Winter doldrums? We offer ideas to keep you busy
Cabin fever: There are only so many catalogs to page through and planting schemes to dream up. After a while, you just want to get your hands dirty. (Illustration by Rick Steinhauser)
There are only so many gardening catalogs to page through, only so many planting schemes to dream up. After a while, you just want to get your hands dirty.
We have some suggestions.
These gardening activities can be pursued even when the temperature doesn't break freezing. They may not fill the void till spring, but they're enough to keep you busy on a few chilly weekends.
Seed a lawn
You read that right. Believe it or not, winter is a good time to spread grass seed -- the second-best time after fall, argues Denny McKeown, a Cincinnati-area nurseryman and author whose books include "The Gardening Book for Ohio" and "Month-By-Month Gardening in Ohio."
Melting snow assures good seed-to-soil contact, McKeown explained, and the freeze-thaw cycle heaves the soil and works the seeds down into it. The seeds will germinate when the soil warms, but that soil will still be moist enough to supply the water needed as the seeds sprout and grow, he said.
Some advise spreading the seed right on top of the snow, but McKeown doesn't recommend that.
"You don't know where the grass seed's going," he said.
Instead, he suggests spreading seed when the snow is melted. Remove any fallen leaves or debris, and just spread the seed right onto the existing lawn or bare soil.
Andrew Pratt, grounds manager at Cleveland Botanical Garden, cautions you may lose some seeds to birds or rot. But McKeown sees that as a bonus. Most people plant too much seed, he said, so that's just a way for nature to do the thinning.
Plant a terrarium
Terrariums -- gardens in glass containers -- are back in style, said Betty Howell, co-owner of House of Plants Florist in Akron's Merriman Valley. So if you can't plant a garden outdoors, why not create a miniature one indoors?
Terrariums are no longer limited to aquariums with lids, Tovah Martin notes in her book The New Terrarium. Vases, bowls, glass domes called cloches and even canning jars make good containers.
Terrariums don't have to be closed, either, Martin says. A container with an open mouth will still help contain humidity to a degree.
If you use an open container, Howell recommends choosing one with an opening that's 5 or 6 inches wide -- big enough to fit a hand inside.
Choose plants that like shade, tolerate high humidity and won't grow too large, Martin advises.
You don't have to limit yourself to houseplants. Nursery-propagated wildflowers are a good choice, Martin says. So are woodland plants such as moss or ferns that you collect outdoors, provided they're not endangered and you have permission to take them.
You can either plant them directly in the terrarium or in pots. A single small pot elevated on a base of seashells or glass beads is an elegant look.