MOBOT Shows How To Use Environmental Consciousness by Recycling Plastics from Garden Centers and Botanical Gardens

GMPRO Garden Center Magazine ran a story today about the need for garden centers and botanical gardens with environmental consciousness to find a way of recycling plastic garden pots.

" Steve Cline at Missouri Botanical Garden has created perhaps the most successful horticultural pot recycling program in U.S. This past year, the program collected more than 100,000 pounds of horticultural plastics."

According to the story, 80-million tons of plastic end up needing to be recycled every year.

"In the horticultural industry alone, about 350 million pounds of plastic is produced each year.

The Missouri Botanical Garden's Plastic Pot Recycling Program is the largest program of its kind, recycling both plastic pots and polystyrene cell packs and trays. Since 1998, this groundbreaking program has saved over 300 tons of plastic from reaching the landfill. The program has become hugely popular with gardeners in the St. Louis metropolitan area with many participants anxiously awaiting the Garden’s annual collection period."

Monrovia Growers donated money for the purchase of recycling trailers to be used as satellite collection centers. The program was so successful that the plan is to spread more trailers around St. Louis.

Basic guidelines include: "All garden plastics are accepted including cell packs, trays, all pots of all sizes and hanging baskets. Garden edging and plastic sheeting materials cannot be recycled. Metal rings or hangers on the pots need to be removed. All soil should be shaken out of the containers. No food plastic is allowed. It is not necessary to wash the pots and trays, but we appreciate working with the material more when it is reasonably clean. Please check for rocks, metal objects and foreign materials before submitting."

By the way, every plastic bottle of water you buy and throw away takes 1,000 years to biodegrade according to Eldr Magazine's Editorial this month. (A dear friend is on the cover so I received a copy of the magazine as a gift.) Environmentally conscious water consumers filter tap water and use re-usable bottles.

TODAY IN OUR GARDEN

It was a glorious sunny afternoon for being outside. The endless tasks of this time of year get taken on, one by one.

An old rose bush has to be taken out stem by stem. Minor tree pruning of all those tiny branches continues. Alfalfa hay mulch was applied to beds. More bulbs found homes in beds and pots. Bermuda grass was dragged unwilling out of iris corms. All of a sudden an afternoon was gone with a great feeling of satisfaction remaining.

Japonica Pruning

Nasturtium bud and fading flower in today's garden.

A reader asked, "When is the best time to to prune a Japonica?"

I did a quick internet search and found at least a dozen plants with Japonica in their name, including: Japonica Lonicera - Japanese Honeysuckle, Flowering Quince Japonica, Cryptotaenia Japonica, Euonymous Japonica and Caradina Japonica. Fatsia Japonica is commonly known as aralia. The common names for Spirea Japonica is Japanese Spirea.

So, the answer is, "It depends on which plant you have."

Here is the shorthand answer - Many spring blooming shrubs and vines are pruned just after flowering so they can make the flower buds for next year on the wood they grow this summer. Other spring flowering plants are pruned in the late winter.

If your Japonica is a Honeysuckle, prune it late winter because they bloom on new growth. If it is the Spirea Japonica, prune it next February according to The Missouri Botanical Garden's home gardening site.

Pruning can be a confusing topic. For example, Butterfly Bushes (Budlia) are pruned depending on their variety, confusing gardeners even more. According to the Tulsa Master Gardeners website, Budlia alternifolia blooms on the previous season's wood (so cut after flowering) and Budlia davidii blooms on new wood so it is cut to the ground in spring before flowering.

Could your Japonica be a flowering Quince with pink to red flowers in the spring? Its Latin name is Chaenomeles speciosa. The University of Arkansas Extension Service has an online pruning guide that recommends pruning flowering quince immediately after blooming. See page 4 at that link for a list of shrubs and when to prune them.

No matter which plant you have, pruning dead, diseased and damaged growth can be done at any time. Up to one-third of any shrub can be removed for shaping purposes. If you decide to remove entire branches of a shrub, cut out a few of the largest and oldest first, leaving the youngest branches in tact. Stand back and look, then cut more.

If this does not help, can you describe the plant? Maybe I can help identify it. Is your Japonica a shrub or a vine? When does it flower and what do the flowers look like? Once we know more about it, the advice can be more specific.