Time for the holiday plant care tips!
(Or: Help! It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!)
Rosemary Trees Need Bigger Pots!
Those big rosemary shrubs that have been pruned down into cute Christmas-tree shapes are one of my favorite holiday plants, but they will die faster than battery-powered toys on Christmas morning if you don’t take proper care of them. The most important facet of that care: an immediate repotting.
Yes, you really have to. Whether you’ve giving one as a gift, receiving one as a gift or buying one to use as a tiny Tannenbaum, these delightful little rosemary Christmas trees need bigger pots. The growers out in California prune large shrubs down into those festive shapes, then squeeze their giant root balls into the smallest possible pots. That’s great for easy shipping, but almost impossible for a homeowner to keep well watered.
So take them out of their cute little pots (notice how little soil there is in there?) and put them into a pot that’s at least twice as large and has great drainage holes in the bottom. Ideally, you should use a bagged potting soil mix to fill in the bottom and sides of the pot. (You can use garden soil if you must, but a light, loose, soil-free potting mix will help the plants live much longer.) Mixing in a little bit of finished compost as you go would be ideal. And no marbles or stones or other nonsense in the bottom of the pot — just soil!
Then, sit the newly made pot in a few inches of water for an hour or more, and let the drainage holes suck up enough water to totally saturate the soil. (If you don’t do this, your once-vibrant evergreen will look like Sally’s bad-omen tree in “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”)
Wise Watering and Long-Term Rosemary Tree Care
After you move your fragrant tree into a pot that’s twice as big, saturate the soil as described above. Then, feel the weight of the well-watered pot. Let it drain in the dishrack for an hour, sit it on a plate to protect the surface it’ll sit on, put it into place (not near a radiator or forced hot air!) and don’t water it again until the pot feels much lighter. That could happen in a few days or a few weeks, depending on your indoor humidity.
When that time comes, repeat the sitting-in-water routine. If you water from above, odds are good that all the water will just flow out the bottom. Saturating the soil from below is key to long-term survival.
You can rewrap the pot in festive foil after watering, but remove this decoration when you water again. Whatever you do, don’t cover the bottom of the pot with anything and water from above. Water will pool up inside the wrapping and drown the poor thing!
Oh, and unlike many other holiday plants, rosemary trees are very cold hardy, and can safely go outside in winter. Just bring them back in for the evening on nights that drop below 30 degrees or when snow and or ice is likely.
Rosemary Tree Harvest and Beyond!
For lovers of fresh herbs, the little rosemary Christmas trees you see for sale at garden centers and upscale supermarkets this time of year are a great deal. If you bought the same amount of rosemary over in the packaged-herb section, it would cost you at least three times as much — maybe a lot more than that. And yours are alive! (Or, they will be if you move the root-bound things into bigger pots right away.)
And don’t be afraid to harvest some of the aromatic herb! Get the biggest trees you can find, carefully trim some of the more out-of-the-way branches and use the prunings to season holiday dishes. (To keep the shape, do most of your pruning down low.)
After the holidays, feel free to harvest the entire tree to make a rosemary-crazy meal. Or keep your tree well watered and in good light, then plant it outside in a well-drained area of your garden in late March, or move the pot outside in May. (Plants in soil can survive much cooler nights than plants in pots.)
Really! Rosemary is very hardy, and just needs to be protected from the harshest months of winter weather. In the right situation — such as being planted in the soil in an enclosed garden in the heart of the city — your tree might even become a large perennial shrub!
Heck, I live in a much cooler micro-clime than the heat sink of D.C., and I’ve kept some of these little trees alive, and produced delicious branches for three or four years, by bringing them inside for the holidays. I take them back out in March or April, after the worst of winter is over.
But Poinsettia and Norfolk Pine Can’t Take the Cold!
But many of our other holiday favorites are just the opposite.
Poinsettias are tropical plants that must stay inside during the winter. And they should come home from the store well-wrapped, if it’s even a slightly chilly day.
Those cute little ‘Norfolk pines’ are not from any part of Virginia; they’re native to Norfolk Island, near Australia, and can’t take any cold, either.
But both can become long-term houseplants if you treat them right, which means keeping them away from cold areas and heating vents and keeping them well watered without drowning the poor things — as described in-depth above.
Both can spend the summer outdoors. You can even get a poinsettia to color up for you the following holiday season. But you have to completely cover the plant every night from September through mid-December to do so.
Get a Really Fresh-Cut Tree this Season!
Tired of dropped needles mulching the carpet under your cut Christmas tree? Get thee to a Christmas tree farm and “cut your own.” (Don’t worry; most places will cut it for you. Your big job is to get the family to agree on the best tree!)
It’s a great family outing; there’s almost always cookies and hot chocolate for the kids (and maybe you, if you behave); you’re buying local, and you’re helping preserve farmland. That’s more mitzvahs than I can count!
Just make sure that wherever the tree comes from, you read and follow my directions on super-hydrating the tree for a needle-free floor before you set it up! (You’ll find the details in last week’s Plots.)
Christmas tree farm lists for Maryland and Virginia
Northern Virginia:
Here’s a great list from the ‘pick your own’ network.
Maryland:
Here’s the ‘pick your own’ list for our portion of Maryland. And here’s one from the Maryland Christmas Tree Farm Network.
You should also do a little search of your own for locations convenient to your area, as some farms only appear on one list. You’ll find many lists online; the ones we’re presenting here were chosen for their information content and locational help.
Some sites we found but didn’t include here only listed the farms alphabetically, which is not that helpful.
And if you find a list you think is better than these, please send it to me at MikeMcG@ptd.net.
