Houseplants

Potted Bulbs for Color and Scent 

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By Dawn Pettinelli, UConn Home Garden Education Office 

Potted hyacinths and freesia plants sit on a windowsill, with purple blooms and green leaves contrasted against a snowy outdoor scene visible through the window.
Photo by Dawn Pettinelli

With snow covered gardens and more wintry weather on the way, many of us can’t resist the temptation to purchase potted hyacinths, daffodils, tulips, primroses and other delightful spring blooming plants to bring some early color and fragrance to our homes. It was especially difficult to leave the Connecticut Flower and Garden Show last week without an armload of plants forced into bloom.  

 To enjoy your plants to the fullest, here are some tips on caring for them. First realize that these plants were ‘forced’ into bloom at an earlier time than they would on their own. Growers manipulate the growing conditions of the plants by regulating temperature, light and moisture. This does stress plants somewhat so depending on the type of bulb, some may or may not bloom again.  

If you have not purchased any pots of forced bulbs yet but are planning to, select ones that are still budded or ones where just a few flowers have opened. This will ensure a longer bloom period for you to enjoy. If temperatures are below 40 F, it is best to bag or wrap the plant in the store to keep the blossoms and foliage from cold injury and get the plants home as soon as possible. Leaving them in an unheated car in frigid temperatures is not a good idea.  

Whether you’ve chosen to bring home spring flowering bulbs, like hyacinths, or a hardy perennial, like primroses, they pretty much all have similar requirements as houseplants. All these plants appreciate being kept in cool temperatures with between 50 and 60 F being optimum and 70 F probably being the upper limit. Warmer temperatures will cause plant growth and flowering to speed up so your blooms won’t last as long.  

Bright indirect light for 6 to 8 hours of the day will keep your plants growing longer. Lately with the cloudy weather and limited sunshine, most of us can keep plants in a south window this time of year as the sun’s light is less intense and also, sparser than we would hope. Usually, the temperatures near windows are much cooler than other areas of the house.  

All of these plants, as well as most other houseplants, grow best when kept moderately moist. Avoid overwatering or having pots sit in water as that can lead to root rots. I’ve noticed growers shying away from peat based potting mixes that were more moisture retentive. So, check plants every other day at first to see when they are in need of watering. While the plastic or foil pot wraps might make your selection look more appealing, they often do not have drainage holes so if pots are overwatered, the excess water stays in the wrap and the roots remain saturated and prone to rot. I like to water these plants by taking them out of the wrap, bringing them to the sink and applying enough water so that it runs out the bottom for a half minute or so and then let them sit in the sink until excess water drains out. Then return to their wrap or better yet, a saucer where excess water can be easily seen and dumped.  

As far as fertilizing goes, it depends on whether you want to keep these plants and set them out in your garden when warmer weather arrives or will they get relegated to the compost or trash heap. If you intend to plant them out, then fertilize them using a half strength houseplant fertilizer every other week. The reason being you want the green foliage to photosynthesize as much as possible before the plants go dormant. The food produced by this process will enable the bulbs to sprout and grow next year. Even if not planted out, perennials like primroses will bloom for a longer period of time inside if regularly fertilized.  

I have found flowering bulbs, like hyacinths and daffodils, to come back pretty successfully when planted in the garden, while having little success with tulips, unless they are species tulips or some of the smaller Greigii varieties. If keeping bulbs for planting out, remove the flower stem after blooms have faded but keep watering foliage until it starts to fade and brown. Remove the dying leaves and then the pot can be moved to a cool, dimly lit spot and just kept barely moist until the soil can be worked in the spring.  

For primroses, remove the flower stalks as blossoms fade. Depending on the species purchased, your plants may or may not be hardy outside. Hopefully the plant tag will mention hardiness zones or at least give you the species so you can look it up. Primroses can be kept as houseplants but they do require cool temperatures, bright indirect lighting and regular fertilizing and watering when forming buds and in bloom. In the garden, primroses sulk in hot weather often dying back until next spring when cooler temperatures prevail.  

With a little care, flowering bulbs and other plants can liven up these dreary winter days. At least they let us know, spring is right around the corner. 

The UConn Home Garden Education Office supports UConn Extension’s mission by providing answers you can trust with research-based information and resources. For gardening questions, contact us toll-free at (877) 486-6271, visit our website at homegarden.cahnr.uconn.edu, or reach out to your local UConn Extension Center at extension.uconn.edu/locations.  

 

This article was published in the Hartford Courant February 28, 2026

A Spider Everyone Can Love

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By Dr. Matthew Lisy, UConn Adjunct Faculty

Hanging pot of a spider plant with long, arching green leaves striped with white, labeled with a small wooden plant marker.
Chlorophytum comosum, the Spider Plant (photo by M. Lisy).

 Spiders are one of those creatures that humans fear.  Most here in the Northeast are totally harmless, yet many times people run and occasionally hurt themselves trying to get away from them.  As such, it is interesting to me that one of our most beloved plants is called “Spider Plant.”  Its growth does superficially resemble a spider, but this one brings joy to its owners.  In fact, it is one of the hardiest of all our houseplants.   

Scientifically it is known as Chlorophytum comosum, and there is quite a bit of controversy in the scientific community over species.  In the pictures accompanying this article, the differences in the leaves can be clearly seen.  The great debate stems from (pun intended) differences in leaf shape.  Scientists cannot decide on whether those differences represent phenotypic variation (changes in shape found within a population) or differences between species.  And while it seems like this should be an easy task, look at all the differences seen in dogs, which are all the same species.  While the leaves on our houseplants most likely represent different artificially selected cultivars (varieties), determining how many there are in the wild is difficult.  Plants normally have some ability to change the shape of their leaves.  For example, plants grown in shade tend to have larger leaves than those grown in full sun.  These plants are native to South Africa, and tend to grown in forests, which could explain why such variation is seen in the wild.  There were two other species listed for a while, but then those got lumped back in to C. comosum and their differences chalked up to environmental variation.     

In reality, how many species there are does not really matter for us keeping these wonderful houseplants.  What does matter is their forgiving nature.  They grow and thrive in any typical houseplant soil.  It is best to let the surface dry before watering again.  They have an interesting root system that is part of the key to their success.  The thick, tuberous roots store water, and that is why they can survive for much longer than other houseplants.  When repotting, it is amazing how they fill the pot completely with roots.  Although it sounds like this might become a problem, the Spider Plant does not mind.  It responds with more leaves, and even babies. 

Four close-up views of a single variegated spider plant leaf on a dark surface, showing its green edges and white center stripe from different angles.
Spider Plant varieties, clockwise from the top left: a) from my first-grade teacher - narrow leaf with thin green stripe, b) wide leaf with wide white stripe, c) all green wide leaf, d) green leaf with white edges (photos by M. Lisy). 

The Spider Plant is easily propagated by planting the little plantlets that form along runners sent out by the mother plant.  Simply plant these in typical houseplant soil, water well, and they will start to grow.  As they do not have a fully developed root system yet, care must be taken to not let them dry out during the beginning stages.  This plant is probably the most easily propagated houseplant.  I still have one propagated by my first-grade teacher.  It grew in the classroom when I was there, and two years later when my sister had the same teacher, it had produced babies that were sent home with each student.  Despite all of life’s ups and downs, the plant is still going and thriving almost half a century later.

There are a number of interesting varieties of this plant.  The leaves can be narrow, wide, or curled.  The colors of the leaves are interesting as well, and can be found in any combination of leaf-types.  There are green leaves with a white center stripe.  Alternatively, there are green leaves with white edges.  As one would expect, there are all green leaves too.  Although I do not have one yet, there is a variety called ‘Hawaiian’ that has a green leaf with a yellow center.  Don’t be fooled by some so-called Spider Plants that are purple – those are actually Tradescantia, or Spiderworts, which are a totally different species of plant native to the Americas.  No matter which variety is chosen, with proper care Spider Plants could bring the owner enjoyment for a lifetime!  

The UConn Home Garden Education Office supports UConn Extension’s mission by providing answers you can trust with research-based information and resources. For gardening questions, contact us toll-free at (877) 486-6271, visit our website at homegarden.cahnr.uconn.edu, or reach out to your local UConn Extension Center at extension.uconn.edu/locations. 

This article was published in the Hartford Courant February 1, 2026

Camellias for Color, Inside and Out

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By Dawn Pettinelli, UConn Home Garden Education Office

The image shows a plant with dark green leaves and vibrant red flowers with yellow stamens. The background has colorful lights.
Photo by Dawn Pettinelli, UConn Home Garden Education Office

Now that the holidays are over, the decorations are put away and scenes of dreary, wintry weather dance in our heads, one plant with flowers resembling roses that comes into bloom this time of year are camellias. These Asian natives have been cultivated for possibly 5000 years. Most of us are familiar with Camellia sinensis var. sinensis aka, tea! Black tea, white tea, green tea all come from the same plant just processed differently.  

 Other camellia species were noted and grown for their flowers gracing gardens of temples and nobility. Prized plants were selected and crossed and eventually made their way to England, sometime in the 1730s. These elegant and highly treasured plants soon were spread all over Europe with hybridists and propagators in Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Portugal, Spain, Germany and the U.K. by the middle of the 19th century. More and more hybrids and cultivars were being developed with the number now well over 3,000. As their popularity grew, camellias were soon being grown in Australia, New Zealand and the U.S. Societies, like the American Camellia Society sprang up and shows were held (and still are) to exhibit various forms and compete for awards.

