Tips for planting flowers, garden in cold weather

Tips for planting flowers, garden in cold weather

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SALT LAKE CITY — Many trees and plants started blooming during Utah’s warmest February on record, and some residents may be wondering if it is a good time to start planting gardens and flowers. Experts say it depends on the plant type.

Red Butte Garden Horticulture director Marita Tyrolt said there isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” answer for when Utahns should start planting a vegetable garden or flowers. According to the 2015 Old Farmer’s Almanac, it is typical to plant most vegetables outdoors from April to early June in the Salt Lake City area.

The weather has cooled down after the recent warm spell, and the KSL weather station forecasted more snow for Friday and Saturday.

Tyrolt said the best time for planting depends on the type of plant. Some plant species — peas, lettuce, radishes, pansies and onions — are considered cool-season annuals and can withstand colder temperatures. However, even with plants that withstand cool temperatures that can be planted in early spring or late fall, Tyrolt said gardeners must “harden” them first.

“Hardening is the process of taking something from a greenhouse and acclimatizing it over a couple-week period to the outdoor conditions,” she said. “The problem is when somebody is taking something out of a greenhouse that is used to much warmer temperatures and then taking that and planting it into the ground. That can be quite a shock for the plant.”

If you get a plant from a greenhouse or plant store, Tyrolt recommends keeping the plant indoors for about a week while moderately lowering the temperature or keeping the plant in a cooler greenhouse.

Common cool-weather annuals, warm-weather annuals:
Cool-weather annuals
  • Lettuce
  • Spinach
  • Cabbage
  • Kale
  • Broccoli
  • Cauliflower
  • Radish
  • Pansies
  • Onion

Warm-weather annuals:
  • Tomatoes
  • Beans
  • Corn
  • Squash
  • Eggplant

Once you move the potted plant outside and plant it, Tyrolt recommends covering the plant with fabric or other material at nights or on particularly cold days when the weather drops below 40 degrees. After a few weeks of this process, the plant should be acclimatized and gardeners can stop covering it at nights.

Tyrolt also recommended waiting to plant any warm-season annuals — like tomatoes, beans and corn — until later in the season when the outdoor temperatures are consistently warm. Plant seeds won’t be affected if the weather turns cold because they germinate when the temperature and conditions are conducive for growth, Tyrolt said.

With some of the flowers and trees that have started to bloom this season, Tyrolt said if the weather drops below freezing, while the dramatic temperature change may kill some of the blossoms, the plant should be fine.

“Sometimes a particular bloom will get frozen, but that doesn’t freeze out all of the buds,” she said. “When it gets warmer, the other buds should come out and bloom ... With some of the bulbs, we’ve got some Dutch iris in the garden that are blooming and daffodils. Those plants evolved for changes in weather where you have warmer periods and periods of snow. So it shouldn’t hurt the plant itself, but it might disrupt some of the bloom.”

However, Tyrolt said the safest tip for planting new plants is to watch the weather.

“Keep a constant eye on the weather,” Tyrolt said. “Whenever you’re working with living things, there just is no way you can say, ‘OK, this is the prescription, go do it.’ Because there are just so many factors that figure into it.”

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UtahLifestyle
Faith Heaton Jolley

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