Notebook Gardening works
its magic again by Arlene Ortiz
a garden show this spring. Arlene is an expert gardener and a wonderful teacher of gardening to children. The following is her heat warming account of how gardening works its magic with even the most reluctant participants. I hope all is well in your world.
T
I had to tell you about my time at the Home Show and share with you how things turned out. There were only a couple of chil-
dren in the entire room as I was about to start. I think if it had been early afternoon it would have been a lot better, however, I spoke to the handful of people in the audience and had the children up on stage with me to do some planting. Iwt turned out very well. There was another little girl,
about four years old that came with her grandparents. She was very shy so I had my husband give her a container with soil and some peas to plant while she sat between her grandparents. I talked to her a little and told her how to plant her seeds. Near the end of the presentation,
I showed everybody some pictures that I had taken over the years with my Junior Gardeners. All of a sudden, this little four-year-old left her seat and came up on stage to tell me she would show the pictures. She stood on stage with me show- ing everybody in the audience the pictures. Her grandmother had tears in
her eyes and so did I. I couldn’t believe it. She even went to sit with the other two kids that were sitting on the stage. At the very end of the presentation, she came up to me to tell me that she was going to take pictures of her peas and send them to me. It was a precious moment. Her
grandparents were blown away as she is always very shy. Even though there were few people there, this made my day.
www.localgardener.net Early Spring 2014 • 7
his little story was sent to us by Arlene Ortiz who spoke for us at
Ask Dr. Tree
Dear Dr. Tree: I was reading up online and I
thought about cutting some of my own seedlings from the two-year-old poplars I have to replace the dead ones. I figure I can prune some of the
poplars to have only two leaders so they grow as trees instead of bushes. If I make my cuts now and cut them into 12-inch lengths or so I thought I can start to plant them in March in the house to get a head start on spring. Any thoughts regarding this, is it a good idea or too soon?
Thank you, Giancarlo Bellabono
Dear Giancarlo: Poplar cuttings can be grown but you
might need some rooting hormone. It will depend on what cultivated variety and/or species of poplar that is used. (Poplars can be notoriously diffi- cult to propagate from cuttings. You could experiment by applying rooting hormone to half the cuttings. Be sure you know which ones you added the hormone to.) Willows grow easily from cuttings,
but hybrid poplars and aspen poplars need urging with rooting hormones. Make sure at first you know which end
of the cutting is up and which end is down. This very important. First get a pail of clean medium-
grade sand. Leave at least an inch from the top of pail to the top of the sand. Make sure you have an area that is somewhat cool ( like the basement) but not freezing in which to store the pail with the cuttings. There should be
some
ment window for example. Make the cuttings six to eight inches long with a very sharp knife. They should be as thick as an adult finger or thumb. The bark must not be crushed or shredded. Place the cuttings upside down in
the sand but sticking out of the sand. Slowly fill the pail with cool water from the tap right up to the top of the sand. If your technique is successful you should see small swellings on the cuttings in the spring. If the swellings are there, place them right side up in the sand but don’t bury them complete- ly. Water the sand and cuttings. Don’t flood the pail and sand too
often. Keep it reasonably moist. If you are successful new shoots should appear from those swellings. Cuttings can be planted outside once all risk of early spring frost is gone. Good luck with this venture.
light nearby like a base-
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