Home » Gardening Information » Urban Gardening » Gardening Calendar
New York City Gardening Calendar
Winter is the season for rest and renewal, for winding down outdoor gardening activities and turning your attention indoors. Following are indoor gardening tips and spring planning suggestions from the experts at BBG.
December
- Move tropical plants away from radiators or baseboard heating and into the more humid environs of the kitchen or bathroom, as long as the light is sufficient.
- Run a humidifier a few hours a day and mist plants regularly.
- Group plants together -- they'll make a more impressive decorative statement and create their own humidity zone.
- Keep cactus in the coolest room in the house to enhance spring bloom, and don't water at all in winter.
- Freshen soil for container plants, repotting if necessary, but don't fertilize.
- Treat yourself to a flowering holiday plant like poinsetta, Christmas cactus, or Jerusalem cherry.
- Decorate your home with boughs of holly cut from your garden.
- Begin potting paperwhites (at two-week intervals) and amaryllis (at three- or four-week intervals) for bloom throughout the winter.
- Invest in planting rings to corral your paperwhites before they flop over.
- Start a windowsill herb garden.
- Clean plant foliage regularly with a feather duster.
January
- Gradually acclimate the live tree you bought for the holidays to the outdoors. Before planting, remove string and peel back the burlap covering from the root ball, but don't remove it (unless it's plastic). Mulch and water after planting.
- If there's ever a month you can take a vacation from gardening, this is it. Head to the islands for a mid-winter green fix. Better yet, stay stateside and get spring gardening ideas by making the winter flower show circuit.
- Order seed catalogues for spring planting -- banish winter blues with visions of the pansies and peonies to come.
- Catch up on all those gardening books and magazines accumulating dust in your den.
- Continue to monitor your indoor humidity levels; mist and water your plants regularly.
- Take inventory of your garden supplies and restock whatever you are missing. (Next year do this in November so you can take advantage of end-of-season sales.)
- Evaluate your garden work space and make adjustments as necessary -- maybe this is the year to buy that new potting shed.
- Save coffee grounds and kitchen waste for the compost bin so you have a regular supply of nutrient-rich organic matter all summer long.
- Stop putting it off: Start a worm bin.
- Evaluate your dreary winter garden and plan to add evergreens so it looks better next January.
February
- Make Martha Stewart proud: Use your dried herbs and flowers to create wreaths, centerpieces, and sachets for Valentine's Day gifts.
- Peruse notes from last year's garden -- what worked, what didn't -- to plan this year's vegetable patch and flower beds.
- Chart your future vegetable garden on graph paper, rotating crops from last year to discourage insects and disease and to replenish the soil.
- Start placing orders for spring seeds to guarantee that you get exactly what you want.
- Begin sowing seeds for hardy annuals in windowsill boxes to transplant in early spring.
- At the end of this month, start repotting orchids that have finished flowering -- don't jump the gun or you'll jeopardize that hard-earned bloom.
- Don't be fooled by the chill outside; spring really is around the corner. That means the days are getting longer again, so your plants are starting to need more water.
