Your Backyard Garden Information Source
This is a question often heard shortly after the new year starts and the colorful braces on this favorite Christmas flower have begun to fade and fall leaving only the sickly yellow flowerets to exude their sticky juice on window sill or flower stand. Many people will answer their own questions by setting their poinsettia on the back porch where […]
Visiting local greenhouses and transporting holiday plants home safely, cleaning and storing hand tools, and removing snow from shrubs are some of the garden-related activities for this month. Try to visit a local greenhouse, as the sight of so many plants all in bloom is sure to lift the spirits on a cloudy and cold day. If you’re buying holiday […]
It’s the end of another glorious gardening year. Regardless of your region, it’s time to evaluate your garden and think about any changes you might want to make for next year. What were the aspects you loved about your garden? What did you not like so much? Ideally, photos and a written record of your accomplishments, and ‘failures’, will help […]
Having raised garden beds is a great idea for people who love to grow their own vegetables. They are easy to maintain, large enough to grow a good amount of veg, and they look really nice too. Putting a garden to bed is one thing, but how to prepare your raised garden beds for winter? 8 Essential Steps 1. Clean […]
Proper placement of bird feeders, buying holiday garden gifts, and caring for poinsettias and Christmas cactus are some of the gardening activities for this month. To encourage birds to visit your garden this winter, set out feeders near evergreen trees or shrubs so birds have cover while they feed. If you have bird-chasing cats, or if raiding squirrels are a […]
THERE may be some who think it is a little late to talk about winter protection of plants in December, but as a matter of fact, most growers are agreed that the really critical tune for plants which are on the borderline of hardiness is in late winter when a warm sun, combined with drying winds, takes moisture from leaves […]
The truth is that a gardener thinks of very material things in December. He is thinking of what he wants to give some good gardener for Christmas or else what he wishes he had himself. But when anyone asks him, “What do you want for Christmas?” he blinks his eyes and says, “Well, I don’t want a thing, just a […]
Provided is a list of tasks you need to perform in your garden during December. Please understand your gardening zone which is identified in the menu above. Look for Hardiness Zones. Zone 1 Continue pruning deciduous trees and roses In coldest regions, protect roses with earth cones or wire baskets filled with insulating material Keep gift house plants as cool […]
Winter Ornamentals – Bark Book Excerpt by Dan Hinkley Like the last and messy hours of a party gone on too long, the soggy, cool days of late autumn cast about the garden a mood of the season’s demise. Yet as the last colored leaves, varnished with the first rains of winter, fall earthward, the deciduous trees bare their sinewy […]
When I first started gardening I emulated the grasshopper in the old fable, “The Ant and the Grasshopper”. Like that high-living insect, I basked in the summer sunshine, cultivating and enjoying my flowers. I didn’t plan for the lean cold days of winter, because I hadn’t the slightest interest in my garden during the months of November, December and January. […]