The purple clematis vine that we have growing over an arbor is just beautiful this time of year! I think most of the flowers are now in bloom, but it has been blooming for almost a month. It’s one of the prettiest things in our back yard and showcases an area that Jeff calls his “park.” I like to call it the secret garden!
Pruning Clematis - Our clematis vine is summer/fall bloomer, which means it blooms on the current season’s growth. He wouldn’t HAVE to prune these clematis vines, but he does because if he didn’t, it would be an unruly mess. I can usually find him pruning clematis vines in the Fall, taking about 1/3 of the plant off. Also, if you don’t do some clematis pruning, you will NOT get as many flowers the next year. You can see that his strategy really pays off.
Pruning clematis that grow in the spring is a little different because spring blooming clematis flower on last year’s growth – you’ll need to do your pruning as soon as they finish blooming. Spring blooming clematis vines use the entire season to replenish themselves and set buds tor the next year.
At this point we prefer our summer clematis vine. It will be a real bummer when this beautiful clematis vine is done blooming.
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August 1st, 2010
Hummingbirds are in full swing this time of year, and we have found that our bright plants in the garden are a great method to attract hummingbirds.
The red hot poker plants usually come up first in the spring, and boy do the hummingbirds love them! If you want to attract hummingbirds, and lots of them, you’ll want to get you some of these! Jeff says they are dripping with a honey-like substance, which the hummingbirds just love!
The poker plants are a bright red color. You’ll need to focus on bright colored plants with sweet nectar if you want to attract hummingbirds to your house with natural plants.
I think the bright colors attract hummingbirds because they can’t see too well. They are getting less afraid of people, in fact, here’s a picture of Jeff looking at one of the poker plants, and enjoying the hummingbird at the same time! If you move though, they will either fly away, or hover up and stare you right in the face to see if you are a threat.
We very much enjoyed the fact that this simple plant was able to attract hummingbirds to our garden this spring. They’ve now gone over to our neighbor’s house for awhile because his white hydrangea is in full bloom. We’re sure we’ll be able to entice them to come back with our bright orange lilies which are just now blooming! I can’t wait!
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June 28th, 2010
Most people are familiar with the prefix “hydro” especially if you’re in the Western Washington area where the Hydroplane races take place. But we’re not here today to talk about boat racing; we’re going to discuss planting a hydroponics garden.
The Greeks originally developed the word Hydroponics by putting hydro (which means “water”) together with ponos, which means “labor or water-working”. Adding that all together we get hydroponic gardens which grow plants without soil.
Hydroponics gardening needs basically the same care as a regular garden. You need to pay attention to the plant’s needs for light, water, temperature, and humidity. What’s makes hydroponic gardens more interesting is that a soil substitute holds the roots while nutrients are carried by the water. Indoor hydroponic gardening is not that hard and plants respond well to this method of growing.
The nutrient solution that goes into the plant must have a pH level of 5 to 6 after dilution. The labor intensive part is that in hydroponics gardening, you should water more than three times a day. However, you can set up a system using a pump and timer to make things easier.
If you have an indoor hydroponics garden, it needs to be fairly warm inside. Usually between 71 to 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, you’ll need to adjust temperature needs depending on the different types of plant you are growing (i.e. tropical plants vs vegetables). Also check for much needed humidity. As the temperature in the room rises, the air can hold the amount of moisture your plants need.
Light is of utmost importance in a hydroponic garden. Make sure your plants are placed in an area that gets the right amount of light for the plant – or use an artificial lighting system built with high pressure sodium lights or bulbs.
The nice thing is that a hydroponics system can be fully automated. It’s water-based, so there’s no soil to dig or weeds to pull. And water can be re-used to prevent waste. Hydroponics gardens can yield many quality plants, and home hydroponics systems and DIY kits are readily available in most hardware stores.
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June 22nd, 2010
Some of the most beautiful animals in the world are butterflies. Rich in color and life, these insects are a pleasure to behold. Unfortunately, many species of butterflies have become instinct as their living space and food supply are threatened by humans.
