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…
Let me be transparent and state that, without a doubt, fall is my favorite time of the year. As a local native, I like my weather partly cloudy with temperatures in the 65 to 70 degree range and hopefully some rain, but only from 10pm to 6am or so. Is that too much to ask from Mother Nature? Sounds perfect for outdoor projects in the fall - not too hot, not too cold, but just right for us gardeners...
I would never have dreamt that I would be talking about such a “dry” subject (pun intended of course) as watering in the middle of October, but here we are, dealing with one of the longest stretches of no rain that I can remember in the 30 plus years that I have lived in the Pacific Northwest. Not only is it dry, but it is also…
The Golfing Gardener
Trevor Cameron
One useful plant more and more local gardeners are discovering is the Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia), an evergreen shrub with spectacular flowers. We are borrowing this beauty from…