General Gardening
Ben Smith
Compost and Fertilizer - A Boring But Necessary ...

It pains me to see customers spending hundreds of dollars on new plants and simultaneously refusing to spend a few more on a bag or two of compost and a box of starter fertilizer.  These two items are not unnecessary “add-ons” that the retailer is just trying to add to the sale, they are critical components of a successful transplanting process - or as I like to refer to them as “plant insurance”.  Unless you have phenomenal soil, you should always add compost and starter fertilizers when you are planting new plants.  Here is why…

Compost and Fertilizer - A Boring But Necessary Topic
Summer Gardening
Ben Smith
The Secrets Of Proper Summer Watering

Summer watering is inevitable in the northwest if we want to keep our landscapes green and healthy…

The Secrets Of Proper Summer Watering

vines

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Going Vertical With Vines

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Going Vertical With Vines

Going vertical with climbing plants adds visual interest to any garden, providing nice foliage and often ideal seasonal flower power.  There are useful vines out there in all kinds of shapes and sizes; some for larger areas and others to use as smaller garden accents, or even as simple container specimens.  Whether you are trying to grow on a decorative trellis or obelisk, up a post, along a railing, over a large pergola or arbor, or even naturalize something along a fence line, vines may be exactly what you are looking for…

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Untangling Clematis Pruning

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Untangling Clematis Pruning

In my new garden I have managed to find homes for 11 different clematis vines, so far anyway… When I picked out the various varieties, I wasn’t thinking about how I would have to prune them.  Rather, I was mostly looking for summer bloomers with flower color, with the exception…

Give These "Annual" Vines A Spot In Your Garden This Summer

Give These "Annual" Vines A Spot In Your Garden This Summer

I am inclined to think that when most gardeners discuss vines, monsters like wisteria, trumpet vine, honeysuckle, and even clematis, are probably the ones that come to mind. But there are true annuals, like sweet peas, scarlet runner beans and the many tropical vines that grow just fine in our summers, that can add a blast of color and even some privacy when grown on a trellis. Here are a few to try this summer…

Climbers In The Garden

Climbers In The Garden

Anyone who has followed me over the years knows that one of my many mantras is “There is always room for one more plant”.  No matter how packed my garden is, on any given day I can find a little patch of bare earth that is just screaming for something to be planted in it.  My wife often fondly refers to me as her “hortiholic with a planting addiction” and I suppose it is true…

Latest post from “The Golfing Gardener”:

The Golfing Gardener

Trevor Cameron

Featured
The Japanese Maple - A Tree For All Seasons
The Japanese Maple - A Tree For All Seasons

I often refer to myself as a “plant enabler”, a sort of legal dealer that tries his best to hook his customers up with the best plants for their landscapes.  Plants are easy to get addicted to, believe me, and running a garden center means you are surrounded on a daily basis by treasures that beckon you to take them home, plant them, and watch them flourish - even if you are out of room, just ask my poor wife.  If I jump in a time machine to some 30 years ago, I can see…

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