Visitors to the recent “Put Your Beds to Bed” presentation at the Hammond Public Library, learned there’s still work to be done after the last of the flowers and vegetables are gone from the garden.
“It’s important to winterize your lawn and garden when growing season is over,” Lake County Master Gardener Dolly Foster told the audience. “There are many ways to do this, and September is the perfect time.”
Whether it’s perennials or annuals you’ve been maintaining, cleaning out debris, weeds and dead leaves is imperative.
But going beyond that is personal preference, she added.
“You can cut the old stems down or leave them in,” Foster said. She emphasized some of the benefits of the latter, such as offering this area to attract finches for seeds, food for wildlife, and provide nesting for migrating birds and other habitats.
Foster covered many other topics, including maintenance for lawn areas.
“Don’t leave fall leaves on your lawn,” Foster said. “They will kill your grass. Some leaves take three years to disintegrate.”
Cutting as low as you can, fertilizing the lawn in November — with slow-release nitrogen — and aerating the lawn also were some other end-of-the-season tips offered by Foster.
Whiting resident Laura Aponte was raised in Puerto Rico and brought with her her mother’s love of flowers when coming to America.
“I started out putting them in pots, but now I have them everywhere,” she said during the library presentation. ‘It’s in my blood.”
Her son Harry, who also lives in Whiting, remembers helping out his mother with her planting endeavors. “I really became interested in gardening as an adult,” he said “Most of my backyard is full (of flowers).”
Hammond resident Paulette Olson and her daughter Rachel, 16, have been in the audience at most of the library’s gardening presentations this summer.
“The session a few months ago about orchids of Indiana was so interesting,” Rachel Olson said. “We found out there are 50 of them native to Indiana.”
She was so impressed with that information that when her birthday rolled around, she asked for an orchid to grow.
“We were told this is a very difficult project, but I wanted to challenge myself,” Rachel Olson said.
Kathy Zimmer, also of Hammond, met the pair at the orchid class.
“I lived in the country when I was a little girl, so gardening came natural to me,” Zimmer said. “But even though I have a lot of experience, there’s always something new to learn. It’s great that we’re able to get new information through these gardening classes.”
The library’s gardening series runs through November, when “Creating a Community Garden” will be presented Nov. 9 by master gardener Sue Eleuterio.
For more information, call (219) 931-5100.
Sue Ellen Ross is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.
