It's time to let indoor plants take a rest, add to compost pile

The third week of November is the time to stop feeding and offer less water to your house plants. The days are shorter and even indoor plants know it is time to take a rest.

This is the time of year when Christmas cactus (Schlumbugera houseplants) are setting buds so make sure they receive at least 12 hours of darkness at night and a nighttime temperature cooler than 55 degrees.

If you're up on the ladder hanging Christmas lights, clean out the gutters while you're admiring the view. Save the gutter gunk in a bucket and use it to smother weeds in the garden or add it to your compost pile.

I'm often asked whether it is OK to put cedar twigs and pine needles into a compost pile. I vote yes, as anything will rot eventually, but the old husband's tale warns that pine and cedar twigs make compost too acidic. Don't worry about it. Most plants adapt quite well to our naturally acidic soil, and the wonders of compost outweigh the worry of soil acidity.

Question: What bulbs can I plant that the critters will not eat? We have squirrels, deer, slugs, mice and all kinds of wildlife that we share our garden with. Also, is it too late to plant bulbs? — R.D., Buckley

Answer: A host of yellow daffodil, a sea of blue and grape hyacinths or a frosty white frosting of snow drop bulbs all will bloom early in a wooded garden setting despite the critters. Late-spring blooms from alliums (flowering onions) and camassia (a native bulb plant) will have flowers in blue or white on tall stems but the taste will say "not tonight deer." The camassia is a bulb native to our area that also will thrive in moist soil. It returns year after year with lavender-blue blooms, but the garden gossip is about the way it ages. Camassia has long, narrow leaves that not only persist for months after the flowers fade but start to turn pale and limp even as the bulb is still in bloom. Plant this bulb behind a group of peonies, hostas or a low-growing shrub to hide the mess and give it a death with dignity.

For squirrel control, sprinkle red pepper flakes on top of the soil right after you plant bulbs or put your bulbs into plastic pots with a piece of chicken wire on top and bury the pots and wire in the garden. Planting pots of bulbs into the garden also will foil field mice and voles that love to eat tulips. When spring is sprung, it will be easy to remove the pots and bulbs and replant with summer annuals.

Slugs will destroy daffodil and tulip buds so beat them to the munch by using pet-safe slug baits such as Worry Free or Sluggo in early spring as soon as you see the green shoots peeking from the soil.

Another tip is to set a small, clay flower pot upside down near your budded bulbs. The slugs, earwigs and sow bugs will migrate to the flower pot looking for a damp and protected place to hide during the day. All you have to do is lift the pot and punish the invaders as you see fit.

I have heard that some super kind gardeners transfer the contents of the flower pot to the compost pile or woodland garden as a forced relocation program. When it comes to slugs, I prefer the catch, drop and stomp method of slime control. I love nature but draw the line at extra slime on my hands.

November is not too late to plant bulbs for spring blooms. If you're a procrastinator with bulbs bought but still not planted, just dig in. Even if all you have the time and energy for is a very shallow hole, you can put dozens of bulbs in one hole just a few inches deep and then cover the area with a mound of soil, sand, chopped leaves or even gravel. When you buy a bulb, the flower inside is already formed so you don't need to give it fertile soil. What the bulb needs is eight to 12 weeks of cold weather and good drainage.

The perfect place for growing bulbs that return year after year is a sunny slope or hillside where the soil is allowed to dry out in the summer. If you place your spring-blooming bulbs in an area of the garden that gets watered by the sprinklers all summer, your bulbs could rot.

Here's one more idea for controlling the critters that want your bulbs: Plant daffodils, tulips, crocus and a mix of all other spring blooming bulbs all in the same container garden shoulder-to-shoulder, layer upon layer, in the same potting soil that once held your summer-blooming geraniums or petunias. Leaving a few old roots in the pot from the summer annuals is fine. Now keep the newly-potted bulb garden close to the house so you can fend off the deer and cover it with mesh to keep out the squirrels. In spring you'll be doing the happy dance to a symphony of color.

Marianne Binetti has a degree in horticulture from Washington State University and is the author of several books. For gardening questions, write to her at P.O. Box 872, Enumclaw, WA 98022. Please send a SASE for a personal reply. She also can be reached at her Web site, www.binettigarden.com.