Your Backyard Garden Information Source
Have you recently had a pool installed by a luxury pool builder in New York? If so, you may be trying to find ways to integrate plant life around your new pool to enhance the area. Landscaping a pool area is a unique challenge for everyone, just like the design of each home and garden. However, when it comes to […]
Trees and shrubs need moist, but not thoroughly wet, soil in order to grow well, resist insects and winter injury, and, in some cases, to produce flowers and fruit. If fruiting plants fail to fruit, or produce few fruit, it may be due to drought during flowering or fruit production. From early spring until about September 1, apply water adequately […]
With a changing climate, droughts seem to be getting more frequent and sometimes of a longer duration. Proper mowing, watering, and fertilizing are some of the strategies you can use to help a lawn deal with droughts and to survive. During periods of intense heat or drought, lawns will go dormant. They’re still alive, just not growing, so won’t need […]
The Strawberry is our most widely cultivated small fruit. In suitable varieties it is grown in every state, much of Canada, except the coldest regions, and even in the milder parts of Alaska. It is grown extensively commercially in widely separated parts of the United States and Canada and is the most popular and easily grown garden fruit. The common […]
Although we focus on the insects that destroy our landscape plants and crops, these undesirable insects give a bad name to virtually all insect species, most of which are beneficial. These either do no harm, provide food for desirable species such as birds, or attack and kill the pests we don’t want. Here are ten common beneficial insects that we […]
Milkweeds have many benefits—they are hardy, low maintenance, good in rain gardens as well as in dry soils and during droughts, tolerate deer, the mid-summer flowers attract butterflies and the leaves feed monarch butterfly larvae. Milkweeds are not weeds at all (a plant out of place that you don’t want in your garden) unless, perhaps, you have a formal garden. […]
Growing butterfly milkweed, harvesting garden produce often, and keeping container plantings watered are some of the gardening activities for this month. Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is not a weed at all (a plant out of place that you don’t want in your garden). Better common names are butterfly or orange milkweed, as it is in the milkweed family, has orange […]
Herbs, in my opinion, should be grown in every garden. Not requiring a lot of space or care, the benefits are immense. Think about various dishes that are made and you will find at least one herb flavoring it; potatoes and chives or lovage, tomatoes and basil, spaghetti sauce and oregano, and many more. Herbs like other plants fall into […]
Sustainability means using fewer non-renewable resources to ease the burden of extraction, production and consumption of these resources puts on the environment and on society. Starting a garden is one positive step you can take toward living a sustainable life, especially when you focus on low- or no-waste methods of growing food. You can easily start a sustainable garden […]
AVOID LYME DISEASE WHILE GARDENING Lyme disease is a potentially disabling disease of joints and the nervous system, spread by deer ticks. Knowing about this disease, how it is spread, and steps to avoid it will allow you to continue gardening or enjoying the outdoors, along with your pets, without concern for these spider relatives. This previously unknown disease was […]