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

Spring Gardening

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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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Early Spring Perennial Color

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Early Spring Perennial Color

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…

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Amazing Azaleas

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Amazing Azaleas

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…

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Japanese Maples for Spring Color

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Japanese Maples for Spring Color

Japanese Maples come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, colors, growth habits and foliage types, offering the home gardener a myriad of choices to suit each individual’s taste.  All of these trees get outstanding autumn color, but gardeners should note their spring foliage tones as well…

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Bountiful Backyard Blueberries

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Bountiful Backyard Blueberries

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…

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Daylight Saving Time — Can we please just make up our minds?

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Daylight Saving Time — Can we please just make up our minds?

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…

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The Golfing Gardener

Trevor Cameron

Featured
The Plant Enabler and the Plant Addict
The Plant Enabler and the Plant Addict

With April Fool’s Day this week, I find myself reminiscing about a fabled article from the legend himself, my esteemed predecessor at Sunnyside Nursery, Mr. Steve Smith.  The Whistling Gardener pontificated about the mythical “wonder shrub” for April Fool’s Day many moons ago -  luckily…

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