November 2009 Newsletter

Viola's News

Wow, where did the time go. We're going into the holiday season and will be open until DEC. 22nd so don't be afraid to come into the store. Our new store hours are 10 am - 4 PM if we get a large snow we will probably close for that day. We can do sales by appointment is you can't make it during our winter hours.

Viola's has a great selection of live Christmas Trees, they even come in a red pot, very cool. For the pick of the litter come in now and purchase. We will tag them for you, take care of it then, you can pick them up when you are ready to take them home. Gift Certificates from Viola's are a great stocking stuffer for the ones you love. Our website is changing everyday, so when old man winter has got you down check it out.

What's Buggin'

Now that the leaves have fallen off the trees and shrubs it is a great time to spray them with dormant spray. The trees being bare make it easy to give your trees, shrubs and even cut back perennials a good spraying. Dormant spray will smuther eggs of any over wintering insects. Combined with picking up the leaves and disposing of the fallen leaves of the trees and shrubs that you know you have had trouble with will help break the insect cycle.

Petal Pushing

Time to clean up those flower beds. To cut back or not to cut back. I like to cut back perennials in the yard during the fall it makes it easier to rake up and the yard doesn't look like death. But like Dana Smith said in one of his recent columns weather is his biggest factor. If it is a cold and wet fall he waits until spring I would have to agree with that logic.

If you do wait for spring to cut back your plants then you will want to make sure that you cut them back before there is too much new growth it. Don't forget to put Winterizer on you perennials this will help promote root growth. For you organic gardeners you can put down a dose of yum yum.

Winter Wise

Winter is almost here and where is the moisture? You should be watering once a week to ten days especially with how warm we have been. Remember you can put down bark to help you keep in the moisture.

Arborvitae owners listen up (and other owners of problem shrubs that get weighted down by snow). We have all seen the arborvitae that are leaning over all out of shape after winter. Take a precaution this year and tie the outer branches with the inner branches (or the meatier branches) of the plant . Make sure you use tree tie so that you don't damage the branches where you tie them up. This will make it harder for the snow to weight down the smaller branches, thus protect the plants from "winter shape disorder" (I made that up). Going out during the heavy snow storms and sweeping off your plants will also help.

Blaze maple owners if you have been a victim of your tree splitting after winter this is probably what happened. If you have a tree that is in the perfect south facing spot your tree can be getting to much sun. That's right, with the sun lowering and with the lack of leaves the sun could be drying out the bark making it not as flexible. Then in the spring we get the early warm days which gets the sap running and then at night the sap freezes and expands. Which can cause splitting of the tree. A preventative measure that you can do is to wrap the tree's trunk with tree wrap which will help considerably.

Those of you with evergreens that tend to dry out over the winter (Rhododendrons, alberta spruces, holly, oregon grape, azaleas) you will want to spray your evergreens with Cloud Cover. This spray seals the moisture in the plants. this with following our watering guide you are going to have success with these plants.