Thursday, January 20, 2011

This Week in the Garden - Pruning, Seeding, and Cottonseed Mealing

I can't believe it's been a full week since I've logged on here...guess I have some catching up to do!  I'm also a little embarassed that I said I would publish a list of "this week in the garden" every week and it's been two weeks since my one and only post!  I'm sticking with my story that it's just because the snow threw us all for a bit of a loop.  "Shoveling snow and breaking up ice for days on end" is not a regular part of my Atlanta gardening calendar. (Be gentle, dear Yankees.....Atlanta only owns 11 snow plows).

For starters, we're continuing with that same list of pruning that I listed on January 6.  We're about half way through the garden at the Big House with that winter pruning, and three of us will spend a full day doing nothing else tomorrow.  I'm usually somewhat flexible with cutting back all of the grasses (I love their look in the winter sun), but this snow and ice has turned them all into big messes, so "off with their heads" tomorrow!

In addition to the pruning, I'll be doing the annual cottonseed meal dance in the next couple of weeks.  This is a distinctly Southern thing, I think, that makes a HUGE difference in azaleas; I don't remember ever having a surplus of cottonseed meal growing up in New Hampshire. We use about 2 cups of cottonseed meal per bush for azaleas, radican gardenias, and boxwood.  Sprinkle it on the soil over the roots, scratch it in with your foot, on to the next one.  Cottonseed meal is one of those things to buy at an old-timey grain and feed store.  In the fancy garden centers, it's $15 for a one pound box; in the feed and grain stores, about $12 for 50 pounds!

1 comment:

  1. If only I could get out and prune. Cottonseed meal is something to consider. Have fun in the garden. I am banned due to snow.

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