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Team Canada will now meet Czechia in the playoff round on Thursday.
Jill and Rick Van Duyvendyk answer all your gardening questions in Garden Talk on 650 CKOM and 980 CJME every Sunday morning from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Here are some questions and answers from the Dec. 29 show:
Q: Which soil is best for raspberries and where in the yard should you plant them?
A: Raspberries like well-drained soil, and a really warm or hot area. So, a south or west exposure is the best for that. Make sure you’re not planting into a heavy clay. Raspberries don’t need very nutritious soil.
To get your raspberries to reproduce thin them and cut out the second-year canes and then they’ll produce on those the next year. Cut them the back so the bush is not tall to make them easy to harvest. Waist height means they’re really easy to get to and you are not bent way over or reaching for the sky.
Raspberries also don’t require a lot of fertilizer or water. When fruiting, give them a bit more water. If you have an area where there’s a sprinkler, try not to have it so it is constantly hitting the leaves on it. A drip system would works better or you might start getting fungus on the leaves.
You can plant marigolds or petunias nearby to attract pollinators. Make sure you choose a flower that does well in the hot sun. Cosmos are really nice if you want something a bit taller. The other thing you need for good pollination is a water source in your yard — a bird bath or a few places where bugs can sit with some water.
See Dutch Growers guide to pollinators here.
Q: How long will it take for my amaryllis bulblets to bloom?
A: It’s going to take a while because they need to grow and build up the energy to be able to bloom. It’s important to get those bulbs growing through the summer so that in the fall you can decrease your watering and allow them to go dormant for about six to eight weeks. When you bring them up again and that’s when they will flower for you.
The bulblets should flower in the third or fourth year unless they are quite large, then you should see blooms in the second to third year. You can add bone meal to the soil during the summer as well.
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Q: How do I look after my Christmas cactus?
A: When a Christmas cactus is in bloom you don’t want it to go bone dry like you would a normal cactus. Feel the leaves and once they start getting a little bit limp it’s time to water. Also stick your finger into the soil, and make sure it’s dry to the touch.
Bright, indirect light will keep it blooming a little bit longer and don’t fertilize too much when they’re in bloom. After it’s finished blooming, some people say that taking the end tips off will get it to re bloom.
You can also just leave it in a bright sunny window and when you want it to re-bloom give it a cold shock or put it into a dark room for a couple of days and bring it back into the light. Usually you can get them to bloom once or twice a year.
Black elderberries. (2daydesign/Depositphotos.com)
Q: We have an elderberry tree close to our neighbour’s furnace exhaust that has started to bud out. Will that mess things up for the spring cycle?
A: You might want to watch for a frost crack in the trunk — if it’s thawing and getting any moisture in there and then you get a hard freeze, then that’s where you’re going to start seeing some issues and the tree might lose a branch. You could move it away from the exhaust or prune it so that it’s not quite so close. If it’s only one little branch that’s budding just prune that branch or that side.
Q: Can I grow a Calibrachoa from seed?
A: Calibrachoa is a hybrid plant produced by cuttings not seed. Take the new growth off the end of the plant, take about four nodes — four sets of leaves — and strip the bottom two leaves off, then cut it on an angle, dip it in a number one rooting hormone and stick it into some soil. Keep it moist it until you start seeing roots.
Q: How do you get a Clivia lily to bloom?
A: Clivia is a very seasonal plant that will bloom once or twice a year. It has leaves like a day lily but thicker that come out of the bottom, similar to an amaryllis leaf. Then it will shoot a flower spike up the middle and has a beautiful bright orange flower.
In Saskatchewan they will usually bloom in spring and then in the summer. To get them to re-bloom, change your watering habits, by decreasing watering a little bit and then increasing it again. Do the same thing with your lighting. Increasing the amount of light in the winter is really hard.
You can increase daylight hours with a grow light about 12 inches above the plant and have the grow light go about 8 to 12 hours a day on a timer. Fertilize it with a houseplant food or if you want to give it a shot of a 15-30-15, just make up a milder solution to prompt blooming.
Q: My eight-year-old indoor potted cedar is losing its needles and branches. Any suggestions for fertilizer or why it’s no longer thriving?
A: Cedars like to go through a dormant stage and so if it’s been actively growing indoors, it’s probably not going through that. There are cedars that are not hardy in Saskatchewan, so you could try planting it in your yard but depending on the variety it may survive the winter.
If you wanting to try it, put it in a pot or put it in the ground in a pot. Then digging it up every year and putting it into cold storage might be easier than having it actively growing in your house.
One of the reasons it’s getting dry and brittle is because it is very dry in our homes and the leaves perspire and get dry. There is a product you can get to spray on your plants called Wilt Pruf that’s a wax-like coating for evergreens. You can use it on live trees inside or outside but apply it at plus temperatures.
Give your plant a light trim, cut off some of that dead stuff and then watch your watering and give it lots of light. Make a pebble tray or have a humidifier nearby so that it gets lots of humidity. Don’t fertilize in the winter but use an evergreen fertilizer in spring. If it is a dusty colour, check for spider mite or scale as well.
These questions and answers have been edited and condensed for clarity.
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