October 11, 2011 - Posted by admin- 0 Comments
Nothing is more beautiful than the first signs of Spring, when the daffodils and tulips start to bloom. There are also many other types of bulbs you can naturalize in your yard if you have the right space.
Naturalizing is creating drifts of, say, daffodils that look like they’ve always been there. The beauty of daffodils is they come back year after year. In our community volunteers have even planted them along the highways and everyone enjoys seeing them in the spring.
If you purchase bags of lots of bulbs, the best way to plant is to dig a large area about 6 inches deep and 3 foot wide by 2 foot across. Add some mulch and bone meal to the area and place the bulbs with the point facing up. You should leave about 2 inches between the bulbs, but they don’t mind being crowded. Then cover the whole area with the dug soil. This will create a drift of blooms in the spring.
My Father in law was a good gardener, but he always planted everthing in perfectly straight lines. Wasn’t quite as pleasing to the eye, but that’s the way he liked it. I think it came from always planting vegetables in a straight line.
Whenever doing a planting, whether it’s bulbs, shrubs or perennials, it’s best to group the plants in uneven numbers, such as 3 or 5 and place them so they form sort of a triangle. This is especially true when doing a zeriscape yard. This means removing water thirsty grass and replacing it with drought tolerant plants.
Getting back to bulbs, once you have all your bulbs planted (should be in before Halloween) then you can over-plant with pansies, violas, alyssum or various other bedding plants that stay low and do well in the winter months. The bulbs will come up right through your bedding plants and it will look fabulous!
March 11, 2010 - Posted by admin- 8 Comments
Building a raised bed for your vegetable or flower garden is a very efficient way to deal with improving soil and containing your garden to protect it from critters. Check out Master Gardening above, if you’d like to order a raised bed that would save you from building one.
If underground gophers or moles and voles are a problem, then begin by placing screening on the ground where you plan to build your bed.
You can build a foot high bed, or if bending down is a problem, you may want to go higher. A higher bed is a little more work, but worth it .
I recommend using pressure treated 2×12s. They come in 6 and 8 foot lengths. I used the 8 foot and cut the end ones in half to create a 4×8 size bed. The lumber yard will usually do this for you. The boards stack very easily and can be fastened at the corners with heavy duty L brackets. Fasten the layers together with flat brackets and screws on the inside, approximately in the middle. Of course, if you only plan to have a 12″ high bed, stacking won’t be necessary.
For the higher beds, 3 boards high will give you a good waist high bed to work in. Of course, this means you need a lot more soil to fill it, which will take more time and effort. The base soil can be any kind, including rocky, which will improve drainage. You may want to actually place a layer of rocks or sand in the bottom. The top 1 foot should be an amended loam (meaning some fertilizer has been mixed in).
Before adding your soil, you may want to line the bed to add to the preservation of the wood. I used a roll of roofing material. It”s easy to roll on the sides and will still drain OK.
Be very sure you like the location of this raised bed, because moving it is not easy. You want to place it where you get at least 6 hours of sun a day. You might want to consider a fence, as well. Especially if you have racoons or deer nearby. They would love to feast on your lovely garden.
February 18, 2010 - Posted by admin- 8 Comments
For a cooling respite from the heat of the summer, try planting a blue perennial garden in a sunny bed. You will feel very creative when it’s completed.
Various shades of blue plants and flowers in a variety of shapes and textures make a very stunning and interesting statement in any garden.
Imagine a nice rock or brick bordered planting area in the front of your house. I like to see an irregular or curvy shape to the bed, as opposed to straight lines.
For the plants, let’s start with a few “Blue Chips Campanula” at left front. Behind those, a “Blue Sea Holly”. Up in the left back corner, a “Russian Sage”. Right of the holly, put a “Wonder of Staffa Aster”, and around those plants three or four “Select Blue Festuca”. For accent, next, working to the right, a nice white “Coneflower”. Then a few “Belladona Delphinium”, another white “Coneflower, and if space allows, a purple “Buddelia”. Buddelia is also called “butterfly bush” as it attracts butterflys and humming birds. There’s one called “three in one” that has lavender, magenta and white all on one bush. A very striking plant. 
They carry these plants at SpringHill Nursery. Just click on the butterfly.
The beauty of this perennial garden is it will come back year after year. You’ll have to trim back at the end of the season, depending on where you live. I usually try to wait until all danger of frost is over, but sometimes it’s hard when you want to tidy up the garden.
If you’d like to see plants during the winter, try mixing in some evergreen shrubs if you have room. They look good in the background near the foudation.
Some examples of nice evergreen shrubs are: Buxes, Glossy Abelia, Eunomus, Ilex, Pieris Japonica, Muhgo Pine, and Viburnum. There are many varieties and sizes of these shrubs and they have different needs for care. Do your research on the ones that interest you and make sure the variety you choose will be appropriate for your yard. My favorite book for researching plants is:
If you live in the Midwest or East, Sunset has books for these areas as well.
October 17, 2009 - Posted by admin- 3 Comments
If you like flowers, then let’s talk about different kinds of flower beds. There is the shady garden bed, either under shade trees or on the north or east side of your house. There is the sunny flower bed, usually having a southern or western exposure. You can find plants or flowers that do well in both, but always read the labels to determine the best planting area, so your flowers will bloom and flourish.
In the shady garden, you can plant ferns, impatiens, begonias, hostas, pansies, and many more. Some do well in summer and others can be planted in the fall/winter months. I usually plant impatiens and begonias in the spring and pansies and iceland poppies in the fall. they are complimentary to the ferns, that are the staple in my shade garden. In the winter, my ferns usually get frost bitten, sometimes even when they’re under cover. I wait until all danger of frost is over, and then I cut back all the damaged fronds. Usually the time is right if underneath you see lots of new green growth coming out. Of course, if there was a deep freeze, there’s always the chance that the fern didn’t make it. Hasn’t happened too often for me, but I live in California and we don’t get the low temperatures of the East.
The sunny garden is a good place for perennials (come back every year) and there are many different kinds. You can mix in some annuals (one season)for extra color. I have deer in my yard, so I’m limited, as they eat many of the flowers I love. If you don’t have that problem, you can go wild with color and mixtures of plants. Just remember to note the height that the plant will be and keep taller ones toward the background and shorter in the front. Groupings also look better than straight lines.
Some people like to stay with a certain color scheme, which is great. You just have to research your plants to find the right ones. There are books that deal with certain flowers for color schemes. The all white garden is very cool, and the yellow, red and orange are hot. Some examples are: calendula, marigolds, daylilies, and many varieties of chrysanthemum. However, some people like a blue garden, which is a little harder to find. Salvia , some lantanas, delphiniums, plumbago, buddleia are some. There’s a post in the right colmn that describes in detail, a blue garden.
Don’t forget to under plant with some bulbs and tubers. When they come up in the spring, it’s a welcome sight after a long winter. Daffodils, tulips, narcissus, are the most common. Iris are also very beautiful. They bloom a little later. Also, gladiolus, and dahlias. Dahlias come in miniature all the way up to huge dinner plate dahlias that win prizes at the county fair. I’ve always had dahlias in my garden. They bloom in the summer and into the fall. I love the big ones, although they need to be staked and tied often to prevent them from falling over. If you check out some of my nursery links, you will see all the different varieties. The good thing about these sites is, they show plants full grown and blooming, whereas the home improvement stores don’t always have what you want, or the plants aren’t blooming yet.