Options for growing camellias in Connecticut depend on what part of the state you live in. Thanks to breeding efforts of Dr. William Ackerman (retired USDA plant breeder) and Dr Clifford Parks (Univ of NC botanist) varieties of camellias hardy to zone 6 (-10 F) were developed. Depending on the variety and environmental conditions, camellias can bloom from fall to spring. Many of the most popular cold hardy, fall blooming cultivars belong to the Winter Series bred by Ackerman and include plants such as ‘Polar Ice’, Winter Charm’ and ‘Winter Rose’, the latter reaching only 2 to 3 feet high and wide making it a possibility for container culture.  

 Dr. Parks focused on cold hardy spring bloomers including the April series (C. japonica hybrids). Many grow from 5 to 10 feet tall and can be found at some local nurseries. Look for ‘April Rose’, ‘April Blush’, ‘April Remembered’ and ‘April Tryst’.   

Keep in mind that our weather has been somewhat unpredictable so those in zone 6 might want to locate plants in a semi-shaded, protected location. Camellia flowers are just exquisite, resembling roses in colors ranging from white to pink to red. Some are picoteed, some are double and some are very fragrant. The dark green foliage holds up year-round.  

The image shows a close-up of a delicate flower with soft pink petals, yellow stamens, and glossy green leaves. The background is slightly blurred.
Photo by Dawn Pettinelli, UConn Home Garden Education Office

Camellias, being broad-leaved evergreen shrubs, have similar requirements to rhododendrons. They do best in an acidic, well-drained soil amended with organic matter. It is often best to group them for effect and also for some protection from the elements. Plants are slow-growing and need adequate moisture but avoid planting them in poorly drained sites. Semi to full shade is preferable as the leaves may scorch in sunny, dry areas. A fertilizer for acid-loving plants can be applied in early spring as directed on the package. Pruning is rarely needed but could be done right after flowering.  

I’ve never been fortunate to live in a warm enough location to plant camellias outdoors, but several cultivars are perfect as house plants if kept in a cool spot indoors. Two available from Logee’s in Danielson are ‘High Fragrance’ with delightfully scented light pink semi-double flowers and ‘Scentuous’ with fragrant, semi-double white blossoms. They have others blooming in their greenhouse.  

Growing camellias in containers is a splendid way to get winter color, often along with fragrance. According to Logee’s co-owner and horticulturist, Bryron Martin, plants require an acid soil with a pH around 4.8 to 5.8. They can be grown in a camellia/azalea potting mix. Martin advises that young plants can be pinched back for fuller growth although that will delay flowering a bit. Keep in mind that some cultivars can get up to 6 feet in height so either select those that mature at a smaller size or be sure you have space to accommodate them.   

Temperature is key to induce blooms. Ideally Martin recommends nighttime temperatures no higher than 59 F during the winter and preferably 30 – 40 F so an unheated room or sun porch is a great place for camellias. If nighttime temperatures are too high, the buds will drop. An east or west exposure will provide adequate light.  

Fertilize camellias in the spring when active growth begins. Use a fertilizer for acid loving plants as directed. Commercial synthetic and organic camellia fertilizers are available. Some growers use a cottonseed meal/bloodmeal homemade blend. To supply adequate magnesium to plants, Martin recommends dissolving 1 tablespoon of Epsom salts in a gallon of water and applying this mixture twice a year.  

For late fall through spring blossoms, indoors or out, camellias are attractive, evocative plants that perhaps more folks might consider cultivating. Those looking for a Valentine’s Day activity might consider the Camellia Festival at Planting Fields in Oyster Bay, NY. The Lyman estate in Waltham, MA also has a camellia greenhouse that is open to the public.   

The UConn Home Garden Education Office supports UConn Extension’s mission by providing answers you can trust with research-based information and resources. For gardening questions, contact us toll-free at (877) 486-6271, visit our website at homegarden.cahnr.uconn.edu, or reach out to your local UConn Extension Center at extension.uconn.edu/locations.  

This article was published in the Hartford Courant January 18, 2026

You Are the Sunshine of My Life

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By Dr. Matthew Lisy, UConn Adjunct Faculty

Small potted plants inside a clear plastic dome under bright pink LED grow lights.
The pink/purple light caused from a combination of red and blue LEDs are great for growing these Cissus discolor cuttings, but it does not help humans to see their true colors (photo by M. Lisy).

This old song seemed like the perfect title for talking about artificial lights for houseplants.  Even if there are windows in a room, the amount of light is very low.  Fortunately, there are relatively cheap LED options available.  Light is made up of the different colors, or wavelengths, of the visible spectrum – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.  A plant’s pigments capture light energy and use it to make food.  Chlorophyll production peaks in the red and blue spectrums, but accessory pigments help plants capture additional wavelengths of light.  As such, there are optimal wavelengths of light that will better support plant growth.  This is known as Photosynthetically Active Radiation, or PAR.  We measure PAR by using the Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density, or PPFD.  This measures the amount of photons of light in the correct range hitting a specific area, and is measured in micromoles per square meter per second (µmol/m2/s).  A PAR meter is an expensive way to measure how much usable light is available for your plants.   

LED specialty lamps that have a good spectral output (PAR) are easily acquired.  I would caution the buyer to read the reviews to help judge the quality.  Good lights will generally include some description of PAR and/or PPFD.  Light quickly diminishes with distance, as it essentially becomes less concentrated.  Look in the product information for how close the plant should be to the light for maximum effectiveness.  Generally, keep the plant 12-18 inches away from the light source.  If it is too close, or the light is too bright, plants can be burned, drop leaves, or become spotted.  A cheaper option is to use existing light fixtures and replace the bulbs with either full spectrum or plant grow bulbs.  The ideal plant grow bulbs look pink, as they have red and blue LEDs.  Full spectrum bulbs tend to have a better mix of wavelengths to make the light appear more natural to us, but still have good PAR.  CRI, or Color Rendering Index is a measure of a light’s ability to accurately show colors compared to natural light.  The closer to 100, the better the light’s appearance.   

We can also judge a bulb by “color temperature” reported with a Kelvin number.  For example, a 2700K bulb is commonly referred to as a warm white.  This is reminiscent of the light given off by a traditional incandescent bulb, and shows heavier output in the red end of the spectrum.  A 6000K bulb would be called a “daylight” bulb, and has a heavier output in the blue end of the spectrum.   

Many people confuse quality of light with brightness, which is measured in lumens.  Light can be very bright, but of poor quality.  Too bright, and it may burn the plants.  Also, buying a light that throws out a lot of green light does not do much, even if it has a high output (lumens).   Lastly, Watts are used as a measure of energy consumption.  While it is true that higher wattage may mean a greater output of light energy, the efficiency of LEDs means that a lot less watts are needed to put out the same number of lumens as compared to an incandescent bulb. 

So, then, this begs the question: What light is best for growing plants?  To answer, I am going to assume that the plants are going to be displayed in the living area and viewed by people regularly.  In this case, I would try and find a 5000K bulb with a CRI close 97 or 98, and a PPFD rating that matched the requirement of my plants for the given distance from the light fixture. 

The following is a quick list of what is useful and what is not useful as a metric for plant growth:

PAR - Photosynthetically Active Radiation. It is the ideal measurement for plant growth.

PPFD - Photosynthetic Photon Flux Density. It is a useful metric to judge output at a particular distance from the fixture.

Kelvin - Kelvin refers to “color temperature” – lower number more red (ex. 2700), higher number more blue (ex 6500). It is not detailed enough as a metric for plant growth.

CRI - Color Rendering Index. It is useful for how true-to-life the plants will look.

Lumens - A unit to measure brightness. It is not particularly useful as a metric for plant growth.

Watts - How much energy is used to run the bulb/fixture. It’s not useful as a metric for plant growth, but lower wattage costs less to run equipment.

Warm vs Cool - Warm indicates the red end of the spectrum while cool indicates the blue end of the spectrum.  See Kelvin. It is not detailed enough as a metric for plant growth.

The UConn Home & Garden Education Center supports UConn Extension’s mission by providing answers you can trust with research-based information and resources. For gardening questions, contact us toll-free at (877) 486-6271, visit our website at homegarden.cahnr.uconn.edu, or reach out to your local UConn Extension center at extension.uconn.edu/locations.

This article was published in the Hartford Courant November 1, 2025

Fall Gardening and Preparing for Winter on CRIS Radio

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CRIS Radio: Focal Point 10/13/2025

Heather Zidack from the UConn Home & Garden Education Center talks to host, Stephen Thal, about the summer weather patterns, and how they have impacted our fall garden chores!

Transcript

00:00:01 Stephen Thal 

Hi, welcome to another segment on Focal Point. This is Stephen Thal, your host. And boy, we got another exciting program for our listeners. Today we're going to be talking about plants and gardens and how to take care of them, especially with the challenging weather- humid, hot. Oh, the plants must be having a tough time and garden things. What's happening? 

00:00:27 Stephen Thal 

Well, here to help us work this all out is Heather Zidack, and she's from the UConn Plant and Garden Education Center. Welcome, Heather. 

00:00:40 Heather Zidack 

Hi, Stephen. Thanks for having me. 

00:00:42 Stephen Thal 

Oh, it's always a pleasure. So what did the weather do to the plants this year? 

