Soil and shade conditions that weaken turfgrasses are ideal for moss growth. Soil and shade conditions that weaken turfgrasses are ideal for moss growth. How to get rid of moss in the lawn is one of the frequently asked questions on our Ask An Expert question-and-answer service. In the same way that fever is a symptom and not the disease itself, moss is an indicator of underlying problems. Lawn grasses need moist, fertile, well-draine…
Despite what you’ve heard, moss can’t kill your lawn. In reality, moss is an opportunist, an early colonizer of terrain that other plants find inhospitable. Moss thrives in infertile soil and damp, shady conditions. Thick, healthy turf needs plenty of sun and soil that’s rich in organic matter. “What do you have that gets rid of moss? Moss is killing my lawn,” a customer asked me last week. Concer…
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…
…nd what went into producing it. So how come I can’t have the right to know what’s in the food I buy in the store? That’s the goal of the Just Label It campaign, which last month submitted a record-breaking 1.1 million signatures to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in favor of labeling genetically engineered (GE) foods. And in polls by ABC, MSNBC, NPR, the Washington Post, Consumer Reports and others, consistently…
3 x 6 ft. beds, such as these Copper Cap Raised Beds, hold 15 cubic feet of soil. Good soil is the single most important ingredient for a good garden. Raised beds give you an immediate advantage over a regular garden, because when you fill your raised bed, you can fill it with a blend of soil that’s superior to the native soil in your yard. Soil that’s loose and rich with nutrients and organic matter will allow the roots of your pla…
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…
…nish moss and gumbo limbo trees. One of the grottoes Rococo is the style of the mansion. James Deering, famous industrialist and vice president of the International Harvester Co., built Vizcaya as his winter home, starting in 1910; he came here from 1914 to 1925. In addition to access by land the estate can also be approached by boat, thorugh a mangrove lagoon. There are Venetian-style red-and-white-striped poles for mooring. Statues sit on what…
Miniature greenhouses make indoor gardening stylish and easy. A slim, unobtrusive T-5 fluorescent light fixture in the peak of the roof provides enough light for nearly any plant in the Wardian Case ($249). Wardian cases revolutionized tropical plant collection and cultivation in the 19th century. After Dr. Nathaniel Ward discovered that ferns enclosed in glass cases could survive London’s coal-smoke-laden air, explorers and merc…
If you’re going to be starting seeds indoors this springunder lights, on a windowsill or in a greenhouseyou don’t want to be using regular potting soil. It’s too heavy and dense for the delicate, hair-like roots of a newly-germinated seed. The best soil mix for seed starting is not really soil at all. It’s a growing medium comprised of sphagnum peat moss and small amounts of vermiculite and/or perlite. This blend helps ensur…
Flat-leaf parsley I used to do much more canning and freezing than I do now. With our household down to just two, we’re cooking smaller meals and don’t need to have as much food around. But there are still quite a few garden crops that I squirrel away in my freezer or pantry, and one of those is parsley. I can chop and freeze a huge basket of fresh-picked parsley in about 15 minutes. With a half-dozen sessions like that throughout the…