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Special Care of Flowers and Bulbs
In This Section
In this section of miscellaneous flower care needs, you’ll find discussions, explanations, directions, and demonstrations of other flower and bulb care activities, including:
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- How to protect flowers and bulbs from frost, freezes, and very cold winters.
- How to provide support and methods used to stake flowering plants and bulbs.
- How to cut and use your flowers in flower arrangements and floral displays.
- Special care needs for forced bulbs after planting and during bloom.
On This Page
Here, you’ll find discussions of other important care needs for your flower garden and three step-by-step demonstrations beneath each of the following titles:
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- Other Care for Flowers
- Flower Frost Protection
- Other Care for Bulbs
- Staking
- Winter Care of Bulbs
- Temporary Frost Protection
- Step-by-Step Instructions
- Installing Floating Row Covers
- Cold-Winter Protection
- Cutting Flowers in Home Gardens
- How to Cut Flowers
Other Care for Flowers
Flowers and bulbs sometimes need special care beyond watering, feeding, controlling weeds, deadheading or protecting them from pests and diseases.
These include temporary covers that prevent frost damage during cold snaps in spring and autumn, or long-term cold-winter protection of half-hardy or tender perennial plants. You’ll also find information on cutting flowers the right way to use them for arrangements.
Flower Frost Protection
Only cold-hardy flowering plants will survive long-term exposure to frost or sub-freezing temperatures. Annuals all die with the first hard frosts and must be replanted in the spring.
The season and blooms of tender and half-hardy perennials may be extended into autumn with frost preventive measures. Whenever nighttime temperatures are forecast to drop below 36°F (2°C), consider covering them with breathable covers [see: Installing Floating Row Covers demonstration.
For this purpose, most experienced gardeners use floating row covers, lightweight porous non-woven fabric that may drape directly onto plants, flowers, and foliage to prevent dew from freezing on the flowers.
Floating row covers also slow the loss of heat from the soil into the nighttime air. Use them for short-term exposure to temperatures down to 26°F (–4°C). Short-term means less than 4 hours in total.
For longer periods of freezing, greater protection is needed. Eventually, even half-hardy perennial flowering plants will die of long-term cold exposure.
Their growth points—the junction of their roots with their stems—require protection in climates with moderately cold winters. Grafted plants also are subject to cold damage, and require protection of their grafts.
The simplest way to protect such plants from sustained temperatures in the 10°–20°F (–7° to –12°C) range is mulching and burial.
To mulch and bury perennial flowering plants, prune away foliage, leaving 6–12 in. (15–30 cm) around the growth point or grafts.
Apply a mulch covering of straw or large bark nuggets several inches thick in a mound over the plant. Finally, cover the mound with burlap and apply a 4-in. (10-cm) layer of organic compost over it.
This insulates the plant from freezing. Remove the compost, burlap, mulch, and free the plant from storage in spring after temperatures moderate. It will quickly recover and begin to sprout new foliage once in sunlight and air.
In areas with severe winter winds, it may be necessary to stake wire cloth to prevent the coverings from blowing away.
For severe-winter climates with temperatures below 0°F (–18°C), more insulation is required for perennial plants and shrubs [see: Cold-Winter Protection demonstration].
Other Care for Bulbs
The pre-winter care needed for most bulbs, corms, tubers, rhizomes and tuberous-rooted plants is minimal but important.
In truly cold-winter regions, bulbs are always lifted and stored indoors until spring thaws. In mild-winter climates, they overwinter in the garden soil.
Staking
Some heavy-headed flowering bulbs require staking or supports after rains or frosts. It’s important to provide this care as soon as you notice flowers are drooping.
Without support, their stalks will grow stiff and become set in a drooping position. With loose support that allow them to flex, they quickly stiffen and withstand most occasional rains and wind.
Use care when staking bulbs. Examine the stalk carefully and make sure that the stake or other support misses the bulb. Remember that other bulbs may be planted nearby but are tardy in sprouting and sending up flowers.
It’s always best to keep markers that show planting locations until sprouts appear to avoid mishaps.
Winter Care of Bulbs
If you live in an area where the soil freezes during winter review the specific care instructions for lifting, dividing, curing, and storing each of your favorite bulbs [see: Thinning, Lifting, and Dividing].
Lifting, dividing, and protecting them from winter cold renews your bulb plantings each year and ensures you’ll enjoy their blooms again and again.
You’ll find information about storage: the right temperatures, humidities, and storage cycles for many types of bulbs. Note the methods shown to cure bulbs prior to storage, help them to adjust to dormancy, and prepare them for planting the following season.
Temporary Frost Protection
Many gardeners extend the bloom season of their perennial flowers during cool nights in spring and again—long into autumn and early winter—by using frost-protection measures on cold nights.
These techniques are easy to learn and install for every homeowner or gardener.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Installing Floating Row Covers
Floating row cover material is lightweight and breathable non woven fabric. It can rest directly on foliage without harming it.
Drape the row cover over the plant to prevent dew and frost from forming on its flowers or foliage.
In wind-exposed areas, use garden twine to tie the cover to the plant and prevent it from blowing off.
Always secure row covers that will remain on plants for several days with tie-downs.
When the wrap is complete, the plant’s foliage and flowers are completely protected.
Floating row covers may remain in place for days or weeks if cold nights persist, but remove them before or immediately after rains.
Cold-Winter Protection
Prune the perennial flowering plant, leaving 6–12 in. (15–30 cm) on each stem or branch from the growth point.
Cover it with loose organic mulch, such as straw or bark chips.
In very cold-winter locations where soils typically freeze and thaw, add layers of cut evergreen boughs or other loose organic fillers to insulate the mulched plant.
Apply a layer of burlap over the mulch or boughs.
In exposed locations further protect the buried plant from wind by covering it with staked wire or plastic cloth.
Bury the plant in a mound of loose compost, at least 6 in. (15 cm) deep.
Protect tall plants with a layer of straw and a wrap of burlap or weed-barrier fabric.
Secure the wrap with twine.
Cutting Flowers in Home Gardens
Enjoy your landscape or yard’s flowers indoors by growing a cutting garden with mixed flowers and foliage plants to use to arrange beautiful floral displays for your home and tables.
How to Cut Flowers
In garden, cut flowers and place them in water.
To begin arranging, recut each stem at a 45° angle to the stem with sharp, clean, bypass pruners.
Check that all stems are correct lengths, with a variety of lengths to give the arrangement a pleasing shape.
Return the cut stems to water.
Prepare water mixture for the vase. Dissolve a packet of floral preservative (available at florist shops) into lukewarm water and mix thoroughly. Fill the vase with the mixture.
For flowers that have woody stems, crush their stems with floral shears before adding them into the arrangement.
Crushing will ensure proper flow of water into the stems and flowers, keeping them fresh longer.
For succulents with soft stems, such as poppy, sear the cut over a candle flame to prevent wilting. The flower will take in water through pores along its stem.
Last, strip all the lower foliage, leaves, and leaf stems that would extend below the water level of the vase. The cut flowers are ready to begin arranging in a floral display.