Professional Gardening Tips
Although bulbs, corms and tubers carry their own food supply it is only good for one year at most and if you wish to have flowers year after year it is essential that they should be well fed. This is especially true of the highly-bred hyacinths, tulips and crocuses and some of the smaller irises. Always prepare the whole of […]
Although the outdoor landscape may be bleak right now, the greenhouse industry has found a way to bring spring into our homes. And that’s by fooling tulips and other spring flowers into blooming early indoors. The cut tulips you find at your florist shop, local greenhouse, and supermarket this time of year are “forced” tulips that were grown in greenhouses […]
As with fashion, floriculture also has its trends. Dutch botanist Jacqueline van der Kloet signals two color trends. “First we see a tone-on-tone preference; combinations of the same color tone such as bright yellow combined with dark yellow.” One of Jacqueline’s favorite yellow combinations is: yellow Dahlias, Begonias, Buttercups, Chlidanthus and Callas. The second color trend goes against the tone-on-tone trend, and […]
Not long ago, I was talking to a gardening friend. The subject was spring bulbs, and her lament was that she just didn’t have the time to get them in the ground. “I’ve given up buying bulbs,” she said, “because every year they end up rotting in my garage.” I can sympathize with her, because of every fall, at least […]
Growing Dahlias for fun and prizes! Other than an important place in perennial borders and beds, dahlias have a definite place of their own … grown In gardens by themselves, carefully staked, fed, watered, and disbudded with extreme care, they will produce relatively few flowers of overwhelming size and perfection. They have become known as the Man’s Flower. – Today’s […]
If you plan it, you can cut winter short. You can order spring to come to your house 8 to 12 weeks early. Do this simply by adopting the florists’ methods of forcing tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths into bloom weeks ahead of normal season outdoors. Buy your bulbs in the fall. Keep them dry and in a cool spot between […]
The longer I garden, the more I think that I need a little gardening every day. This can be as little as ten minutes spent raking leaves or tending the houseplants or reading a good garden book. In a pinch it can even be the time I spend getting the apple peelings out to the composter and giving the cylinder […]