00:00:49 Heather Zidack 

So, this year was a wild year for our plants. It was a wild year for us too. Some of the weather that we noticed was quite crazy. But in particular, we had a very hot, very humid summer that led us to see a lot of fungal diseases. We got a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails, a lot of samples into our diagnostic lab that had a lot of diseases in the garden. So that was something that we saw. We actually have also been getting reports right now. People are asking us why are their lilacs blooming? And it's because of the stress that we've had this season. 

00:01:28 Heather Zidack 

So with that heat, that humidity, we've also had some really dry stretches that have kept us kind of right on the border of a drought. We're not quite there yet, but we are in abnormally dry conditions. So when plants are stressed, sometimes they do some really strange things and so people have been seeing their lilacs blooming in the fall when that's normally a spring blooming plant. It's not something that's normal, but it's definitely it's an environmental thing and it's not going to be like detrimental to the lilacs if you are seeing that. So it's it's worth noting, but it's not necessarily need for alarm. 

00:02:06 Heather Zidack 

We had earlier in the summer, we had the wildfires and smoke from that may have affected some of your plants. Because believe it or not, the air quality can affect your plants in the garden. And so that could have led to some ozone damage, which we see is like curling in the leaves. It can look like distortion in the leaves. So some weird things with that. 

00:02:29 Heather Zidack 

And then the other thing is that we saw temperatures whenever we went over 85 degrees, usually our common vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, things like that will actually kind of put a pause on. And so, they will not ripen or they may not fruit as heavily. So, we got some calls in saying, “Hey, why have my tomatoes been green for so long?” And it was probably because of the weather. 

00:02:56 Heather Zidack 

So a lot of things happening, the swings in moisture, so we'd have some really warm days, some really dry weather, and then we'd get kind of a deluge of rain. That kind of also stressed the plants out as well. 

00:03:12 Heather Zidack 

So we are advising right now to water your plants, especially your evergreens going into the fall. If we're not seeing an inch of rain forecasted, you want to make sure you're out there watering during any of your new plantings, any of your evergreens, anything like that. 

00:03:31 Heather Zidack 

The drought that we had last fall, so fall of 2024, actually caused a lot of losses in the garden for evergreens, rhododendrons, things like that in 2025 when we were coming into the spring and plants were starting to wake up. So, watering now is going to save you a headache in the spring for sure and if you've had anything like if you have had experience with like fungal disease in your garden this year we're recommending cut all of that tissue back let those leaves drop rake them up and dispose of them don't come compost it because you don't want to put it back into your garden so a lot of different weather patterns have caused the gardeners to have a little extra work this fall I think. 

00:04:14 Stephen Thal 

Okay so where do we go from here with the weather are we going to be bringing some plants into the house? And and we'll also be checking on the plants that have been in the house that may need some help for the fall. 

00:04:32 Heather Zidack 

Yeah, so it's definitely that time of year we recommend bringing in your plants when nighttime temperatures are 50 degrees or lower. And so, we've kind of been doing okay with that weather-wise but we are starting to get into that time where it's consistent and we're seeing that below 50 degrees. 

So, a lot of things if you keep, you know, palms outside or if you keep any citrus trees or anything outside, they need to be in if they're not already. So, some species can be a little more sensitive, so they may have needed to come in already, like even before that 50 degree mark, but that's our rule of thumb. 

00:05:13 Heather Zidack 

When you start to bring them inside, definitely look them over really well, feel them over really well, make sure that the leaves are smooth, everything is healthy, you're not feeling any kind of like insects or any sticky leaves or anything like that. If you are, it is time to kind of have a little bit of a closer look, have checked out for bugs, make sure that you're not bringing anything into your house that you don't want staying there for the winter with your plants. You know, check the undersides of the leaves, check through the soil a little bit, and identify and treat any of those issues before they come into the house. 

00:05:51 Heather Zidack 

So, we do help homeowners if you have pictures, you can send us pictures and we can take a look to see if any of those plant related insects are anything that you need to do anything about before it comes inside. 

00:06:07 Heather Zidack 

You want to give your plants a chance to transition from inside to outside. So if 50 degree nights is what they're-the goal is and we've been letting the weather come down to that 50 degrees and then you're bringing it into your 68 degree house, that's an 18 degree temperature difference. So they may show signs of stress. 

00:06:29 Heather Zidack 

They may kind of not be used to the amount of moisture in the air in your home as compared to what was outside, especially as it starts to get a little colder and we start kicking on the furnace and the air is drier inside the home. 

00:06:43 Heather Zidack 

So keep an eye on your plants, monitor them. Those stress responses may happen, but don't-go ahead and-don't overreact to it. So if you see them drying out, if you see them wilting a little bit, don't change your practices too much. Continue to water as you've always watered. Continue to take all the care that you always have to make sure that they're not drying out, but you're not over watering either. 

00:07:12 Heather Zidack 

We see a lot of people that will over love their plants and over water them. So you end up kind of seeing things come inside, the wilt, we’ll panic and then we'll put a ton of water on it, which then sends it to swing the other way into that over watering and root rot and things like that. 

00:07:30 Heather Zidack 

So just keep doing what you're doing, but keep an eye on what's happening to make sure that you can respond if there is an issue. 

00:07:39 Stephen Thal 

Okay. And that also goes for the local gardeners too. They probably experience a lot of people requesting help during the summer and now how to make best use of their garden. 

00:07:54 Heather Zidack 

Yeah, yeah. And we're going to start seeing now with, you know, again, weather related, we're going to start seeing frosts. Some parts of the state may have seen them already. 

If you have anything like mums or pumpkins outside, those are things that you may want to protect from those frosts. 

What happens is that when the dew falls at night and it crystallizes into frost on your plant material, it can actually damage the tissue and that causes your pumpkins to rot faster. It causes a lot of tender flower petals to not look so good. 

00:08:31 Heather Zidack 

So, what we recommend is to either bring them inside if you just have one mum on the front step, that's easy to bring in and just leave in the kitchen overnight. 

00:08:40 Heather Zidack 

But if you have a larger grouping of plants or if you have some, you know, some cole crop vegetables or something like that that you may want to protect, you can use something as simple as a bed sheet or a towel even. 

Never use a plastic tarp or anything to cover plants because that will just exacerbate the cold against the plant tissue, but definitely do find a way to cover them if frost is coming or bring them inside. 

00:09:12 Stephen Thal 

What kind of covers can you use? 

00:09:14 Heather Zidack 

So, anything that is fabric based is going to work really well. They do sell specific like frost covers, but you don't have to go that far. 

If you have an old sheet, if you have towels, a pillowcase even, kind of depends on your plant size, but a lot of those just to keep that frost from falling onto and making contact with the plant tissue. 

00:09:37 Stephen Thal 

Okay so now we got to get in and roll up our sleeves and begin the work to preparing the plants as Heather has been saying earlier because of the weather and now she's trying to talk a little bit more specifically about plants that come in the house to make sure they don't have some sort of a disease, which will impact the plants that are in the house as well. 

Now, is this the time too, because of the changing of the sunsets and amount of light coming in, you have to move your plants inside the house to different positions in the house. 

00:10:21 Heather Zidack 

So not necessarily different positions. Plants that we have indoors go through yearly cycles just like the ones outdoors. And so some of them may be able to tolerate that change in light as they adjust because it happens slowly. Always check your plant label to make sure if it needs like a full sun or indirect sun. 

You know, we've talked about before those differences are kind of like if you think about a cat in the living room, right? So, if it needs bright indirect light, maybe the cat is somewhere that the light is not shining through the window but it's right next door versus if it needs bright direct light, the cat is sitting right in the window and if it needs shade, it's over by the couch and you don't see it necessarily. 

So, if you always kind of think about in that way, you can remember where your plants need to be in terms of their labeling, which is important to follow. 

00:11:14 Heather Zidack 

But they do adapt a little bit over time when they're indoors, which is why we need to help them adapt when they go outside. 

So if you keep them in a place that is draft free, bright enough for whatever their requirement is, and away from any of the heat sources, so away from any radiators, vents, anything like that that can dry them out, keep them away from like being too close to wood stoves obviously, and that will help them to not be too dry so they don't lose water as quickly. But the other thing too is that like I said, they go through those yearly cycles, so they will go dormant just like the outdoor plants. 

00:11:58 Heather Zidack 

Cooler temperatures, changes in light, changes in water can trigger dormancy, but it is species dependent and so with our houseplants because we keep them in a steady environment as possible, some years they'll go into dormancy, some years they won't. 

And so it's just kind of knowing what plant you have and whether to expect that or not. That can be really helpful. The other quick tip with houseplants that I like to remind everybody is that we allow the soil to dry in between waterings. 

00:12:32 Heather Zidack 

So don't keep your soil wet when your plants are indoors. Let it dry out as much as you can in between to help prevent fungus gnats. Those are those little black flies that seem to get everywhere. 

Again, follow what your plant needs for watering, but if you can stretch it and let it dry out a little bit, you're going to help reduce that issue. 

00:12:54 Stephen Thal 

Oh, that's great. Is this also a time to take a look at repotting any of the soils or any of the plants that we're bringing in or the house plants that have already been there. 

00:13:07 Heather Zidack 

You certainly can. 

00:13:09 Heather Zidack 

People like to repot either in the fall or in the spring. Usually when you repot in the fall, it can be good if you've had them outside and you're worried about any critters that may come in with them in the soil. It's a good time to do it. 

