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…
There is no shortage of things to do in the garden in the month of June. Hedges need to be pruned, warm season veggies should be planted, spring-blooming plants (like Forsythia, Heather, and Rhodies) should be deadheaded, weeds of course need to be controlled, it’s time to start thinking about watering, and all those annuals we planted in May need to be fed. But, one of the most important tasks for every gardener is to KEEP PLANTING. There are always holes to fill in and beds to rejuvenate, and in June the best choices usually come from the perennial department of the garden center…
Over my lifetime as a horticulturist, I have found myself enamored with different genera of plants to the point that I have gone out of my way to collect as many variations of the same genus, simply because I thought they were “really cool”. The genus “Bergenia” is a typical example and for me it all started when I was quite young…
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.