How to start growing herbs properly
Posted on July 13th, 2011
When it’s cold outside, most people do not want to go out for gardening. That’s why the indoor gardening has become so well-liked. Plants that are very easy to grow indoors are herbs. Besides it has a beautiful look and fragrance, you can also add them when you cook food. Growing herbs is funny easy and useful.
You can start your herbs from seeds to buy at grocery stores of the season. Starting seeds is very profitable, and you have a much wider choice, for example an edible plant.
Some plants can grow in a sunny window with just natural light is available. Herbs like mint, thyme and garlic work well in this type of light. H Full post…
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Summer Snapdragons
Posted on July 12th, 2011
Now that you have the perfect container for your summer container garden, its time to think about what to put inside it.
Snapdragons (Antirrhinum) are a terrific addition to an early season annual display but unfortunately once the heat of summer is upon us they tend to fade quite quickly. An easy solution to recapture the look of elegant vertical spires covered with blossoms is to swap them out with summer snapdragons (Angelonia).
This year in the Home Gardening Center our first Trial Bed is full of a number of varieties of summer snapdragons. There are two cultivars in this bed that I am unfamiliar with and am excited to watch them grow.
One is the cascading Angelonia ‘Carita™ Cascade Raspberry’. It reaches only 8-10 inches tall, yet spills over to form a 20 inch cascading mound. It doesn’t require any deadheading and like other summer snapdragons it is deer resistant and heat and drought tolerant. This is
How to: Budgeting for a new garden
Posted on July 12th, 2011
Gardening can sometimes cost a fair bit of money. By hiring garden designers and aiming for that perfect look to suit you, prices can pile up. Garden design needs to be planned out with a concrete budget. Not having a budget can see prices soar without much warning so having set allocations for your garden is of the utmost importance.
Here are some tips as to how you can keep prices low to begin your garden and how to create a garden with ease.
Equipment is obviously an important starting block to creating a garden. Garden tools can be picked up from plenty of shops; if you want to start saving money straight away second hand shops may be the best place to start looking. Friends and family are also a great place to start, with many people wanting to get rid of bulky gardening items that might be cluttering their houses up.
Don’t go straight to buying brand new items, shop around the second hand market or again ask friends and family or local charity shops.
EBAY can also be a great tool for amateur garden designers. A Full post…
Eyes Open
Posted on July 12th, 2011
I was photographing my Hosta yesterday and noticed that the clump with the white edge (‘Patriot’ I think) has been severely chewed, either by slugs or earwigs or both. What was interesting is that the varieties that were four to six feet away, ‘Samurai’ and ‘Great Expectations’, hadn’t been attacked at all.
Later I took a look at ‘Summer Fragrance’, a lovely variety that I have growing in a different area of the yard, and see that it too has been eaten. Like the ‘Patriot’, ‘Summer Fragrance’ has white margins.
Noticing that the slugs/earwigs prefer the varieties that have white foliage gives me some valuable information. I know that I don’t have to scatter Sluggo plus or Diatomaceous earth around all of my Hosta, but can concentrate on the types with lighter edges. I also know that if I want to avoid all slug control in the future beyond encouraging the toads, I should not buy any more Hosta with white variegation.
Hosta growers: have you had the same experience? Or are your slugs/earwigs e
5 Ways to Help the Garden Survive Droughts
Posted on July 10th, 2011
Drought tolerant Purple Coneflower It’s June and already we’re suffering drought conditions. The weather around us is more like late July and August than June with temperatures ten degrees higher than normal and no rain. We are dry as a bone. Last night I watched as a huge rain cloud dissipated into nothing before it made it to our garden on the weather radar. My garden is suffering but here are some ideas I’m trying to deal with the drought.
- Plant native plants – You’ve probably heard this one before but native plants are better adapted to the local area weather conditions and are better prepared for the extreme weather conditions that may emerge.
- Survival of the fittest! Observe what plants thrive during extreme drought conditions and plant more of these kinds of plants in your garden while resisting the urge to plant more of the drought sensitive plants.