You can do it in the spring if they've put on a lot of growth over the winter while they've been indoors.  

So it all matters on checking the plant in the pot to see if there's any presence of any kind of insect or anything. 

00:13:40 Heather Zidack 

You're definitely going to want to change out your soil. But also if the plant is, those roots are a little too tight in the pot, it starts to get root-bound, that's more your sign of whether to do it or not. It doesn't have to be on a time frame per se. 

00:13:56 Stephen Thal 

Okay, this is Stephen Thal with another segment on Focal Point, and we're interviewing Heather Zidack from the University of Connecticut Plant and Garden Center up in Storrs, Connecticut. 

00:14:08 Stephen Thal 

And she'll give us some phone numbers that we can call regarding if you need some help with your plants or the garden that you've been doing. 

Heather, you got some phone numbers we can use? 

00:14:24 Heather Zidack 

Absolutely. 

So, if you have questions about anything in the garden, anything plant related, your house plants, anything that you have that you you keep for plant material, we can help at the Home Garden Education Center. 

That number is 877-486-6271. Again, that's 877-486-6271 or you can always e-mail us at ladybug@uconn.edu. Again, that's ladybug@uconn.edu. 

00:15:03 Heather Zidack 

We look at pictures to help with diagnosis, so sometimes a picture says a thousand words. Also, I can give you the phone number too. It's a great time of year to be doing soil testing. 

So, the Soil Nutrient Analysis Lab, their number is 860-486-4274. Again, that's 860-486-4274. 

00:15:26 Heather Zidack 

So, between the services in the Home Garden Education Center, we work with our plant diagnostic lab and then the soil lab. We have pretty much everything that the home gardener or plant enthusiast needs to make sure that they're keeping their plants healthy. 

00:15:45 Stephen Thal 

That's good. 

00:15:45 Stephen Thal 

What about fertilizers? 

When does that come into play? 

00:15:50 Heather Zidack 

Yeah, that's a good question. So at this point, we should not be fertilizing anything. There are some exceptions for like lawn care and things like that, but my colleague is much more versed in that. 

00:16:05 Heather Zidack 

In general, it is too cold to fertilize anything right now because what's going to happen is if you were to put down any plant food,you would be pushing growth and any growth that's new on plants is very tender and very small and very susceptible to damage. 

So, it'll push out new growth and then it would freeze and cause damage and not do so well for your plant. So, we don't recommend fertilizing at this point in the year. 

The next time that you would be able to or you should would be for the springtime, once the soil temperatures start to climb up again and it starts to warm up. 

00:16:46 Heather Zidack 

If you have houseplants, you can fertilize. 

00:16:50 Heather Zidack 

However, some of them only need it once a year. It really depends on the species of houseplant you have. 

And so again, like I talked about over loving our plants with watering, sometimes we can over love our plants with fertilizer and, you know, overfeed them. And so sometimes we don't want to do that. So it's something to be aware of. 

Usually, as long as the plant is in active growth, you're able to fertilize. And so since we're kind of in that time of year where things are winding down and going to bed for the season, we just don't do it. But it all depends on what you're growing and what you have to keep an eye on. 

00:17:30 Stephen Thal 

Okay, what are some of the other things that we need to take care of in the fall? 

We did mention, we talked a little bit about fertilizer. 

We talked about bringing plants into the house. Making sure they're not bringing some critters in. 

00:17:43 Stephen Thal 

What about the compost pile? Is that something that we do all year round or just certain times of the year? 

00:17:50 Heather Zidack 

Yeah, composting is year round. So you want to make sure that you're continuously turning your compost pile. There's a couple different kinds. 

So there's hot composting where you keep your compost pile at 140 degrees by turning it throughout the year. 

There's also cold composting, which is what I'm a little better at, where you kind of throw it together, turn it when you can, but it takes longer and it may not necessarily take out all of the pathogens and weed seeds in the same way that hot composting will. So you have to be really careful with your compost at that point. 

00:18:25 Heather Zidack 

Which is a good thing to keep in mind because right now, we advise people who are doing their garden cleanup for the season. 

There's a lot of controversy between that going for do I clean up in the fall or do I clean up in the spring? And so, what I tell people with that is to maintain what I call goal-oriented gardening. So, if your garden is all about pollinators and wildlife support and native plants and all of that. Definitely clean up in the spring. Don't cut back your perennials right now. You can leave your leaves a little bit. That leaves habitat options like hollow stems, leaf litter, and all of that for overwintering insects. And it leaves seed heads for birds to feed on as well as for winter interest. 

00:19:16 Heather Zidack 

However, if you have had a lot of disease this year and we talked about like with all the weather conditions, we saw fungal disease, people had, you know, if you had insects in your garden this year or things like that that you needed to manage, then one of the best things that you can do is clean up your garden in the fall. 

00:19:37 Heather Zidack 

And it goes against that instinct to leave the leaves and leave that pollinator habitat, however, it does help us to reduce our need for chemicals and other products in the spring and the following season because you're taking out anything that's potentially infected and just disposing of it right now instead of letting it overwinter and come back in the next season. So, if you've had disease in the garden and your goal is to have to try to not have that happen again next year. 

You want to clean up all your leaf litter, you want to pull up all your sick plants, dispose of everything in the garbage, don't compost it. You know that you are removing some of those habitat opportunities for the pollinators, but you're keeping your plants healthy for them to come back to and find next season. So it's kind of a toss up between the two. 

00:20:31 Heather Zidack 

And so I always encourage gardeners to really look at their own personal goals in their garden and see what they're willing to work with. If they really want that pollinator habitat to clean up in the spring, go for it. If they want to manage the disease, then fall may be the better time. And the other thing to keep in mind that I encourage people is to think about their own time. 

00:20:56 Heather Zidack 

So your time is valuable when it comes to garden cleanup. And make sure you're doing what you have time for when you have the time. So I've explained this and I've talked to other gardeners about this and I am a big football fan and so on Sundays, I am watching football instead of being out in my garden, believe it or not.  

And so sometimes for me, cleaning in the spring allows me to have that extra hobby and so it's kind of looking at my time and my priorities and really making sure that my garden is fitting that. 

00:21:31 Heather Zidack 

Because at the end of the day, we all do gardening as something we enjoy, and we want to make sure that we continue to get out there to enjoy it. 

00:21:40 Stephen Thal 

Okay, are there any other major things that we need to cover at this point, Heather? 

00:21:46 Heather Zidack 

One of the things that I definitely encourage people, like right now, if you're out in the garden, make sure that you're digging up any of your bulbs. It's the bulb time of year. 

So when I say dig up bulbs, I mean all of your elephant ears, your canna lilies, your gladiolus, any of those annual bulbs should be dug up, put into paper bags for storage. If you're growing them in containers, you can just cut them back and put the container in the garage or the basement to make sure that it will stay cool, but it won't freeze. 

On the other side of that, you want to start planting your spring blooming bulbs right now, you want to plant your garlic in late October, early November, you want to remove your vegetable plants that have those signs of disease, and don't compost again like I had mentioned. 

00:22:39 Heather Zidack 

The other thing that you want to do is you want to try to cover your soil in any of your garden beds. So a lot of the perennial garden beds that you have and a lot of your foundation plantings and things like that may already have mulch around them, so it might not be as important. 

But for your vegetable gardens and things that you're turning over every year, it's important to make sure that that soil is covered for the winter. Some gardeners were able to put in some cover crops by now and have something to hold the soil, like plant material-wise, that they'll be able to turn in. However, at this point in the season, we recommend just using something like straw, leaf mulch. You can chop up your leaves and put them out onto the garden as long as they were disease free. 

00:23:29 Heather Zidack 

And what that does is when you break up your leaves and you chop them up first, it allows them to break down faster so that there's less cleanup for you in the spring instead of having like if you've ever seen outside the dense thick leaf patches that we tend to have in the spring where leaves have collected. You want to make sure that they're chopped up, they're fine and that they're able to be turned into the soil at the end of the season. 

When you do, if you do have anything that you're turning in, so if you're going to do the leaves this fall and turn things in in the spring, it needs to be about three weeks before you're planting in the springtime. So, keep that in mind. 

00:24:11 Heather Zidack 

Make sure that you are cutting back any of your perennials, if fall cleanup is your goal, this is the time to do it. You want to cut back and leave one third of the perennials above the ground. 

So, say you have a six inch perennial, you want to cut it back to a two inch stub and that's where you'll leave it for the fall if you decide to clean up now. 

00:24:35 Heather Zidack 

If conditions continue to stay dry like they have been, keep watering all of your trees, your shrubs, your perennials, especially your new plantings until the ground freezes. So we've still got a little bit of time that we should be watering with supplemental water. 

We recommend one inch of water a week, which actually ends up being about, I think it's like 0.62 gallons per square foot. So that can help you kind of figure out how much water you need in a week for your plants. 

00:25:07 Heather Zidack 

And you want to wait till all your shrubs are dormant so their leaves have dropped before pruning in the fall. Do not prune any of your spring blooming shrubs. 

So, you don't want to prune your hydrangeas. You don't want to prune your forsythia, your lilacs, anything like that because things likely already set their buds for next year already. So, if you prune them now, you could lose your flowers. 

00:25:34 Heather Zidack 

The other thing that we recommend is, like I said, you don't want to fertilize anymore at this point. You know, consider getting your soil tested now so that you can have those results in the spring and be able to hit the ground running. 

