Take care of these late winter jobs

As February drags on, the faintest signs of spring should remind gardeners in the South that winter chores must be completed soon. I am not a weatherman, but I predict that the warm days that we always have in February will soon come, allowing us to complete those chores. Today I would like to outline a few of these winter jobs so that your neighbors won’t accuse you of being negligent.

If you have big-leaf hydrangeas and you would like to change the color of the flowers from pink to blue, now is the time to start. Blue flowers are produced by the presence of aluminum in the tissues of the flowers. Aluminum is soluble and can be absorbed by the plants only in acid soil with a pH of 5.5 or below. Only the pink varieties of the common big-leaf hydrangea can be changed by this treatment. It has no effect on other flower colors.

Aluminum sulfate is the most effective chemical for changing pink hydrangea flowers to blue. To do this, spread one pound of dry chemical for each 10 square feet of ground area beneath the plant and water it in. Or, if liquid is used, dissolve one pound of aluminum sulfate in five gallons of water. Apply this solution once per week for five weeks, using one gallon at each watering.

If your pink hydrangeas are beginning to turn blue from year to year, and you wish they would remain pink, add lime to the soil to raise the pH. This will raise the pH to approximately neutral (6.7 to 7.2). The only way to determine how much lime is needed is to take a soil test. Too much lime will tie up the iron in the soil, rendering it unavailable, causing mottling of the leaves.

An interesting subject I think is bonsai. Bonsai is the art of dwarfing plants by growing them in shallow pots or trays. The end result is a plant which resembles a large tree in miniature. Through using the techniques of bonsai, the horticulturist is able to produce an 18-inch tree which resembles an 80-foot tree in all aspects except size. Usually the objective is to make these plants appear old and rugged just as they appear in nature after the passing of many years. Bonsai designs may be simple or complex, ranging from a simple one-tree planting to a miniature forest.

The word bonsai comes from two Chinese characters which mean “to plant in a tray.” The idea was adopted by the Japanese in the 11th or 12th century. By the early 1500s the practice had been refined into a precise art form.

There is a certain mystique surrounding the art of bonsai. There are tales of meticulous Oriental tree pruners tending small specimens generation after generation. In fact, in the Imperial Garden of Japan, there are several living bonsai reported to be over 500 years old.

The art of bonsai is practiced by training young trees to acquire and display the characteristics of maturity while remaining small. A finished bonsai is not a miniature replica of a full-size tree, but a sort of line sketch meant to bring an image to mind. It is less important what a bonsai plant is than what it suggests. The viewer’s response is the measure of success.

For example, an eight-inch five-needled white pine can be trained to convey the image of a gnarled Monterey cypress enduring high on a windswept ocean-side cliff. From the arrangement of the branches and the twist of the trunk, one can sense the force of a stiff salt wind. Or another might express the upright form of an American elm, straight and serene, fully at peace with its environment. In either case, an emotion is evoked. Therein lies the art.

To create an evocative image requires a knowledge that is not necessary in caring for ordinary potted plants. There must be an appreciation of how a maturing tree is shaped by its environment as well as an understanding of the principles of growth by which bonsai is similarly formed. Next week we will look at some of the principles and methods of bonsai.

Tim Lewis is a Georgia Green Industry Association Certified Plant Professional, gardening writer, former Perry High School horticulture instructor, and former horticulturalist at Henderson Village and Houston Springs. He and his wife, Susan, own and operate Lewis Farms Nursery located on Hwy 26 two miles east of Elko, where he was born and raised. He can be reached at (478) 954-1507, timlewis1@windstream.net, and LewisFarmsNursery.com.

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