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…
Now that spring has officially arrived and the sun has returned, our gardens are beginning to brim with activity. Bees are buzzing about visiting early flowers, foliage is emerging everywhere, and plants are awakening from winter dormancy. Perennials in particular are a welcome sight for this gardener’s eyes, as they finally spring back to life and…
One tried and true shrub for our local gardens are Azaleas - spring flowering beauties that can be utilized in many locations the landscape. These plants are brothers and sisters to Rhododendrons, offering us spectacular flowers on smaller growing plants that thrive in similar conditions. There are hundreds of options out there, including…
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?
The Golfing Gardener
Trevor Cameron
Crabapple trees have adorned gardens across the globe for centuries. While some are actually grown for their edible fruits, the vast majority are enjoyed for their ornamental qualities in landscapes. Not to get all Latin on you, but…