00:25:48 Heather Zidack 

And again, like I said, our office is open year-round to help support with any of these home garden houseplant questions that you may have. 

00:25:59 Stephen Thal 

And also you have a number of local gardeners, don't you, or grangers? 

00:26:05 Heather Zidack 

We do. We have county offices that will help with garden questions as well through our master gardener colleagues will help with identification and things like that. If it's disease questions, definitely send it to the Home Garden Education Center. 

00:26:23 Heather Zidack 

But the master gardeners at the county offices are also very well equipped to help with cultural questions, how to take care of plants, how to identify them, and some of these fall and spring cleanup tips as well. 

00:26:36 Stephen Thal 

Do you have many fruit plants that need to be taken care of, or are they all pretty much gone? 

00:26:43 Heather Zidack 

They're pretty well done the only one to keep in mind is your fall blooming raspberries or your fall fruiting raspberries those you want to prune after fruiting is complete otherwise you're going to be all set um mostly in the winter when things are totally dormant so we're looking at like March would be the time to start pruning your fruit trees. 

00:27:04 Stephen Thal 

Oh okay one other thing I forgot to ask you you also have to take clean your tools that you use the garden with. 

00:27:12 Heather Zidack 

Absolutely. That's a great winter chore. Clean your tools, especially if you're between pruning diseased plants. 

The other thing is in the winter, it's great to not only clean your tools, but if you need to sharpen your tools or it's a good time also to make sure that you repaint all the handles so you can find them again when you have them in the garden. 

00:27:34 Stephen Thal 

Hey, Heather's going to give us the phone number one more time in case you missed it the first time. 

00:27:40 Heather Zidack 

Yes. So if you have any plant or garden questions, you can always call our office at 877-486-6271. Again, that's 877-486-6271. 

00:27:55 Stephen Thal 

That'll be great. 

Well, thank you again for coming again to help our gardeners or people that have interested in starting gardens or plants or whatever. Great information. 

Give my best to your whole team and I know when it comes around Christmas there's a lot of plants there that have to be protected once the season goes by. 

00:28:20 Heather Zidack 

Yes, yeah there's a lot of holiday plants that we could certainly talk about. 

00:28:26 Stephen Thal 

Okay well thank you again and wishing you and the whole team at UConn Plant and Garden Center continued success. 

00:28:33 Heather Zidack 

Thank you so much. 

00:28:35 Stephen Thal 

Stephen Thal with another segment on Focal Point. 

I want to thank all of you for listening. 

And a couple of things we want to remind you of is first, make sure that you wear a hat and dark glasses to protect your eyes against the sun all year around, particularly during the winter, particularly if we get snow, be a lot of glare. 

00:28:59 Stephen Thal 

The other item I wanted to mention is to make sure that you have an emergency plan and practice it. If you need any help with it, call your local fire department or police department and they can direct you to the proper resources to help you build one of these plans because someday that life may be somebody in your family that you save. 

00:29:23 Stephen Thal 

And also when you travel, make sure you know what the emergency rules are so that should you get into a situation, you know what to do. 

00:29:33 Stephen Thal 

So once again, thank you all for listening. 

Stay safe and stay healthy. 

 

Extreme Sports for Plants: Temperature Tolerance

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By Dr. Matthew Lisy, UConn Adjunct Faculty

Spathiphyllum wallisii in a pot wilting indoors

This Spathiphyllum wallisii is forty years old. In the fall of 2024, it wilted due to an extreme negative temperature change. (photo by M. Lisy)

Spathiphyllum wallisii outside, lush and healthy

This is the same Spathiphyllum wallisii showing a lot of new growth during the warm, humid summer of 2025. (photo by M. Lisy)

Plants, like humans, have an ideal temperature preference.  In general, we like to have temperatures between 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.  Temperatures outside this range cause us stress.  Our plants have very similar temperature requirements, only they have no ability to shiver or move!  This past winter, I had a 40-year-old houseplant near my bedroom window.  Our fall weather hit, and we dropped about 30 degrees in a day.  My plant wilted and looked like it was going to die.  After a long process of investigation and discussions with my fellow plant professionals, I can only conclude it was the rapid temperature change.  The good news is that it made a full recovery once it adapted to the cooler weather.

This past winter, I had some Sansevieria that were under my windowsill.  They get beautiful light in the later part of the day.  The house is heated to 55 degrees, which is above their lower temperature tolerance, but the plants were not looking good.  This spring, I found out that the storm window had fallen out of place.  This set up a cold draft that negatively affected the plants, causing some formerly unexplained rot over the winter.

Not all plants have the same susceptibility to temperature.  Cacti and succulents are usually from hot, arid climates.  These plants are used to seeing temperatures soaring in the day, and then getting comparatively cold at night.  As long as they are given proper light, most of these plants can tolerate life very easily in our homes.  Even cold, unheated basements or outdoor greenhouses are just fine as long as temperatures stay above freezing.

Many of our plants come from the tropical forest floor where they are used to similar temperatures during the day and the night, all year long.  While there is some adaptation to life in our homes, they have a preferred temperature and humidity range.  There are some really neat “new” Philodendron species being offered for sale.  Many of them have minimum temperatures of 60 or even 65.  This can be difficult to do in an era where our smart thermostats are programed to turn down while we are not home, and up when we return in the evening.  These temperature swings may be intolerable to our plants.

Be careful watering plants when the sun is shining.  Those little water droplets can end up capturing the sun’s rays just like a greenhouse would.  The droplets heat up and can actually burn a spot in the plant leaf.  Remember, each drop can do this, so many times, the whole plant can look like a spotted mess!

Temperature can many times mark the difference between success and failure to keep some of the more difficult species of houseplants.  Changes should be done slowly to avoid stress.  If houseplants are kept outside in the summer, waiting too long can see the loss of some plants with lower temperature tolerances.  Placing plants closer to the house or inside a simple greenhouse can help during the first cool nights of early fall.  Especially sensitive plants should be brought in before any threat of cool weather.  I learned this lesson the hard way with my prized Philodendron squamiferum.  Its ideal temperature range is 65-85 degrees Fahrenheit.  I had it in the basement and was planning on moving it to the first floor, but left it down there as the light was nice.  While this plant technically can tolerate temperatures in the 50s for a short duration, it got too cold for too long and it dropped all its leaves one night (it died).  As a general rule of thumb, if it is too cold for people, it will be too cold for our houseplants!

The UConn Home & Garden Education Center supports UConn Extension’s mission by providing answers you can trust with research-based information and resources. For gardening questions, contact us toll-free at (877) 486-6271, visit our website at homegarden.cahnr.uconn.edu, or reach out to your local UConn Extension center at cahnr.uconn.edu/extension/locations.

This article was published in the Hartford Courant August 2, 2025

Plants Enjoy Summer Too!

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By Dr. Matthew Lisy, UConn Adjunct Faculty 

A monstera adansonii with yellowing, curling and damaged leaves
This Monstera adansonii, that was sunburned. The damage can take weeks to fully appear, first starting as faint yellowing, then brown dead tissue (photo by M. Lisy).

A summer vacation can be beneficial for our houseplants provided that we pay attention to some abiotic (nonliving) factors.  Plants need time to adapt to new growing conditions or they can have deadly consequences.  Try and make the change as gradual as possible.  I usually wait until the end of May, where temperatures are consistently in the 70s for the highs, and no lower than 50s for the lows.   

Our plants cannot go from dim, indoor lighting to super bright full sun outside.  Any leaves subject to this will burn and die.  The best way to acclimate plants to life outdoors is to place them in the shade of a large tree for about a week, and then gradually expose them to some direct sunlight.  At first, start with only an hour or two of sun, and then add a bit more the following week until you transition them to full sun.  This is assuming that the plants in question are ones that need full sun.  Cacti and succulents can generally be transitioned to full sun (one notable exception are the forest cacti).   

Most of our houseplants are actually forest-floor species or epiphytes (these grow and live on the trunks of other trees).  Either way, those two groups of plants grow in the understory shade of a larger tree in nature, and do well there over the summer.  Some plants I saw recently for sale were called neon philodendron.  These have light green leaves (similar color to neon pothos).  The light was so intense that it bleached the leaves to a pale-yellow color, and some were turning brown.  The plants looked miserable, and the grower said she was going to move them to a shadier location.   

 I am not sure why we cannot have normal weather, but it seems we have had either too dry or too wet the last five years.  When it rains consistently, it keeps our plants in a constantly moist state, which leads to root rot.  I lost a few really nice philodendrons due to them being too moist in last summer’s constant rain.  The ideal setting would have the plants exposed to good light while under cover.  This way, the gardener can water them appropriately based on the needs of each plant.  If this is not an option, repotting and adding some extra perlite to the mix will help the pot shed the excess water.  Be sure to remove the saucer from the pots and hanging baskets while the plants are outside.  These will hold excess water and keep the plants in a constantly moist state and favor fungal infections.   

 A pot or hanging basket may only have about a gallon or two of soil at best, and will dry out quickly in the heat.  Depending on your soil type, it may be almost impossible to water enough.  Try to avoid full sun in the hottest part of the day between noon and 2:00 p.m.   

 In an exposed location, wind can rapidly desiccate, windburn, or break plants. A good friend of mine with a large houseplant collection in the Midwest had almost everything he owned blown over and damaged when a tornado swept through his town last summer.  Although he did not experience a direct hit, the winds were so bad it ruined many of his mature plants.  I told him to look at it like an unintentional propagation event.  When vining plants are grown in hanging baskets, they sometimes start to cling to the branches around them and rip in the wind.   

