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…
April is a floriferous month to be sure, but along with all those glorious rhodies, tulips, daffodils, flowering cherries and magnolias, there is also an amazing array of new foliage emerging from both evergreen plants as well as deciduous ones. Personally, I find these foliar displays just as exciting as the floral ones….
As much as I hate to admit it, it is time to jettison the summer color and start thinking about what will look good in the garden all winter. As the perennials melt down, the annuals die, and the deciduous trees and shrubs shed their foliage, the primary group of plants that can give us dependable winter color are the needle-leafed evergreens - which botanically speaking we call conifers…
As gardeners, the concept of “going natural” is nothing new. Whatever our reasons, whenever practical we tend to shy away from synthetics and instead choose products that are natural. In the case of Christmas trees, we have the same choices - one is buying an artificial tree, and the other is buying a real tree. Here are some things to consider before making up your mind…
During the months of May and June one of the all-time favorite plants of local gardeners, the peony, is bursting into bloom. There are many excellent peonies available to utilize in our landscapes; including herbaceous cottage types in all sorts of colors (and varying fragrances) and larger growing tree peonies too. I would never scold anyone for growing either of these types (since I do as well), but I want to bring attention to another fabulous peony option… what is known as the intersectional or Itoh Peony.