SOME GARDENING TIPS

 

LT COL NOEL ELLIS

 

10/I/2025

 

Winter plants are in full bloom. If watering and manuring is controlled and monitored strictly, results would be beyond expectation.

 

With a few years of gardening experience, our tryst to grow flowers from seeds has not made much of headway. We have decided to keep trying and to also buy seasonal flowers from local nurseries.

 

The other day I was ‘pinching’ the petunia plants. Pinching is the best way to get flowers in clusters. Once we leave the flowers on the plant to seed, they mature fast. However, the pinching process gives rise to multiple shoots, thus multiple flowers. Spent flowers should be removed the soonest. It hurts to snip, but is essential, which one learns with experience.

 

As my habit goes, instead of throwing off the pinched stems, I bury them in the adjacent pot. In due course, it turns to manure and there is no waste generated from the garden.

 

The other day I was adding compost to the chrysanthemum pots. It is so heartwarming to see that one inch ‘plantlings’  have turned into full grown plants. Healthy buds have started to appear at their tips. Hopefully, there would be different shades of ‘mums’ adorning the Ellis’ Garden soon.

 

As I started to hoe the pot to remove weeds and make space for compost to be applied close to the roots, I saw a flower bud emerging from that tiny weed-like thing. Unmistakably, it was a small petunia plant. The flower was about to open. The plant was a miniature but absolutely healthy.

 

This led me to the conclusion that Petunia can be grown from cuttings, provided the conditions are right. Every plant and every stem fights to live and the results are here to see. The first thing in the morning I go and say hello to it, waiting for it to spread like the ‘mama bush’ and bloom better than the mother plant.

 

Let me also share our way of fertilizing our plants, especially the ones we get from the nursery. They come in grow bags, nurtured in clay mixed with sand. Most nurseries feed hormones and tonics for their growth and flowering, which helps till they are sold. Thereafter, the flowering dwindles and the plant matures well before it has done its bit.

 

To prolong its flowering, one has to transplant them to new pots with a rich mix of compost. Mind you, the root ball needs to be preserved while transplanting them. Seasonal plants are sensitive and tend to die if the main stem/root gets damaged or displaced. Pot size matters, which one learns on the go.

 

Once they are settled and flowering, they need a dose of manure. We add a little bone meal, about one level tablespoon after about fifteen days in the new pot after transplantation. A cavity is made in the pot, bone meal is added and the space is covered with soil. Roots absorb the nutrients they need on their own. After about a week, results start to show. A word of caution. To start with, it could be a tea spoon.

 

After another gap of ten to fifteen days, one sure shot method to give natural NPK to the dainty plants is feeding ‘Mustard Cake’ or ‘Sesame Seed Cake’ readily available at any Oil shop or ‘Kohlu’ as they call it.

 

Most of the gardening enthusiasts would have definitely watched videos of how to make a concoction with this oil cake powder. The process takes three days, once the oil cake is soaked in water. Thereafter, the liquid is fermented, decanted and diluted appropriately. That ‘soup’ is then poured in the pots as a liquid fertilizer.

 

We don’t do it that way. It is somewhat messy, time consuming and needs all kinds of buckets and mugs to carry out the process. Instead, we take some dry cake, dig a hole near the root of the potted plant and bury the powder in it straight. Once the plant is watered, the powder starts to release nutrients slowly which are then absorbed by the plant without any fuss.

 

Sometimes, that powder gets spilled on the surface which catches a mould. A ‘whitish’ spread can be seen, which also is very healthy for the plant. A little hoe and it gets mixed with the mud of the pot. Plants just love eating this ‘cake’. It is pure and organic.

 

It also helps in root growth. The effects are exhibited by the leaves in a couple of days. They look greener and glossier. Buds are healthier and do not fall prematurely thus.

 

Would you like to try our method? I wonder!!!!!!!

 

Disclaimer- These are Ellis' way of doing things and have given us very good results.

 

JAI HIND
©®NOEL ELLIS