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Health & Fitness

November: Make Preparations for your Home & Garden

Immediately after the ghouls and goblins have headed back to the spirit world, the month of November launches the winter holiday season. Thanksgiving Day will arrive before you know it, so it helps to begin your preparations early. 

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed this day of gathering family and friends together as a national holiday in 1863 and Americans have been decorating and cooking for this event ever since. Our abundant autumn harvests provide food as well as nature-inspired, embellishments for wreaths, outdoor containers and table centerpieces. Acorn squash, Indian corn, orange, white or blue-gray pumpkins and warty gourds from farmers’ fields (or hopefully, our own gardens) add texture and color to our entranceways as well as festive, dinner tables. In turn, Thanksgiving Day heralds the Christmas season. Our greenhouse overflows with an abundance of freshly-cut evergreens, North Country ‘spruce tips,’ red or yellow dogwood twigs, and exuberant, corkscrew willow. For a dramatic option for larger containers, place three tall, one-inch diameter, white birch logs in the center of a pot for height. Before Thanksgiving, fill containers to the brim with fragrant greens such as noble fir, white pine, glossy-leaved boxwood, cedar or eucalyptus. Next, add colorful accents that symbolize the harvest season, such as dried, red pomegranates, fresh artichokes, orange, bittersweet vines or gourds. After Thanksgiving, simply replace these ‘harvest’ accents with a Christmas holiday selection of fragrant eucalyptus, branches of scarlet-red winterberries, silver-dusted pinecones or other unique, wintry accents. Nature always offers an elegant way to welcome guests for Thanksgiving Day, as well as adding color and cheer to our winter landscape.


What’s on the November TO DO list?

Get ready for holiday blooming
If you would like to see Amaryllis flowers before Christmas, start forcing them now as it usually takes 7+ weeks for them to grow and bloom. Multiple blooms often last for seven weeks or longer. Try these simple instructions.
1. Choose a plump, hard bulb with a few roots at the base. Choose from flower colors in vibrant or pastel shades such as scarlet red, snow white, peach, pink, greenish-white or combinations of striping, two-toned and many more.
2. Choose a pot that is just slightly larger than the bulb. It likes that crowded feeling!
3. Fill the pot with just enough potting soil so that only the top third of bulb is exposed.
4. Water lightly until damp, not wet.
5. Place the potted bulb in bright, indirect light.
6. Wait and watch the stalk and bud to emerge. It usually takes about 7+ weeks to bloom.
 
Birds bring living color to your winter landscape
Make sure you have clean birdfeeders and choose a high energy, birdseed as birds look to us for support—especially in the winter months when there is snow cover. If squirrels steal most of the birds’ seed, try one of the weight-adjustable, Squirrel Buster bird feeders by Brome. They really frustrate those furry bandits! (And these feeders are dishwasher-safe!)
If you put out a heated birdbath or add an external heating element to the birdbaths, you’ll also attract more winter birds to your feeders. Remember, birdbaths also make thoughtful holiday gifts!

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There’s still time to plant bulbs
If you procrastinated your way through September and October, There is still time to plant your spring-blooming bulbs—until the ground freezes! Next May, you will be so happy that you planted those giant, purple lollipops, Allium ‘Globemaster.’ Remember to add bulb fertilizer when you dig them in. It will encourage larger blooms for next spring.

Absolutely no deer
Protect your favorite evergreens and rhododendrons from the hungry deer. An effective method—but not such a pretty one—is to hammer a number of support stakes into the ground—approximately one-foot or so away from the plants. Circle around the plants but don’t touch them. Wrap burlap or deer fencing around the stakes and secure materials to the stakes.

Apply mulch
Add 2-4 inches of composted manure, shredded leaves or hardwood bark to the top of your garden beds once the ground has frozen. Mulch insulates the soil and keeps plants from being harmed from the freeze and thaw cycle. Evergreen trees and shrubs such as boxwood, holly, rhododendron and arborvitae are particularly drought-sensitive. It helps to apply an anti-transpirant, such as Wilt-Pruf, to evergreens. It reduces moisture-loss through the foliage due to harsh winter winds and drought.

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Prepare now for better veggie gardens next spring
Add three to four inches of leaf mulch, composted manure or nutrient-rich, cotton burr compost as soil conditioners to your garden bed now and the soil will be primed for next spring’s plantings.

A rose is a rose
Add rose collars and/or shrub coverings to your roses and tender shrubs after a hard freeze. Mice or rodents might make their nest inside, if you do this too early. Pile the leaf material next to the plants now and you will be ready to use the rose collar and leaves to cover the bud union as soon as the hard freeze hits.

If you take the time now for your winter preparations, you’ll be ready to enjoy a   beautiful, holiday season. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

- See more at: http://www.pasquesi.com/expert-advice/maintenance-tips/737-november-make-preparations-for-your-home-...
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