Five Reasons to be Thankful for Houseplants While you’re counting your blessings and listing those things you’re grateful for this New Year, don’t forget to include houseplants. Indoor plants provide a pop of color and interesting texture to any space. Houseplants are more than just a pretty face, though. They impact our everyday lives by cleaning […]
The arrival of March means that winter is finally coming to an end and Spring is just around the corner! However, temperatures may still be quite cold during the days and nights, and frost and snow still pose a threat to budding outdoor plants. While it’s not quite an ideal time to start planting your […]
Start Cold Crops Inside If you haven’t done so already, early March is a good time to start seeds of cold crops such as lettuce, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower indoors under lights. By April, you’ll have plants that are ready to be transplanted outside a few weeks before the last frost date. Get […]
Late winter into early spring is when we crave fresh growth, a bit of color…some sign that spring is really returning!! Swelling buds on Pussy Willow and dainty Snowdrop blooms – which might be overlooked or scoffed at if amongst the lushness of summer plant life – bring excitement, praise and hope! These are soon followed […]
Take a break from the garden and turn on your reading lamp or e-reader to enjoy some truly entertaining titles that give insight into obscure and fascinating plant facts.
Choose Well To ensure attractive healthy annuals all season, choose full, well branched plants with good foliage color and – on flowering annuals – an abundance of buds. Don’t go for the biggest plants or most open blooms, these are more likely to be leggy and burned out too soon. If the latter is all […]
Hosta and ferns are standards for the perennial shade garden. They have similar growing condition requirements and the contrast of fine-textured fronds and broad Hosta leaves does bring dimension and quiet contrast. All well and good for a supremely serene retreat, but what if you’d like to energize your shadowy shade realm a bit?
Pruning of trees and shrubs can help them stay within a certain size limit to fit the confines and aesthetics of a garden space. More importantly, pruning encourages fuller plants – thus more foliage for photosynthesis, more blooms to attract pollinators, more fruits for you and any creatures you share them with.
Benefits of Mulching Long before modern day use as a purely decorative element, mulch had an established history of benefitting plants, soil and gardeners. This is still its highest calling. A good layer of beneficial mulch can reduce stress on plants by regulating soil temperatures and reducing moisture loss and competition from weeds. In the […]
Landscape Calculator for mulch, stones, plants, etc. created by professional landscape contractors. Pest I.D. for Vegetables. Clear Insect photos, descriptions, damage details and management suggestions. Plants best suited for Pollinators in your region. Zip code search tool courtesy of the North American Pollinator Protection Campaign. Leads to full guidebooks for specific regions. Pollinators list on […]