting up off the bottom and not in water.
Fertilize it with an orchid fertilizer. It’s a powder you can mix with water, or you can get one you apply in drops — seven drops per litre of water.
Q: When transplanting an orchid what do I do with the air roots?
A: If they’re nice and plump and green just leave them, but if they’re dried up and wrinkly, trim them off.
When transplanting you can take ones that are all sticking out everywhere and tuck them back into the soil, because then a lot of the old roots in the soil have already expired. Bury them in bark mulch, and then eventually the plant will send up some more.
Q: How do you get an orchid to re-bloom?
A: Let the flowers all drop off and then a week later cut the bract off. Don’t cut off when it’s green, you want the energy to go back down into the roots.
Cut it down to the nodule that’s closest to the soil. Don’t cut below that, but just above that nodule.
Then take a banana, just a normal yellow or slightly over-ripe banana and put it on the top of the soil or on the edge of the pot next to the plant.
Then put a plastic shopping bag over it and tuck the edges underneath the pot, so it’s not totally sealed and leave it for 24 hours.
Around two weeks later, you should start to see a bract, and it triggers it to bloom.
The banana’s giving off an ethylene gas, and mimicks what happens in a forest as stuff is decomposing. The gas will actually harm the plant if you leave it for too long, so around 24 hours is best.
Q: Can I plant Colorado spruce trees now or should I leave them in the burlap over winter?
A: Ground frost is not down that deep yet so you can out them in the ground. Put topsoil into the planting holes if you can to give them a good start, and then fertilize in the spring.
You can also put them underneath a double or triple layer of insulated tarp for the winter. The temperature will stay about -2 C to -5C underneath the tarps all winter. It doesn’t matter if it gets a layer of snow over top.
Leaving them on top of the ground will mean the trees get stressed because the roots get damaged when it’s -40 C.
A Christmas cactus. (Submitted)
Q: My Christmas cactus is covered in dry, brownish spots and it’s a little brown at the edges, and I’ve had little dots fall from it (pictured above). What’s wrong with it?
A: A lot of that happens from watering. Keep it more on the dry side and not too wet. If it gets too wet, you’ll get those blotches. Dry it out almost completely between waterings. The only time you really keep it a little bit on the moist side is when it is blooming.
Also make sure it has a cactus type of soil. You could transplant it in cactus type of soil so that you have good drainage out of the pot. Don’t transplant it when it’s blooming. Wait until it is finished in the middle of January, and then you can transplant it then.
They like lots of light. It doesn’t necessarily have to have direct sunlight, although that would be good for it, but put in near a bright window. They don’t like being on the north side of the house, or in an east window.
Pale leaves on a cactus. (Submitted)
Q: If the leaves of a cactus go pale (pictured above) is it caused by too much or too little water?
A: Feel the leaves but don’t let yourself get poked. They should feel a little plump. If they feel like they’re wrinkly and getting dry, then you need to water. If they feel plump, don’t water it.
That cactus looks like it may have been over-watered, but pale leave can happen if the plant has been bone dry for a long time. Don’t let it sit in water.
Q: How do I care for Boston ferns?
A: Don’t keep them near a vent. They like to have humidity and a vent will dry them out. They don’t need direct sunlight but do need lots of bright indirect light. Don’t keep them too wet. In winter fertilize once a month, fertilize.
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