But it’s not too late. You can help protect them or even increase their numbers by simple butterfly gardening. Butterfly gardening in your landscape works by growing plants that attract butterflies. Done properly, this kind of garden can be paradise for insect wildlife.
The first thing to do in butterfly gardening landscape is to locate a sunny spot in the garden. Butterflies need the sun’s warmth for their wing muscles to work efficiently. In fact, one can usually see them stretch their wings out in the sun, warming up enough to fly.
It is also important to put up the garden in an area that is clear of strong winds. Butterflies do not like strong winds and will avoid those kinds of places.
The next thing to consider in butterfly garden landscaping is to choose the plants well. There are four factors to keep in mind when making the selection. First, they should be brightly colored and scented. Butterflies are attracted to bright colors and strong fragrances.
Second, the plants should produce nectar since nectar is a staple food for butterflies. Nowadays, nectar producing plants are easy to grow. Planting different varieties of nectar producing flowers will attract even more species since some species are particular about the kind of nectar they eat.
Third, choose flowering plants that will bloom at different times in a season. This will ensure that the garden will always be colorful and attractive to butterflies. Furthermore, it ensures a steady supply of food for different species of butterflies.
Fourth, the garden should also have an abundance of host plants for the butterflies to lay their eggs on. The best host plants are the leafy ones where they can be source of shelter and food for larvae and caterpillars.
Providing an area with a rocky ledge is also a good idea for effective butterfly garden landscaping. Butterflies often perch on rocks to bask in the sun.
With the garden being an ideal habitat for butterflies, it is important to avoid the use of insecticides. These chemicals are toxic to butterflies.
Instead, use plants that are native to the area. Such plants already developed resistance to local pests and disease, reducing the need for pesticides. Also, introduce other creatures such as earthworms, ants or beetles. These insects eat up other insects that prey on flowers. Let nature take its course.
Effective butterfly garden landscaping will reward the gardener with a beautiful view of these lovely creatures. But more importantly, they provide these creatures a chance to survive and enjoy life of their own.
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May 25th, 2010
After all the hard work, time and attention you put into you rose gardens, the last thing you want is to lose them due to rose diseases or fungus.
Unfortunately, proper planting, feeding, watering and sunlight are just not enough. To have healthy roses, you need to treat them properly to avoid getting rose diseases and infestations of mite and insects.
Rose disease control is an important part of maintaining beautiful and healthy roses. You will need to contend with black spot and powdery mildew on your roses almost every year.
Regular fungicide applications are needed to control both of these diseases. These treatments should also control Botrytis blight and other foliage diseases. You will probably also need to treat for mites and insects. Regular treatments of a pesticide are needed when mites and insects are present.
Here are a few important pointers to control rose disease:
Spray weekly with a fungicide to control powdery mildew and black spot. To rid your roses of insects, use a systemic rose care product. When spraying for insects and/or rose disease, be sure to coat the undersides of the leaves, since many if the diseases and insects that infest roses live there.
To ensure full coverage, spray until the solution drips off the leaves. Six hours of sun a day helps your roses stay healthy. Morning sun is best because it dries the dew off the leaves, helping to prevent fungus diseases.
Unfortunately, the sun does not help when it comes to mites and insects. When spraying your plants, thorough coverage is important in controlling rose pests. Apply pesticides only according to label directions and only when pests are present.
Remember to use caution when using pesticides. Do not inhale or spray on skin or in eyes. You best bet is to wear rubber gloves when applying any pesticide.
Proper pest identification is necessary to know which chemical or organic rose disease treatment to apply as well as the proper application time. Specific pesticides are suggested for each pest. The pesticides are listed by the common chemical name found in the active ingredient area of the product label.
Look for the appropriate active ingredient on the label and verify that the product can be used on roses. Some pesticide products are ready to use, while others require preparation. Also, some pesticides are harder to find and may require more effort to locate. Always read and comply with the pesticide label to get proper and long lasting rose disease control. Get more Rose Disease care in the Rose Gardening Handbook.
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May 18th, 2010
Weeds are simply undesirable plants growing in the places you don’t want them. Even though they are undesirable, they insist on growing in your garden anyway.
