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…
Okay, this title is probably a bit more dramatic than it needs to be. The truth is, that while I lost a ton of new plants from last year’s plantings, both from the record heatwave in the summer and the colder-than-usual winter, I probably planted too many in the first place and would have thinned out several of them anyway. Just the same, I think I would have preferred that I made those decisions and not Mother Nature. So much for the illusion that we are in control of our gardens…
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…