Christmas Plant Care

It’s Christmas season, and you want all your houseplants and Christmas plants to look their best. And if you have a living Christmas tree, there are a few things you can do to make sure it comes through the tough trip indoors in good health. Here are some specific ways you can make all your indoor plants shine this holiday season.

Poinsettias and Other Christmas Plants. Every year it seems like there’s an exciting new variety of poinsettia. The days of just reds are long gone. Now we have whites, pinks and even spotted bracts. And sometimes they’re ruffled. What all poinsettias share, as do many types of Christmas plants, is that when you buy them, they are very often too big for their pots. That can cause a number of problems. For instance, larger poinsettias are top heavy and tip over very easily, especially if they get dry. And drying-out is another problem. With all the top foliage and limited root space, poinsettias dry out very quickly. And you don’t want that to happen. What to do? Move your poinsettias and other Christmas plants into larger, heavier containers. Plant them in something nice, like a glazed or ceramic pot, and they will look even better.

Living Christmas Trees. A few days before you bring your tree indoors, water it extra well, making sure you wet the entire root ball. Also, hose the foliage off to remove dust and dirt. To kill any insects, including spiders and ants, that have made your tree home over the summer, spray with Bayer Advanced™ PowerForce® Multi-Insect Killer Ready-To-Spray.

Houseplants. Wipe down the leaves of foliage plants with a lukewarm, damp cloth. Remove any dust or dirt build up, and pick off dead or yellowing foliage. If you notice any insect pests like scale or mealybugs, use Bayer Advanced™ Dual Action Rose & Flower Insect Killer Ready-To-Use.

You can protect and feed all your indoor plants with Bayer Advanced™ 2-in-1 Insect Control plus Fertilizer Plant Spikes Plant Spikes. There’s no spraying, no mess. Just push the spikes into the soil with the easy-to-use applicator. Bayer Advanced™ 2-in-1 Insect Control plus Fertilizer Plant Spikes Plant Spikes feed and protect for up to eight weeks.

2008 All-America Rose Selections

The All-America Rose Selections (AARS) is a nonprofit organization that promotes the best new rose varieties. AARS award winners have been evaluated around the country in an extensive two-year testing program, which judges everything from disease resistance to flower production to color and fragrance. Two outstanding roses were chosen for 2008, and they will be featured on the Bayer Advanced Float in this year’s Tournament of Roses. Look for them in rose catalogs, nurseries and garden centers this winter and spring.

‘Dream Come True’ is a beautiful, bushy grandiflora with large yellow flowers blushed with red. The blooms are long-stemmed, ideal for cutting and have a light tea fragrance. The plant has excellent disease resistance.

‘Mardi Gras’ is a striking floribunda with blooms in a carnival of blended pink, orange and yellow hues. The flowers have a mild peppery scent and are born in large clusters. An upright plant with deep-green, disease-resistant foliage, ‘Mardi Gras’ makes a fine hedge or landscape rose.

Both ‘Dream Come True’ and ‘Mardi Gras’ will be introduced on the Bayer Advanced Float in the 2008 Pasadena Tournament of Roses.

To get your new roses off to the best possible start, plant in full sun and well-drained soil. To fertilize and protect from insects and disease, use Bayer Advanced All-In-One Rose & Flower Care just as the plants begin to grow next spring. One application feeds and protects for up to six weeks.

Borrow from Nature for Christmas Decorations

Even if the ground is frozen or covered with snow, you can still collect from nature or your garden to enliven your Christmas decorations. Try mixing prunings of needled evergreens, fruiting or variegated plants around your poinsettias or other Christmas plants. It will bring a bit of nature’s beauty indoors and soften brightly colored plants. You might even place some on your Christmas tree. Try spray painting bare branches from deciduous trees or shrubs and using them as decoration. A touch of white, silver or gold branches can be an interesting contrast to the soft-textured foliage of a Christmas tree. Pine cones can also be spray painted.

Some plants you might use for their berries (depending on where you live) include hollies, cottoneasters, dogwoods, beautyberry, barberries, hawthorn, crabapples, viburnums and roses (hips). In mild-winter climates, you can also try citrus and pomegranates. Also keep an eye out for the dried blooms of ornamental grasses. Dried arrangements can be stunning, even when done very simply with branches, fallen leaves and a few fruit.

Sharpen your pruning shears, use some imagination and you'll be surprised what the winter landscape has to offer.