Hopefully this article will help plants enjoy their summer vacation.  It is a great time for plants to grow and be propagated.  Be careful of the extremes of summer, and give the plants a gentle exposure to the outdoors. 

 The UConn Home & Garden Education Center supports UConn Extension’s mission by providing answers you can trust with research-based information and resources. For gardening questions, contact us toll-free at (877) 486-6271, visit our website at homegarden.cahnr.uconn.edu, or reach out to your local UConn Extension center at cahnr.uconn.edu/extension/locations. 

This article was published in the Hartford Courant and The Westerly Sun June 21, 2025

Gardening with the Weather on CRIS Radio

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CRIS Radio: Focal Point 6/16/2025

Heather Zidack from the UConn Home & Garden Education Center talks to host, Stephen Thal, about our strange spring weather, gardening outdoors and more!

 

 

 

Transcript

00:00:01 Stephen Thal 

Hi, welcome to another segment on Focal point. This is Stephen Thal and I'll be your host for today's informative program. 

Our guest today uh is known to us. She's been on several times in the past year to help us understand more about living plants, whether you have them inside your house, or you put them outside or you're doing gardening and she's also part of the UConn plant science program and they offer many, many services which she'll be explaining sometime during her presentation today. 

However, to kick this off. We have to be more cognitive of the weather, the types of weather we're having. Examples include drought, some places there's too much rain, so here to help us straighten it out and get some good plant life going. Is Heather Zidack back from the UConn Plant Science Center. Welcome, Heather. 

00:01:00 Heather Zidack 

Hi, Steven, thank you for having me. 

00:01:03 Stephen Thal 

So let's take a look at the weather pattern. Weather patterns have been infected- impacting plants. 

00:01:11 Heather Zidack 

Yes, it has been a very notable spring this year with the amount of rainfall that we've had. But before I talk about the rainfall, I want to just go back a little bit because we've actually seen effects from last fall in our garden. So what happened at the end of last summer, early fall and into the winter, if you remember, we were actually in a drought through most of the state. 

And that lasted through March of this year. And so because a lot of plants went into the winter under drought conditions, we actually saw a combination of the lack of water with the heavy winds from this winter and it caused a lot of moisture to be pulled out of those plants. 

We saw a lot of winter kill, so broadleaf evergreens, rhododendrons, mountain laurels, all sorts of shrubs like that, anything needled evergreens as well. A lot of arborvitaes Japanese Hollies, things like that. We saw the-uh They turned brown and then they ended up just kind of dying back. Luckily with a little bit of care, homeowners have been able to bring some of them back and at this point in the season, we're starting to look more towards disease causes, but this was seen all over the state, so we had this drought in the fall. 

And then here we are in March and April, seeing the effects of it. So everything that happens is cyclical and we see it happen in the next growing season. And then here we are now with significant rainfall. I think it's rained-What every weekend for quite some time now. 

00:02:52 Heather Zidack 

And that rainfall in May was enough to pull us out of a moderate drought across the state, except for like one small area in Fairfield County who is abnormally dry, which is the lowest rating that you can have in drought conditions. So that's really good. 

The expectation for the next month or so is average. So you want to start to monitor your gardens and make sure that if we're getting an inch to two inches of water a week, we have enough water for our plants, for the most part. If we're seeing less than that, we've got to get out and start checking the soil and get into the habit of  watering so that when we get into the next fall that we have coming, we don't get used to not watering and then seeing plants decline from that. Because I think that was something we saw last year as well as we had a very wet spring and when we got to the fall. 

00:03:47 Heather Zidack 

Not only did we have a drought from the environment, but a lot of us didn't get trained, we'll say, to go out into our gardens every day or two to check to make sure the water was there, because we just relied on it coming from the sky. So that's been a really huge impact that we've seen over the the last season in our gardens and we're just getting started with growing.  

00:04:10 Stephen Thal 

Wow, what are some plants that are directly impacted by this? 

00:04:15 Heather Zidack 

So some of the things that we've seen, like I said, the evergreens were a really big deal. 

A lot of stuff that's more shallow rooted is going to see more effect one way or another. It's going to have more signs of stress, but the bigger thing that we're seeing right now out in the garden-Once we've gotten passed into this spring and seen some of the shrub damage is looking at our annuals and what's happened with our annuals is we've looked at the temperatures and we've had some significant cold in comparison to previous springs. So when you have cold weather like we've had what we recommend. Is if it's 50° or more. 

It's good to put your annuals, your house plants, your tomatoes, your Peppers, all of that outside. We've had a few weeks. I think it was the week before Memorial Day this year where those temperatures dip below 50 and so we actually saw a lot of people were covering their plants, bringing them inside, making those adjustments. 

00:05:19 Heather Zidack 

In order to protect their crops, because if they were left outside, although they would survive, they wouldn't necessarily die off. Turn brown and fall over and have to restart. You may notice things like the flowers dropped or they slowed down how they were growing, especially anything in the eggplant, pepper, tomato family once the temperatures get to like 60°, they pause development, so once it gets lower than that they start to get a little bit stressed. On the other side of it, our cole crops and our Greens have loved this weather. I just was out my garden this past weekend and I picked a giant basket of lettuce and spinach and all of that because these cool nights and warm days are really encouraging growth of those crops without sending them into flowering. So it's just something that kind of keep an eye on. 

00:06:11 Stephen Thal

And uh, what about? Uh, you were talking about leafy lettuce. Uh, how do you take care of those? They're a little tender, aren't they?

00:06:20 Heather Zidack 

They actually are pretty tough. What's really interesting is that once we usually get into this point in June, July and start getting into the heat of summer, they actually start to get a little bit more difficult to grow because they don't like the heat of the summer. 

00:06:36 Heather Zidack 

They'll start putting out flowers. They'll start wilting, using a little more water. 

So we tend to not see them grow as well in the home garden in the high heat of the summer. You can protect them from that with any shade cloth or putting them in a shadier area because they're not producing anything like fruit or flower. They don't need to have as much of the sunlight as some of your other plants do that also applies to some of your your herbs like your basils and things like that, so they can go in a shadier spot if you have- 

00:07:09 Heather Zidack 

You know a spot in your garden that maybe is a little too shady for your tomatoes, but it might do OK for your leafy greens, your herbs and things like that. With the weather that we've been seeing too, it's really important to make sure that you're spacing your plants really well this year. You don't want to make them too close to each other, because crowding can often help when it comes to diseases and pests. They love tight, crowded areas, so if you space out your plants really well this year-You're going to help reduce that pressure when we start seeing the hotter temperatures, some of this humidity that we get in the summer and things like that. 

00:07:51 Stephen Thal 

Now when you're asking when you're working in the garden. Should you be wearing gloves to protect some of the insect bites you get, or some damaging to your hands? 

00:08:04 Heather Zidack 

Absolutely. I wear gloves when I'm in the garden all the time. I do it for a couple of reasons. I have, you know,  I like to protect my my manicure, right? So I keep my gloves on. But it also is really good. Like you said, if you have got insects in the garden, but like I've seen this Spring because of all the rain that we've had, my garden is actually close to a wetland and we've had a lot of mosquitoes. So I found myself actually going out with not just gloves but long sleeves, long pants and close toed shoes and a hat, just to make sure that I'm protecting myself as best I can from the insects. 

00:08:46 Heather Zidack 

It's a good thing to do, just to have that extra layer of protection when you're pulling weeds. You never know when you're going to have something that you know might just interact with your skin or something like that. So definitely I wear gloves all the time in the garden and I do recommend it for everybody that's out there. 

00:09:05 Stephen Thal

And what about? Uh, you had mentioned to me about you shouldn't walk on wet soil. What does that do?

00:09:15 Heather Zidack 

Yes, so especially this spring with all the rain that we've had and everything, gardens are starting to get a little bit flooded a little bit waterlogged. So the first thing that we recommend is don't walk on the soil when it's wet if you can, especially when it's been really saturated after some of the rain that we've had these past few weeks. 

00:09:35 Heather Zidack 

What that does is that compacts the soil and it squishes it down and closes a lot of those air pockets that are there between the soil particles. So that makes it harder down the road for water to penetrate and get into the soil and to the roots of your plant. So if you do have either saturated soils or this is good if you're just checking your water needs in the garden, it's a really good thing to get tactile with it and use your hands so. 

00:10:04 Heather Zidack 

You want to dig down a little bit. You want to grab a little handful, squeeze it in your hand if it. If it's really dusty, really dry. We all know what that feels like. And so that's when your plants are usually gonna need water. If when you squeeze your hand, you've got water running out of your hand, it's gone the other way. And it's definitely saturated. You don't want to walk on it. You don't want to add any water you wanna try to keep your plants where they are so they can dry out a little bit. 

00:10:33 Heather Zidack 

If it's somewhere in between and it holds a form, but it doesn't have any water coming out of it. That's like that sweet spot where you're like, OK, I have enough water for now. I can come back tomorrow and check. So that's really the best way is to to look and use your hands as you're exploring your garden to make sure that it's well watered. Don't rely on appearance because a lot of times some of these garden products that we have can look wet or look dark compared to what the soil is and so it can be a little deceiving. So you want to always make sure you're checking with your hands instead of using your eyes to take a look. 

