By Loretta Wilken
Lakeside Master Gardener
Happy spring, Lakesiders! Beautiful potted blooming plants are a welcome addition to your home, not only to brighten up chilly spring days but also to celebrate the joys of new growth and the Easter season.
Here are some tips on saving these beauties for your outdoor garden spaces. These bloomers often come dressed in decorative plastic or foil wrap. Remove this when watering since standing water will cause root rot.
Most of these plants are forced to bloom earlier than usual. This process causes stress on the plants, but there are some that recover better than others.
Small bulbs like grape hyacinths and snowdrops naturalize readily. Tulips grown in soil do not recuperate well. Larger hyacinths and daffodils adapt much easier, although they usually aren’t strong the first year. Once these bulbs have bloomed, clip the dead flowers and leave the foliage. Put the pots on a sunny windowsill and water until the foliage dies back.
Place pots in a cool dry place and plant in the fall, or remove the bulbs from the soil and allow them to go dormant in a paper or mesh bag until fall planting. Any bulbs grown in water should be disposed.
Easter lilies transition beautifully to the outdoors. Remove yellow anthers with pollen as buds open. Lilies need bright light indoors. Keep soil evenly moist.
When flowers die off, clip them but leave the stem and foliage. Plant outside in a sunny area in workable, well-drained soil.
Hydrangea macrophylla, usually called big leaf, comes in pink, blue and lavender shades. They are usually rated winter hardy for our area. They are often potted in a relatively small size pot compared to the showy flower and green top growth.
For the best care, make sure that the soil is not allowed to dry out completely nor the flowers wilt. Inside, place them in a well-lit area. Clip the blossoms when they fade, then place them outside on a shaded porch and keep them watered.
You may want to transplant them up to the next size pot until they can be planted outside in the morning sun, not a hot sunny area, usually around the end of May.
Florist azaleas add beautiful color and prefer cool conditions in your home with a bright light. Keep the soil moist and remove old flowers. These azaleas are forced and usually don’t rebloom without a detailed process.
Begonias, such as Rieger and wax varieties, are considered annuals and come in a myriad of colors. They are easily grown indoors in a bright area and can be moved outdoors in pots or landscaping and moved back inside in early fall. Let the soil feel dry to the touch, then water thoroughly. Fertilize with a high phosphorus fertilizer for strong blooms.
