Joshua Siskin provides tips to keep your garden healthy.
5 things to do in the garden this week:
1. When cymbidium orchid pseudobulbs, growing on the soil surface, fill a flower pot, they can be divided, although it is best to do this after the flowers have faded. You will probably have a mixture of leafless and leafy pseudobulbs. Separate them, dusting all cut surfaces with sulfur to prevent rot. Take clumps of the leafy pseudobulbs and plant them together in fresh orchid mix. After allowing the leafless, dormant pseudobulbs to rest for two weeks, plant them together in their own pots. Keep the orchid mix in new containers moist.
4. Remove suckers that grow from the base of fruit trees and rose bushes, and cut off water sprouts or vertical shoots that grow up from fruit tree branches. Suckers and water sprouts rob resources needed for flower and fruit development. Suckers and water sprouts are a response to stress since they provide an insurance policy against improper growing conditions or environmental calamities that threaten plant health. For example, roses and fruit trees deprived of adequate light or subjected to disease or insect pest infestation are more likely to sucker and grow water sprouts.