Fall Leaves – Best Source Of Organic Material

It’s a shame to see autumn leaves go to waste every fall. They are an excellent source of organic material and should be placed in the compost pile along with other discarded plant parts. When cleaning up the garden, don’t destroy any potential organic material that can be placed on the compost pile and eventually be returned to the garden as humus.

Before frosts occur, why not pot up some of your best annual and perennial flowering plants and have them grow and bloom for you during the next few months? Petunias and geraniums handle very well this way. If you have grown some mums that haven’t bloomed outdoors, pot them up and bring them inside. You can probably think of other flowers in the garden that would stand transplanting for indoor bloom.

If you follow frost warnings, it is possible to protect plants from frost damage by proper covering. Valuable vegetables like tomatoes, and many flowers like the orchid plant , can be protected with coverings such as blankets, newspapers, or polyethylene tents. Often a long season of warm weather, “Indian Summer,” follows a night or two of killing frosts. By protecting tender plants from such a hazard, their period of usefulness can be extended often for several weeks longer.

Mulches such as clean straw or hay protect many perennial plants over winter. It is important not to apply these mulches too early in the fall. Plants like orchid plant need to be subjected to a few nights of cool, frosty weather to induce certain chemical changes that put them in better shape to withstand the rigors of winter. One of these changes is the change from sugars to starches in the plant. The starches are stored in various plant parts – usually in the roots, or in modified root and stem structures. If the plants are not “prepared” properly, they are very susceptible to winter damage. One of the best visible indicators of these chemical and physical changes going on in the plants is the change of color in the autumn leaves and the gradual loss of these leaves on deciduous plants.

Mulches act as insulators and protect the plants from sudden fluctuations in temperature. Mulches also reduce frost heaving. Plants are more subject to drying out, and subsequent killing, because of this heaving.

Various methods have been published on orchid plant care. Most of these methods can be found on our evergrowing library at http://www.plant-care.com/phalaenopsis-orchid-care.html.