It pains me to see customers spending hundreds of dollars on new plants and simultaneously refusing to spend a few more on a bag or two of compost and a box of starter fertilizer. These two items are not unnecessary “add-ons” that the retailer is just trying to add to the sale, they are critical components of a successful transplanting process - or as I like to refer to them as “plant insurance”. Unless you have phenomenal soil, you should always add compost and starter fertilizers when you are planting new plants. Here is why…
Recently I had one of my readers reach out to me and inquire about how all the weather extremes of 2021 might impact our gardening experiences in 2022. It is a good question that is worth exploring, especially since I suspect this won’t be the last time we see such extremes in temperature, rainfall, and snow. Here are some of my thoughts…
If you are like me, you went to bed last Sunday night with a light dusting of snow on the ground and woke up to 8 to 10 inches covering virtually everything in the garden. Now, somewhere underneath that white stuff, are my blooming hellebores, snow drops, and budded daffodils. You might ask: “Is all lost?” Hardly! Mother Nature is a lot more resilient than that and while my perennials may be bent, they are most likely not broken. In fact, they are probably snug as a bug in a rug and once everything thaws out they will pop right back up again. As it turns out, snow is much more beneficial for the garden than it is detrimental. Here are some things to consider…
The Golfing Gardener
Trevor Cameron
I thought it might be a nice change of pace to move indoors this week and talk about some of the outstanding tropical plants that we can grow in our homes. As the rain pounds on the roof while I write this, a tropical destination does sound nice… perhaps with golf clubs in tow and my camera in hand to take a bazillion photos of all the cool plants I encounter… Sorry, got distracted there for a moment. As you consider which tropicals to cultivate indoors, keep in mind that many of them love to do one of two things…