Gardeners Checklist: Here Is What to Do on the Week of March 3

By Ron Kujawski

* Apply repellents and take other precautions, including daily body checks, to protect yourself from being a host to deer ticks. Adult deer ticks are becoming active now that daytime temperatures have risen above freezing. Recently, several friends have reported finding deer ticks on themselves or their pets after working outdoors. 

* Continue to cut branches of trees and shrubs for forcing indoors. Most of us force branches for their flowers but you shouldn't overlook woody plants with interesting or colorful foliage such as hickory, walnut, oak, and red maple. 

* Bring in firewood for burning in your wood stove or fireplace as needed. In other words, don’t store firewood indoors for any length of time. Why? Firewood is often the home for carpenter ants and wood-boring insects such as powder post beetles. They’ll become active once warmed by the heat of your home. They are not likely to infest sound structural wood in your house but they can become a nuisance as they crawl over your dinner plate. Yes, I should have given you this warning last fall, but “better late than never”.

* Don’t get your knickers in a bunch if you see daffodil, hyacinth, and tulip bulbs coming up prematurely. That’s most likely to occur on plantings with a southern exposure or those near your foundation. It’s the plant leaves that first appear. While these may be a little bit singed by frigid temperatures, the flower buds should still be safely below ground and unaffected by freezes. Early flowering bulbs such as snowdrops, winter aconite, and glory-of-the-snow may already be in bloom on sunny slopes and are tolerating cold temperatures very well.

* Check houseplants for signs of spider mites. Stippling and faded color on leaves and the appearance of fine webbing at the base of leaves are typical signs. Treat infested plants with insecticidal soap as directed on the product label.

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Oops! We just missed National "I Want You to Be Happy Day" on March 3. Continuing with the theme of “better late than never”, give a potted fern to someone who you want to make happy. Then, you can make that person even happier by informing him or her that ferns were at the top of a list in a study of 86 plants tested for their ability to remove formaldehyde from room air. Formaldehyde, a volatile organic compound commonly found in pressed wood products, carpets, and other household items, can build up in our tightly insulated houses. While most houseplants have some ability to remove formaldehyde from room air, ferns always rank among the highest. Some researchers report that ferns can remove as much as 50 times more formaldehyde than other common houseplants. Do you want to make someone happy? Get them a fern; get them two ferns and they’ll be even happier. Oh, happy day!