Anchorage Daily News

Nothing like frozen ground to make you realize the time to garden indoors for a while has arrived. Even the dog doesn't want to go out this time of year.

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Garden calendar (11/5/09)

Stored Plants: Time to make the first check to see how they are settling in. Is the spot you stuck them in cool enough?

House plants: Give them a quarter turn every few days.

Lights: Set some up. You and your plants will need them.

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So we are left with reading, dreaming and house plants. Actually, all three are part of gardening in the Great State, and it is an almost universal Alaskan gardening practice to ignore your house plants from spring through summer. Who has time or the interest?

Ah, but after the ground hardens for good, we remember -- those of us that have the gardening bug -- that our house plants will be the stars of the stage for the next few months. Now is the time it makes sense to get new house plants as well as getting those old ones into shape.

Here is the rule: If a plant is in bad shape now, it isn't going to get any better during the next few months, so the first thing you need to do is evaluate each plant to see if it is alive and worth keeping.

Sounds obvious, I know, but many of you have dead plants, or very near to dead ones you just don't want to toss.

You don't need instructions here. You need guts. Don't make me come over there and do it for you. Like my dad, I've been known to toss a sickly plant out while an owner wasn't looking.

Assuming our plants still look decent, this is the week to examine them for bugs. It might take a magnifying glass to see the ones that normally attack our houseplants. Look under leaves and where leaves connect to branches. Tiny spider mites, "cotton"-covered scale and all too familiar aphids are the likely sightings. If you don't see them, you might see "honeydew" on the leaves below aphids and scale, "spider" webs made by mites, leaf loss or yellowing of leaves.

If found, either totally isolate infested plants for treatment or toss them in an outdoor garbage pail. If you are going to keep an infested plant, use an organic method of control such as fine horticultural oil sprays, insecticidal soaps, neem oil or the like. Under no circumstances is a house plant worth spraying with a poison to keep it alive. No plant is, actually.

One pest you are not likely to see, but that might flash by your eyes this time of year, is the so-called fungus gnat. These little flying critters whip by too fast to really see, but you know you have them when tiny flies appear out of nowhere around your plants. The best control for these are less water on the plant, newspaper over the plant's soil and hanging yellow sticky traps you can get at nurseries and nursery departments.

Next, there are all sorts of bacteria, fungi and virus that cause problems on leaves. Any of those yellow splotches, lines and dots could be caused by one of these pests. You have to decide if there is hope. If you can remove leaves and still have a decent looking plant, then do so. Otherwise, why risk infecting other plants with one that is going to perform poorly all winter?

If those plants left have been fertilized with chemical fertilizers, refresh soil by re-potting with a rich, organic soil from time to time. Your plants will love you.

Mix in a handful of uncooked oatmeal and wheat germ when you re-pot. This will feed the microbes for a while and they will feed your indoor plants. Compost or humus is also a great addition.

If you are already organic, mix one part wheat germ or oatmeal (baby oatmeal works great) with one part compost or humus and place some of this mixture in the top inch or so of all of your house plants.

Finally, make sure your plants have enough light. They need supplemental light -- or will sometime during the winter. Get some lights.

Basically, you need to make an inspection. It isn't hard. If you need new plants, now is a great time to buy them. Nurseries usually have a great supply and big plants. Supermarkets now sell a lot of house plants too, though they tend to be smaller. House-plant prices are extremely reasonable, and there are some terrific choices.

Just make sure you have the proper conditions and that you get a plant healthy enough to not only make it through the winter, but through three months of being ignored next spring and summer.

Jeff Lowenfels is a member of the Garden Writers Hall of Fame. You can reach him at teamingwithmicrobes.com or by calling 274-5297 during "The Garden Party" radio show from 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays on KBYR AM-700.

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