The best of gardeners go through this, too. The good news is there are methods for reducing the weed problem
Weed your roses frequently and compost them. Weeds and roses compete for moisture, food and light. A weedy border will have poor air circulation, increasing the chances that disease will take hold. Watering regularly is helpful when weeding your garden. This keeps the soil moist enough that when you pull the weeds out, the roots will come out too. You can pull the weeds by hand or yo can use tools.
Mulching is a good idea too because it helps keep maintenance to a minimum. By mulching, your roses require les watering and it helps keep the weeds from growing. Plastic placed under the mulch will provide weed control for several years. In most home gardens, mulches supplemented with regular hand weeding or rouging (digging out the entire plant, roots and all) should provide satisfactory weed control.
Mechanical cultivation devices such as hoes must be used with care because roses are shallow rooted.
Weed killers are another option for getting rid of those nasty weeds in your rose gardens. However, you have to be especially careful when using them so you dont get any on your rose bushes.
Certain weed killers will not only kill the unwanted weeds, but they can also harm or even kill your roses. When using a weed killer, you will have to spot treat the weeds. This ensures you are only treating the unwanted weeds and not your whole garden.
So, whether you are a beginner or an expert gardener, remember that one of the most important factors to having a great rose garden is keeping it weed free. Remember to research the type or roses you are growing or wish to grow. There is plenty of information and tools out there to help you get started and help you maintain a beautiful, lush rose garden.
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April 26th, 2010
When you’re planning a vegetable garden, there’s more to consider than just what plants grow in your area. In fact, that should be your secondary concern as you get ready for your vegetable garden planting.
There are four questions you need to ask yourself before you even begin planning a vegetable garden:
- What do you and your family like to eat
- How much of these things CAN you eat
- How much space do you have for growing vegetables
- What grows best in your area
Taking these factors into account before you even begin will prevent you from wasting the food you grow, making vegetable gardening just that much more pleasant. After all, the sight of rotting vegetables after you’ve done all that work to plant vegetable gardens is never pleasant.
Vegetable Garden Planting:
Depending on how much room you have, you might consider vegetable container gardening. In fact, if you already have a flower container garden that grows a little tall, you can plant some herbs in with the flowers and make a border out of lettuce.
Green onions, carrots and herbs all make excellent vegetable container gardening plants, and are actually nice green plants to look at.
Also, when planning a vegetable garden, plan for the timing of harvesting your crop. Just because you get a million seeds in a packet doesn’t mean you have to plant them all at once. If you plant everything at once, it will all become eatable at once. Plant a few seeds the first time, then maybe a week or two plant a few more depending on how long it takes them to grow.
Hopefully this gives you some ideas to start planning a vegetable garden, and also how to do your vegetable garden planting so you’ll be eating fresh garden greens all summer long – and beyond!
For more good advice, check out Bartholomews All New Square Foot Gardening Cookbook: Taking the Harvest to the Table
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April 20th, 2010
When I visited Epcot Center last month, I took a tour of the vertical gardening area and I was very surprised. They are now experimenting with tons of plants that can be grown vertical, saving space and water, so more plants can be grown in the same amount of space.
Vertical Gardening is not really a new concept. The first time I saw a vertical gardening plant was in tomatoes gardening. This was actually upside down vertical gardening, but it solves the problem of having to use a bunch of wire to hold the tomato plants up. The tomatoes gardening vertical concept has now been redesigned into a Revolutionary Planter for Tomatoes and has been improved upon to include a self watering system!
Most vertical gardens don’t grow upside down though. You can grow plants vertically on garden arbors, fences, a trellis, or other structures that make the plant grow upright instead of flowing over the ground.
Many times vertical gardening is used for vines. When growing vines this way, be sure to keep about four inches of mulch at the base of the plant to make sure the soil will retain water in the summer. Vertically-growing plants tend to dry out more quickly than ground flowing plants, so make sure to check them often for watering needs.
At first, you may have to train your plants to grow where you want them to (waterproof twine is good for this), and it may take a few years to get a nice vertical garden growing.
