In mid-summer, it’s easy to forget about the needs of patio planters and houseplants moved outside for the summer. There are 5 areas to focus on to keep them thriving.
Mid-summer Patio Planter Care
Smart Techniques Conserve Water in Your Yard
Note - Oscillating sprinklers, as in the image above, are one of the least efficient ways to water a landscape, due to the amount of water lost to evaporation. It feels like August's "dog days of summer" are already here, as we and our landscapes suffer through a continuation of July's hot and dry conditions.... Continue Reading →
Mid-summer Weed Control Tips
About this time every summer weeds begin to drive us crazy; they love the heat of mid-summer! Here are some tips to help maintain your sanity and create the best long-term strategy to minimize weeds in your landscape. Even though weeds are most problematic now – this is one of the worst times of year... Continue Reading →
Wise Water Use Guidelines
In the summer, on an acreage or in town, it’s important to make every drop count.
Common Grub Control Questions
What are grubs? Almost every gardener has seen grub larvae in the soil while installing new plants or tilling the vegetable garden. The term "white grub" actually encompasses the larval stage of several scarab beetles, the most common, and most damaging, being the June beetle or masked chafer and the Japanese beetle. Less well-known are... Continue Reading →
Yellow Nutsedge
In the last week or two, have you started to see light yellowish-green grass-like plants in your lawn or landscape beds? Guess what? You may have yellow nutsedge and it's started growing for another year. IdentificationYellow nutsedge is a member of the sedge family although it closely resembles a grass. In fact it is frequently called... Continue Reading →
Harvesting Greens
What’s the best way to harvest your greens, such as lettuce, spinach, and Swiss chard? Before starting, remember these harvest tips. · Small leaves are tasty and tender. Over mature greens often become bitter. · Harvest mid-morning after the dew has dried but before the hot sun comes out. Harvesting leaves dry lengthens their... Continue Reading →
Espalier: Create Living Art with Form and Function
An old horticulture practice of controlling plant growth in a flat plane against a solid surface or trellis has merit in today’s smaller landscapes. This is the art of espalier, pronounced ess-PAL-yer, or ess-PAL-yay. The word espalier is French, but is derived from the Italian word spalliera meaning “something to rest the shoulder against.” The... Continue Reading →
Handling Pesticides Safely
Pest control depends to a great extent on how well you achieve thorough coverage of all plant parts - flowers, leaves, the undersides of leaves, and fruit. New label directions now give flexibility in the amount of water used to dilute pesticides. Using the highest amount of water you can often gives the best coverage. Spray plants until... Continue Reading →
Make Your Landscape Bee-friendly
Honey bees and other bee species, such as bumblebees, orchard mason bees, and leafcutter bees are very important pollinators of flower and crops. In the home garden and orchard, gardeners are aware how important bees are for fruit and vegetable production. But in recent years many gardeners have noticed declining bee numbers in their gardens... Continue Reading →
Spring Flowering Shrubs – Now and Then
One of the true joys of the well-balanced, diversified landscape are the spring flowering and summer flowering shrubs. Now is the time when we can enjoy the spring flowering shrubs such as dogwood, viburnum, lilac, cotoneaster and forsythia.
Beautybush
The photo in the featured image is from John Ruter, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org In May many of our plants are blooming, making it very enjoyable to be outside. A great plant for May bloom is a plant called beautybush. This is not to be confused with beautyberry which is a plant we grow... Continue Reading →
