Like many who lost tomato plants to late blight last year, I’m wondering: How can I make sure it doesn’t happen again this year? Plant a diversity of tomato varieties to reduce the possibility of disease. Like many gardeners who lost their tomato crop to late blight last year, I’m wondering: How can I make sure it doesn’t happen again this year? Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet. The most important thin…
Earlier this summer I potted up a miniature bog garden in a bowl and it thrived! Even the dried sphagnum peat moss grew. Check Venus fly traps and pitcher plants for aphids before bringing indoors. Planted in early June, the bog garden is lush and healthy in September. North American pitcher plants (Sarracenia) stop growing during the winter. Pitchers may naturally turn brown. Earlier this summer I potte…
Brian Moore likes big plants and he knows how to grow them. In 2007, his record-breaking amaranth topped 23 ft. Want to grow your own giant plants? Learn how Brian does it. Brian Moore with a row of giant sunflowers; the tallest sunflower is about 16 ft. The seeds came from a grower in the United Kingdom. One of my three-year-old twin daughters standing in front of a row of corn and amaranth that’s more than 20 ft. tall. Inspe…
…re Conservancy is asking garden centers, nurseries, landscape designers and architects to sign a voluntary code of conduct pledging to stop selling, planting or designing with a list of “watched” species by March, 2011. The list includes plants that are not yet on the quarantine list, making them illegal to sell or purchase. Meanwhile, the conservancy will work to get these watched plants on the quarantine list. For many years, the c…
5 Steps to Creating Resilient Gardens and Landscapes Record-breaking droughts, floods and wildfires, as well as outbreaks of diseases and insects, have taken their toll on garden and landscape plants nationwide. Although it’s impossible to fully insulate your gardens and landscape against damage, there are steps you can take to rejuvenate affected plantings and build more resiliency into your plantings. Embrace Diversity and Avoid Monoc…
Make room for a planter of unusual, moisture-loving plants. After placing a fiberglass screen over the bottom of the bowl, I filled it with dampened peat. Long-fiber sphagnum peat moss covers the surface to prevent soil splashing and give a natural finished look. Bog and pond plants intrigue me, but I don’t have a pond or bog in which to plant them. But, when the water plants arrived at our garden center a couple o…
As the garden centers fill up with 6-packs of irresistible little vegetable and flower seedlings, it’s good to remember what a shock it can be for those plants to go from greenhouse to your garden. Look for plants that are in proportion to the size of the pot they’re growing in. Gently lift the seedling from the pot to check root growth. This well-grown transplant shows healthy white roots without a tangle of congested roots at the…
…aker System makes it easy to create a customized, efficient watering system. Water slowly, so it soaks in rather than running off. Soaker hoses and a water timer make it easy to apply a deep, thorough soaking. Apply mulch. A 2″ to 3″ layer of bark mulch, shredded leaves or pine straw helps conserve moisture and insulates the soil, keeping it cooler than exposed soil. Apply mulch to the soil in container plantings, too. Stop fertiliz…
…first season because they usually have more leafy growth than their developing root systems can easily support. Even a small shrub may need a gallon of water a day to keep the soil moist around its roots. Larger trees can use 10 gallons or more daily. To make watering easier, consider using watering rings or soaker hoses, which ensure the kind of slow, even watering that new trees and shrubs need. Environmental stress. Road salt, poorly drained s…
…nd how to fix them: Symptom: dying fish and plants. Cause: not enough bacteria and too much waste, which leads to a build up of toxic ammonia. Common in newly established and recently cleaned water gardens. Solutions: Change 1/3 of the water weekly, add fish gradually, increase the surface area available for bacteria to inhabit, increase the amount of oxygen by adding a fountain, or use ammonia-absorbing products in the filter. Symptom: algae…