Peppers – Complete Guide

Peppers Peppers – Here is a complete listing of peppers to support your gardening/eating needs.  Each page provides the pepper information to support the reference data below. The only negative issue is that you have to come back to this page to use the below reference notes to understand the pepper. The tables were too big to put on one […]

Growing and Care – Cherry Fruit Trees

Cherries Two main groups of cherries are cultivated for the merit of their fruit, the `sweet’, dessert (Prunus avium) and the `sour’, culinary (Prunus cerasus); a third group, the ‘Duke’ cherries, form an intermediate class. The sweets are subdivided into the ‘black’ and ‘white’ varieties. All fruiting cherries are hardy in the British Isles, though the blossom may be damaged […]

How to Grow Raspberries

Raspberries Most raspberries bear red fruit but a few have white or yellow berries. Most ripen in July, some in September or October, and some in either season according to when they are pruned. For varieties fruiting in summer, pruning is carried out immediately picking has finished, the old canes being cut out completely and replaced by the new canes […]

Growing and Care – Cherry Fruit Trees

Cherries Two main groups of cherries are cultivated for the merit of their fruit, the `sweet’, dessert (Prunus avium) and the `sour’, culinary (Prunus cerasus); a third group, the ‘Duke’ cherries, form an intermediate class. The sweets are subdivided into the ‘black’ and ‘white’ varieties. All fruiting cherries are hardy in the British Isles, though the blossom may be damaged […]

Growing Blackberries – Rubus

Blackberries Blackberries are vigorous and exceptionally spiny, hardy perennial cane fruits belonging to the genus Rubus .The species and hybrids listed below are grown for dessert, bottling, tarts, jam and wine. Blackberries prefer deep, moist and rich loam but are adaptable to light sands and stiff clays, given free drainage and freedom from perennial weeds. Incorporate bulky organics such as […]

Fruit Trees for the home grounds

Even on the smaller home lots, there is usually a place for a few fruit trees. In many cases a small home orchard is possible. In smaller places, fruit trees can be worked in with the landscape planting. As a whole, fruit trees grow rapidly and if well cared for they are tidy and a desirable feature of the landscape […]

Roses have deep history and many styles to choose from

Roses have a deep history behind them as well as their beauty. There are fossils of roses dated 35-40 millions years ago and are thought to originate in Asia. The oldest fossils were found in Colorado, Oregon and Montana, with younger fossils found in Yugoslavia and Germany. The oldest identified rose is Rosa gallica, commonly called the French Rose, can […]

Growing and Care Bottle Brush Tree. Callistemon

CALLISTEMON—Bottle-Brush Tree (Calliste’mon). Tender evergreen flowering shrubs from Australia which belong to the Myrtle family, Myrtaceae. They are well adapted for growing outdoors in California and in similar mild climates and for greenhouse cultivation elsewhere. They have narrow, dark-green, leathery leaves, which are slightly aromatic when crushed. The flowers are densely packed in terminal cylindrical spikes resembling a bottle brush […]

Planning the garden

Whether you specialize in any particular plant or not, the general design and layout of your garden must be pleasing and practical. There are some hard and fast rules to bear in mind, but in the main gardening is a subject upon which it is very hard to dogmatize, and the thing to remember is that the success or otherwise […]

Japanese Maples Resource Site

Japanese Maples Landscape Planting If your soil is heavy, it should be an amended with sand, bark, or other material to improve drainage, and the soil should be mounded above grade to assure good drainage. Maples are very adaptable to soil types, so if drainage is good, the addition of compost for nutrients and tilth is all that is needed. […]