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…
One of my earliest memories in the garden as a child was devouring berries, of all kinds, that my parents grew in our garden. Like growing most edibles, there is something a little extra satisfying about cultivating and then harvesting treats like blueberries and even sharing them with friends and neighbors…
It was 20 years ago in the spring that I wrote my first diatribe about the ill effects of daylight-saving time and how, while I love being on daylight-saving time, it is the change that gives me so much grief. The same can be said for the fall when we go back onto standard time. I don’t know how you feel about all of this, but I still feel the same as I did 20 years ago and for me the…
A few weeks back I was lamenting the fact that there were still so many bare spots in my new garden that needed to be filled in, due to plant failures from this last winter… No matter how good of a gardener we might be, some things thrive while others just whimper away into oblivion. Isn’t that the nature of gardening?
May is, without a doubt, the primary month for planting up our containers. In the garden center you will find an endless supply of annuals and perennials ready to be creatively combined, for what will hopefully be a summer-long display of blooms. But to be successful (as in “over the top” successful) with our pots, we need to pay attention to a few details. Here are my thoughts on “growing in” containers…
May is high season in the garden center, when all levels of gardeners venture out for their annual spring ritual of adding some color to their yards. Whatever level of gardener we might happen to be, I think it is safe to say that we all get the same rush of endorphins whenever we interject colorful plants into our gardens. It is a feel-good kind of activity…
Speaking as a self-proclaimed “plantaholic” who likes just about all things with foliage, fronds, or needles, one plant I started to salivate over in the 1990’s was Crape Myrtle (Lagerstroemia sp.). For us in northern latitudes, these mythical plants were uncommon and were perceived as…