Planttalk Colorado Brightens Winter Months

Many think their Garden work ends when the ground is covered with frost and plants are blanketed with snow. But outdoor and indoor plants – including that Christmas tree – still need care in winter months. Planttalk Colorado can help you care for a Garden or lawn over the winter. It also offers advice to keep houseplants in tip-top shape through colder weather that exposes them to chilly drafts and hot, dry blasts from a furnace.

Planttalk Colorado is a 24-hour toll-free automated phone service and a Web site that provide you with reliable, timely information on a variety of horticulture topics. Planttalk Colorado is sponsored by Colorado State University Cooperative Extension, Denver Botanic Gardens and the Green Industries of Colorado.

You can access the service with any touch-tone phone in Colorado at 888-666-3063 or by visiting www.ext.colostate.edu/ptlk. Plant experts also are available between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on weekdays to answer questions through the phone system that aren’t addressed by the more than 400 Gardening and lawn care topics.

Fresh Christmas trees require special care, and several tips are available on the subject. Message number 2006, Christmas tree care, and 2007, Christmas tree recycling, can be accessed through the system under the miscellaneous recording section. Message 2010 on maintaining Garden and lawn tools gives care tips to those spending a few hours of their holiday vacation on home maintenance.

Among the more than 400 messages about Gardens, tree and lawn care, and plant diseases and Insects, Planttalk Colorado offers an entire section on houseplants. Messages such as 1312 on hobby greenhouse heating, 1314 on artificial light for houseplants, 1317 on the affects of temperature and humidity on houseplants, or 1318, Watering houseplants, offer help to any wintertime green-thumb. Other houseplant messages that may be useful this winter include 1319, How to force bulbs indoors; 1325, Poinsettias; and number 1327, Schefflera.

For a complete list of the more than 400 Planttalk Colorado messages, contact the Denver Botanic Gardens, nurseries or Garden centers, or your local Colorado State Cooperative Extension office, usually listed under the county government section in your local phone book. A wide range of topics address all aspects of Gardening with emphasis on basic Gardening practices, selecting appropriate plants for Colorado, information on Insects and diseases and environmentally sound Gardening.