00:11:13 Stephen Thal 

OK, how about, uh, some of the insects like squash bugs and so on. Uh, are they helpful to the garden or harmful? 

00:11:23 Heather Zidack 

They are opposite, they are harmful to the garden, so they are coming. Squash bugs usually start coming out-Wanna say end of June, early July, there's squash bugs, there's squash borers, there's things like that. And with those, if you're growing squash plants, you wanna try to remove them as early as possible. 

00:11:44 Heather Zidack 

They are something the squash vine borer I'll start with is one that lives in the soil. Once that hatches, it crawls out and chews into the stem and the larvae lives in the stem. So if you see a squash plant that's wilting and doesn't look so hot, if you trace it back to the stem in the ground, you might notice it almost looks like...um..It's it's not, but it almost looks like wood shavings. You'll see where it like burrowed into the stem if you cut that stem open, you'll probably find some kind of Caterpillar in there and they move quick. They move like a foot a day, so that's one to watch out for. 

00:12:22 Heather Zidack 

The squash bugs are a little less dramatic, but you'll notice they're eggs on the underside of leaves, and what I recommend for people who are dealing with squash bugs to do is remove them by hand, take a piece of duct tape, wrap it around your hand backwards, and just stick your hands to the leaf. It's enough to pull those eggs off without having to use any chemicals or pulling the leaves off the plant. It's a really effective method. 

00:12:47 Heather Zidack 

If you want to go a step further and you're out in the garden and you're deciding to plant your squash, it's mid-June so you could maybe plant this weekend if you're doing that, you could put netting onto your plants. As long as it's not the same place it was last year and that will help the adults from flying in and getting onto your plants in the 1st place. So that's a really good thing to. 

00:13:12 Heather Zidack 

You there's other bugs out there as well. In the summer, there's a lot of insects. If you've had a garden, you know there's a lot of bugs out there. Usually you can't tell by just the damage left. You need to find an insect that it's in action to treat your plants. 

00:13:28 Heather Zidack 

Because what we recommend doing is, it's called integrated pest management, or IPM. They have-in using that method, you're using your targeted approach to get rid of a specific insect that you have identified using specific methods. That way we're not overusing any products in our garden. We're not going and over exerting ourselves to take care of the issue. It's a smart approach and a targeted approach to whatever your garden problems are. 

00:13:56 Heather Zidack 

With that being said, this is a little personal plug here for the Home and Garden Education Center, but we will be hosting a home gardener seminar for integrated pest Management in August, so it's a multi speaker event. We have tips to manage pest disease, and other things in your garden and that's going to be coming up in August. If you'd like to get information about that, you're welcome to either call or e-mail us and we can put you on the list to let you know when that releases. But it's something that helps make that targeted approach. Couple of other insects that are out there right now are things like the four lined plant bug that does a whole lot of damage. It's damage, looks like like little brown spots all over leaves. I've seen them on basil. Specifically, they have a bunch of hosts, but I know they love my basil at home. 

00:14:50 Heather Zidack 

There's this spittle bug which has little foamy...Nests will say they're not really nests, but they're little foamy structures that they put around the center of a stem. When they're there, they're a short-lived insect that just kind of does its thing and dives out in the environment, and we don't even need to treat it. There's aphids. There's all sorts of things, so that's when learning what you're looking at can guide how you're treating it so that you're not using as many products in the garden. 

00:15:19 Stephen Thal 

Huh. What are my mosquitoes? How do you deal with mosquitoes? 

00:15:24 Heather Zidack 

Mosquitoes are different, but very interesting in the garden, so they're definitely out. Like I said, I am near a wetland, and so I'm definitely experiencing them out in the garden frequently at this point. Best thing to do when you're dealing with mosquitoes in your yard is if you are out. 

00:15:44 Heather Zidack 

They come out at dawn and dusk, so being outdoors at those times, you want to wear bug spray, especially like when that's when they're most active. 

00:15:52 Heather Zidack 

If some people do wear bug spray throughout the day because in areas that are bad, they're always out there. So it really depends on what your yard is like. After rain, you can dump out any containers they've caught water because what they do is they lay their eggs and their larvae actually live in water before they go into the air. So you want to make sure that the air-that the water is dumped. You want to empty any of your bird baths and rinse them regularly for the same reason. 

00:16:24 Heather Zidack 

And one thing that's really interesting with mosquitoes is we see a lot of mosquito repellent plants that are sold and advertised to us and this is a big thing for a lot of people. One thing that I warn people about with this is that their job as a mosquito repellent plant is to keep the mosquitoes away from the plant itself. 

00:16:46 Heather Zidack 

So it's an immediate proximity. 

00:16:49 Heather Zidack 

What we do is we tend to harvest the oil from these plants and put them into repellent products. So like the citronella plant for example, or lemongrass or things like that, we extract those oils and then use them in our insect repellents. It's not necessarily going to protect you if you have a pot of lemongrass on your patio because it doesn't have an 8 to 10 foot range. It only has a few inches around that plant that really has that repelling effect, so. 

00:17:21 Heather Zidack 

That's how that works. They're great to have, but also just to keep in mind, with that, we never recommend crushing or rubbing any kind of plants on your skin without first consulting with a doctor or an allergist just to make sure that you're safe and you're doing what's best for your health. 

00:17:39 Stephen Thal 

This is Stephen Thal with another segment on Focal point and we're interviewing Heather Zidack from UConn Plant and Science Department up in Storrs. 

00:17:49 Stephen Thal 

And she's been leading us through the different weather patterns and also how some of the plants are impacted. And we also were talking about some of the oils that plants develop and how effective they may be in various stages. 

00:18:06 Stephen Thal 

It's very interesting and I think something else we got to take care of here is how do we, what kind of soil do we use and what kind of fertilizers we use, right, Heather? 

00:18:17 Heather Zidack 

Yeah. So soils are really important because that's the foundation of your garden. That's really where the not just your plants are taking root and and having their structural support, but also that's where the plants are gonna pull everything from nutrition, water and everything that they need. So whenever you have a garden, we always recommend calling our the soil Nutrient Analysis lab, either the one at UConn or the experiment station to have your soil tested. We recommend testing every two to three years and what they do is they look at the nutritional value of your soil. They don't look for anything else, but they will tell you what the nutrient levels are. 

00:19:00 Heather Zidack 

Are and I know with the UConn Labs specifically, what they look at is are specific values and how it would relate to your garden. So if you fill out a report that says I'm looking to grow vegetables, they'll kind of help you figure out what amendments you need to make for your garden to grow those vegetables. I can't speak. For what the experiment station does, but they are available as a resource for the public as well. And sometimes it just comes down to who's closer to you and how do you want to move forward and what information you want to get? 

00:19:35 Heather Zidack 

So that's really important. Get your labs and get your soil tested and figure out what your nutritional values are. Really important for, especially vegetable gardens, where nutrients are are kind of going through the systems a lot quicker than in established beds. 

00:19:55 Heather Zidack 

A lot of trees and shrubs and perennials that are established may not need fertilizer every year. They might need it every other year. It really depends on the species. There are some native species that rarely need fertilizer at all, so know what plant you have and then we can look into it a little further. 

00:20:14 Heather Zidack 

But like I said, those vegetables tend to have high demand and need more support because they're producing food for us. So what you want to look at are big three, our nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium or we say NPK. Your nitrogen is responsible for growing really lush leaves. Your phosphorus is really good for things like flower, fruit, a lot of your bloom booster fertilizers tend to be high in phosphorus, and your potassium is good for root growth, drought resistance, it helps to reduce some water loss, and they're still researching a lot of these things. 

00:20:51 Heather Zidack 

But what you look at when you're buying a fertilizer for your garden is you look for there's three numbers on the bag a lot of times it's and it's a lot of times in increments of 5 but not always. So like a 5-5-5, 10-10-10, something like that. These are percentages by weight of those nutrients in the bag. And they go in the order of nitrogen and then phosphorus, and then potassium. So sometimes they can be comparable to each other when you're working with a product because they're balanced in ratio. It really depends on what you need to apply. 

00:21:25 Heather Zidack 

A lot of the tone products that we see and weekly fertilizer products are much lower concentrations. So I've seen some fertilizers out there that are like 3-4-3, very low, but just a little bit of food to keep them going because if you're over applying, you can actually cause damage by providing too much fertilizer. 

That's another reason going back to that soil test can be really important. 

00:21:50 Heather Zidack 

You always want to check the back of the bag. There is usually going to be not just those big three nutrients that we need, but also a lot of micronutrients as well, and that will vary in your soil as well. And when you get a soil report, you get all of that information. 

00:22:08 Heather Zidack 

Another really important thing is to stop fertilizing in August or September because-What we want to avoid is pushing any tender growth before frost, so if we start backing off in August and September, especially with some of these slow release fertilizers, we're not gonna continue feeding the plant and encouraging it to put out tender young leaves that then get bit by frost. 

I think that's pretty much most of the soil rundown, a crash course. 

00:22:38 Stephen Thal 

Yeah, that's important. Thank you. 

00:22:40 Heather Zidack 

Would you like the number for the soil lab? 

00:22:43 Stephen Thal 

Oh, definitely. 

00:22:45 Heather Zidack 

All right, so this is for the UConn Soil Analysis Lab and it's 860-486-4274. Again 860-486-4274. 

00:23:01 Stephen Thal 

Great. Now after all of this, what else should we do to keep the gardens going? 

