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…
I will be the first to admit that this extended warm and dry period (100 days with only one-half inch of rain) brings with it mixed blessings. On the one hand, all this sunshine keeps things growing and puts me in the mood to spend time in my garden where my perennials are in their full glory and the yard continues to be full of…
Summertime in the northwest is a great gardening time. There is lots of sunshine and warm soils to make plants grow, and as long as we remember to water, we can have some amazingly productive veggie gardens and luxurious landscapes (or at least some bodacious containers). Here are a few random comments to consider on the above topics…
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…