Your Backyard Garden Information Source
As winter approaches, it’s tempting just to sit back and put your feet up and not have to think about the garden until springtime. However, just a bit of extra work at this time of the year can save you a whole lot of hassle come planting time. Garden clean-up, the last big chore for gardeners, is often overlooked, especially […]
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 […]
From the Greek physa, a bladder, an allusion to the inflated calyx (Solanaceae). A genus of 100 or more species of which the two most well-known are P. alkekengi, the Bladder Cherry or Chinese Lantern Plant, with its brilliant, flame-coloured, air-filled calyces, and P. peruviana, the Cape Gooseberry, which is a greenhouse species. They are annual and perennial herbaceous plants, […]
The form and size of a herb garden is determined by the interest these plants hold for the individual. It can be a tiny border of commonly used culinary herbs such as mint, parsley, sage and thyme or an elaborate garden designed to house a wide collection of herbs. Many plants could legitimately be included in one of these large […]
Learn the August garden tasks for your gardening hardiness zone. Do you know what your hardiness zone? Once known, then find the required task. Zone 1 Sow seeds of wildflowers and fall veggies Aerate, dethatch and fertilize the lawn As first frosts threaten, pick mature green tomatoes to ripen in a dark, cool place indoors Purchase containerized trees and shrubs […]
PANSY The Pansy, it would seem, is one of the most alluring of all garden flowers. It’s little faces make most of us laugh when we look at them. The English have given the Pansy many nicknames, such as Call-meto-you, Love-true, Three-faces-under-a-hood, Pink-eyed-John, Tickle-my-fancy, Bird’s-eye, Jump-up-and-kiss-me, God-father, Godmother, Love-in-idleness, Kiss-me-in-the-buttery, Rob-run-the-street, and Heartsease. With such names, it is not strange […]
PENTSTEMON – Bearded tongue (From Greek for five stamens, the fifth is sterile and bearded) Persons who are familiar with the Gloxinia Pentstemon, Pentstemon gloxinioides, already know its beauty; to others who are not, we would say that the price of a packet of seed is entirely out of proportion to the pleasure of bringing these flowers into bloom. The […]
When you want lots of color quickly, flowers to cut by the armful and bloom all summer, you want annuals. For earliest possible bloom, sow seeds indoors, then transplant-or buy started plants in May. But you’ll still get plenty of flowers if you wait till the danger of frost is past and sow the seed of quick-growing varieties where you […]
How to grow Snapdragon flowers (Greek for like a nose, refers to form of the flowers) Few of our flowers are as fantastic in form as the Snapdragon, Antirrhinum majus. At the same time the colors attract us. There are delicate pinks, such as we find in a Rose, the yellows are like giant flowers of Toadflax, the deep maroons […]
Ants are unwelcome in the garden for various reasons but chiefly on account of their nest-building activities which interfere with the roots of the plants, often causing death. They may also be a nuisance on lawns. They are often seen running over plants infested with greenfly to which they are attracted by the sweet honeydew. They may help to spread […]