00:23:09 Heather Zidack 

So there's a lot of things that you can do right now. In June you want to be cutting back your perennials for sure that anything that has already flowered for your perennials you want to try to cut back. If you cut back some of these early flowering perennials at this point in the year, it may encourage them to push out new flowers. This happens very frequently in things like Salvia and Nepeta, which is known as Catmint as well. So if you cut back things that have already bloomed. 

00:23:43 Heather Zidack 

It will help encourage new growth and new flowers where you potentially. A lot of plants are in production mode right now. So they're producing fruit or flour for you. So water is going to be incredibly important. I went through all of the details with you before of like how to check your soil, but make sure that you can be checking your soil to see if there's enough moisture in there. 

00:24:05 Heather Zidack 

We don't recommend watering in the evening if you can avoid it. Early morning is going to be best because you're going to saturate that soil. And then it has the day to dry out instead of saturating at night, getting dark and cool. And then that's when there's a lot of rotten things that can happen. 

00:24:23 Heather Zidack 

You also want to avoid water on your leaves. You want to add water to the soil because if you have any droplets on the leaves, it can actually burn the plants a little bit. Believe it or not, plants can get sunburn, so you want to be careful. 

00:24:37 Heather Zidack 

It's also a good time to prune spring flowering shrubs immediately once the flowers are gone, so a lot of shrubs out there are like, again, I go back to rhododendrons, lilacs, things like that. They're gonna start to set their buds in this summer or during the fall. So if you prune too late, if you prune in the fall, when you're doing all your other cleanup chores or you prune over the winter like you do with your summer blooming shrubs. You could lose your seed-your 

00:25:05 Heather Zidack 

Lose your flowers. The next thing is that you can still plant from seed right now, so there's a lot of things out there that you can do. Radishes, beans, squash, carrots are all pretty quick to come up, so you could put those in the garden. Just check the back of the seed packet to see how many days till maturity we have and if it falls within, you know from here too. Let's say October, you've probably got a good shot in getting a crop. I know radish is an example only goes about 21 days in between seed to days to harvest. So that's really cool. I've even planted sunflowers in July after I've harvested. 

00:25:45 Heather Zidack 

My garlic needed to throw something in the bag, so there's a lot of really good plants out there that you can still plant in June. It does. It's not too late. 

00:25:54 Stephen Thal 

That's great. 

00:25:55 Stephen Thal 

We have about 6 minutes left. Anything you'd like to cover in the last 6 minutes? 

00:26:02 Heather Zidack 

Yeah. 

00:26:03 Heather Zidack 

Couple of really important things too. Looking at your house plants, so if you grow house plants and you want to put them outside, I think we finally hit that point where they can go out on the patio and be pretty comfortable for the rest of the summer. 

00:26:18 Heather Zidack 

Temps have stabilized for tropical and exotic plants that usually thrive indoors. So like I said, we look for that 50° at night and we're definitely there. It took a while, but we got there. If they haven't been outside yet and you're just putting them out soon, you want to start slow. 

00:26:36 Heather Zidack 

If you put them in a sheltered, shaded kind of outdoor space for a few days before you move them to full sun into the high heat of the day. So you wanna make sure that they have a couple of steps to take in between going from inside your office, let's say, from out to your patio. So that's something really important that you want to make sure that you're doing. The other thing that's really, really important, and I emphasize this with all gardeners at this point in the season is get yourself into the habit of making observations you really want to go out into your garden and take a look at the leaves. Take a look at the undersides of the leaves. 

00:27:16 Heather Zidack 

Take pictures. This is a great way to monitor so that if something does look a little different or disease develops or insects start showing up, you know early enough to do something. 

00:27:29 Heather Zidack 

I see a lot of times gardeners necessarily don't see what's happening in their garden, and then we hit a point where we're overwhelmed with disease or pest or weeds, even because of all the rain we've had. So if you can go out and get yourself in the habit of just looking at your plants, seeing what the leaves actually look like. Seeing what's normal and what's not normal. 

00:27:52 Heather Zidack 

That's really important to do so that when something abnormal happens, you're right on top of it and you can do something to save your plants instead of losing your fruit or your tomatoes or whatever the case may be. 

00:28:05 Heather Zidack 

If you do notice anything, it's really important to know that our office is here to help you with the UConn Home and Garden Education Center. We can always look at photos via e-mail. That e-mail is ladybug@uconn.edu again, ladybug @uconn.edu. Or you could call us at any time. Our number is 860-486-6271 again 860-486-6271 and we can help with plant disease as well as insects and environmental things that just look weird in the garden. We can help get you pointed in the right direction so. 

00:28:49 Heather Zidack 

That's definitely something that I I remind everybody is just be observant, be out in your garden, you know, be present with what you're doing. If you're out there watering, don't just go looking around at everything else around you go get the plants that you're watering and see what's going on. 

00:29:05 Stephen Thal 

Ah, that's great. 

00:29:07 Stephen Thal 

So we have to hope this is good information for our listeners and we have the phone numbers and we'll have them have you give it to them one more time. 

00:29:18 Heather Zidack 

So give you a couple of phone numbers, so I'm with the UConn Home and Garden Education Center. Again, my number here is 860-486-6271One again 860-486-6271. There's also the soil lab that I had mentioned earlier. Their number is 860-486-4274, again 860-486-4274. Between our two offices, we can definitely help gardeners get a handle on what they need to know. 

00:29:55 Stephen Thal

Well, we thank you for coming into focal point. We always appreciate the invaluable information to help our listeners enjoy their garden, not only a garden if they're doing or house plants or combination thereof.

00:30:13 Stephen Thal 

This is Stephen Thal with another segment on Focal Point. 

00:30:13 Heather Zidack 

Thanks for having me. 

00:30:17 Stephen Thal 

We hope you enjoyed today's program. 

00:30:20 Stephen Thal 

Two quick items for you. Please wear sunglasses and a hat when you're outside with the bright sun, and also to do a emergency plan for your home or for your business or whatever. And practice it very important to involve the people in case there is an emergency. People. Everybody knows what to do and that's the key piece. 

00:30:47 Stephen Thal 

So again, enjoy the Summer. 

00:30:50 Stephen Thal 

Stay safe and stay healthy, Steven Thal saying thanks to our guest speaker, Heather and all of our listeners that tuned in today. 

 

Potted Plant Paradise

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By Dr. Matthew Lisy, UConn Adjunct Faculty
UConn Home & Garden Education Center

Finally, spring is here! It will soon be time to repot all our houseplants as soon as the cold weather completely stops.  Many of the plants purchased over the winter, as well as the ones sitting around for years should be repotted.  This does not imply that the pot size needs to be increased.  Many times, the plant can be left in the same size pot.  If it is rootbound, and the plant is known to get large, it’s good to go one pot size up.  Increasing the pot size when it is not needed just leads to root rot as the soil will not dry out properly.  Alternatively, if the plant is getting big, another option is to divide it into numerous smaller plants, each requiring a smaller pot.

Different varieties of Sansevieria in separate pots
Various Sansevieria species waiting for spring to be repotted – the three in front need bigger pots, and the rear one needs to be split. It’s best to repot during the growing season in order to avoid root rot. (photo by M. Lisy).

Many people think that if the pot size does not need to increase, then there is no need to repot.  This could not be further from the truth.  The plant is in a fixed medium.  The soilless mix will quickly run out of nutrients, even with regular fertilization.  Also, salts tend to build up in the soil, which harms the plant over the long run.  This is a natural consequence of plants in pots.  Soil can also get compacted too much over time and interfere with proper aeration of the root zone.  Tease away the loose soil from the root ball being careful not to break the roots.  Add the new soil and watch the plant grow!

This is also a great time to change out the pot.  Most of our houseplants come in plastic pots.  These are usually not very attractive.  Plastic pots are good for plants that like to be kept moist.  I prefer a clay pot in most cases.  This allows the soil to breathe and makes it harder to over water.  What I do not care for or recommend are the automatic watering pots.  I have found that these have a tendency to keep the soil too moist, and do not allow for a drying out period between waterings.  Stores use them as they require no maintenance from their staff, and the plants cannot wither and die due to lack of water.  Long term, these types of pots lead to root rot.

Different plants have different soil needs.  Cacti and succulents like it dry and fast draining.  Orchids like it airy and chunky.  Most houseplants prefer a mix that holds moisture but drains.  Try and match the plant to the right soil type.  There are great commercial mixes available for purchase, and prices on these have come down some lately.  Take some time to research the proper soil type for each plant.  Many of the plants take a typical houseplant mix, but some require additional drainage.  In this case, add perlite and/or sand.  To enable to soil to hold moisture for a longer period of time, add some vermiculite.

In all honesty, almost any soil can work for almost any plant provided that the watering is controlled.  Most of the time, houseplants get overwatered which leads to fungal problems.  People want to water at some magical interval, like every Friday, for example.  In reality, the weather greatly influences how quickly or slowly our plants dry out.  Sometimes they need water sooner, and sometimes they do not need water at all.  Let the plants determine the watering schedule.  If all these suggestions are followed, our plants will be living in a potted paradise, as will we!

The UConn Home & Garden Education Center supports UConn Extension’s mission by providing answers you can trust with research-based information and resources. For gardening questions, contact us toll-free at (877) 486-6271, visit our website at homegarden.cahnr.uconn.edu, or reach out to your local UConn Extension center at cahnr.uconn.edu/extension/locations.