But as you know, you need to be patient when growing vertical gardens, or any other garden. In a few years, or months depending on the plant, you will be an expert in vertical gardening and can start creating shapes and forms that make your garden just that much more interesting.
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April 12th, 2010
It’s no wonder herb gardening is one of the most popular forms of gardening. Herbs are not only used for flavor while cooking, but some herbs have been used to treat illness. They were even believed to have magical powers. That’s why many people look for herb garden how to information and get pretty excited about growing an herb garden. That being said, here are a few ideas on growing herb gardens.
Planting Herb Gardens
Before you buy your herb garden seeds, carefully consider what type of herbs you want to plant, and how much room you will allow each herb to take up. Some herbs are like weeds and will take over everything!
Also think about what types of herbs you will need when growing herb gardens. Do you want annuals, biennials or perennials? You may have to test what works best for your space, but be sure to address this question and know what you’re buying so you don’t pull out something that would have come back next year.
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Before planting herb gardens, and especially square foot gardens, it’s a good idea to draw your garden on paper first. Make notes or separate the annuals from the perennials so when the time comes to pull out the annuals, you won’t be disturbing the perennials.
Many herb garden how to’s recommend planting Perennials on the edge of your garden so you can till it later without disrupting them.
Another thing to remember when planting herb gardens is to plant the taller plants at the back and the shorter ones in front. Also, provide your herb garden plants with enough space to grow – as we said earlier.
When planting herb gardens, consider planting the more invasive herbs in herb pots. The pots best for herbs are the large containers with three or more outlets for the herbs. Fill the planter up to the first outlet and plant, and then continue filling and planting as you get to the next spaces. Make sure to plant the herbs that requires the most water in the bottom hole, while the variety that requires the least goes in the highest hole.
Herb Garden How To Design Ideas
Here are a few different ways of growing herb gardens:
- Consider having a square foot garden herb bed. You can have your square bed divided into four by two paths crossing at mid point measuring 3 feet. You can border it with stone or brick.
- A wooden ladder can be used for climbing herbs.
- When using herb garden seeds, that wooden ladder can also be laid down on your garden before you begin planting the herb garden, then plant your herbs between its rungs.
- How about a wagon wheel bed for growing herb gardens? Lay the wagon wheel down and plant your herbs in between the wagon wheel’s wedges.
Growing Herb Gardens is one of the easiest things to do. But as with other plants, you need to be aware of effective drainage needs, sunlight, humidity or moisture and fertile soil. But even with just minimally meeting these requirements they will be bound produce a good harvest.
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April 2nd, 2010
Its important to the future health of your rose bush to know when to plant roses – you definitely need to watch out for just the right time.
Actually, that’s easier said than done. Determining when to plant roses can be confusing. Ill go over a few pointers to help take the guesswork out of the timing for planting your roses.
First let me mention that if you order online garden supplies it takes the guesswork out. The online companies ship your order at the right time of year for planting in the climate zone you live in.
You can also use the zone finder on their sites to find out what climate zone you live in.
When planting bare-root roses, which are roses that are in their dormant state, youll need to consider your wintertime temperatures. If your minimum temperatures during the winter drop below -10 degrees you should only do your rose planting during spring and only after the danger of a freeze has passed.
If the area you live in has minimum winter temperatures between 10 and -10 degrees, you can plant in spring and fall, again only when there is no danger of a freeze occurring.
If you live in a climate zone where the minimum winter temperatures are above 10 degrees its safe for you to plant roses whenever the bare-root roses are available.
But keep in mind, no matter which zone you live in, do not plant when theres a chance for extreme heat, freeze or excessively windy conditions.
All of these can cause stress that can adversely affect your plants health.
If youre planting a potted plant or transplanting a rose from one location to another the rules are a bit different.
These roses can be planted any time of the year, weather permitting. That is, as long as the ground isnt frozen, theres no possibility of freeze, or no chance extreme heat, cold or wind.
Its best to plant roses in the spring or fall, but as I said, you can plant any time, weather permitting.
Be sure to follow the proper procedures on when to plant roses to ensure you have healthy rose blooms in the summer.
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March 22nd, 2010
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