The ups and downs of the gardening world.
Victory Gardens are in vogue again after 70 + years. Social upheaval like wars and pandemics bring on staying close to home and family, and your mind automatically turns to food and how to keep yourself well fed. Gardening skills, rusty as they might be, can help you out! My last post - Gardening Hasn't …
Continue reading "Rebirth of the Victory Garden"
Extra warm spring weather and lots of time home...... a great combination to try your hand at planting a veggie Victory Garden. My gym is closed and I want to limit my trips to the grocery store which has lots of empty shelves, so I am ramping up for a large produce-filled garden this season. …
Continue reading "Gardening Hasn’t Been Cancelled – Start a Victory Garden"
Flying under the radar for many people, Indian Pink, or Spigelia marilandica is coming into its own. A long-lived perennial that brings stunning colors to the summer garden, hummingbirds flock to these red and yellow tubular flowers arranged in clusters. Similar to firecrackers exploding in the garden, this unique native plant stops people in their …
Continue reading "Grow Native – Indian Pink Should Be On Your Radar"
Are you looking for a small beautiful spring flowering tree to plant this spring with great fall color and beautiful blue black fruit? Look no further than the native Fringetree. Fringetree, Chionanthus virginicus, is rarely planted in a home landscape. Seen mostly at arboretums and botanical gardens, their staff know a good thing when they …
Continue reading "Fringetree – Native Tree That Nobody Grows"
Plant portraits of two under-used and under-appreciated perennials- Culver's Root and Bear's Breeches
Surprisingly, many gardeners and non-gardeners alike don't know about one of the best early flowering shrubs around - Witch Hazel, Hammamelis x intermedia. Fragrant, long blooming, maintenance free and deer resistant, I am always surprised that it isn't more widely planted. The winter flowering Hazels - Hamamelis x intermedia hybrids are crosses between Japanese witch …
Continue reading "Witch Hazel – An Underused Winter Blooming Shrub"
The grass is starting to green up and bulbs are peeking through the soil and spring is around the corner. Gardening chores come fast and furious once warm weather hits and sometimes you don’t have time to fit all the tasks in. To jump-start your gardening year, you can hit the ground running early to …
Continue reading "Start Spring Clean Up Now!"
Seed starting in spring is a rite of passage for me. Fingering all the seed packets, shaking them, and admiring the beautiful covers is all part of the process. If I don't have at least a hundred seed packets stacked up, I get restless and start browsing more seed catalogs. It is a lot of …
Continue reading "Top 5 Reasons to Start Your Own Seeds"
Sunny yellow blooms fringed with a green ruff green poking through snow is my first sign that spring has sprung. Eranthis hyamalis, or Winter Aconite, in the buttercup family, is a spring ephemeral, which means that it is a short-lived plant above ground with a burst of blooms, then disappears, remaining under ground until next …
Continue reading "Winter Aconites-Harbinger of Spring"
Gardeners and Hellebores Ok, drumroll here....I think I can say that Hellebores are my favorite perennial plant. A well-kept secret of garden enthusiasts, Hellebores should be more widely known to serious and not so serious gardeners alike; this is a plant that is worth seeking out. What other plant resists deer, neglect, likes shade-even deep shade, is …
Continue reading "Hellebores-Every Gardener Should Have Some"
