Gardening
Below are links to articles posted in Gardening.
Something to Grow: Black Currants
I was just reading an article about black currants and my interest was piqued. I am really into nutrition and apparently black currants have twice the antioxidants of blueberries, double the vitamin C of oranges, and double the potassium of bananas, among other health virtues. But you cannot buy them in the store, even if […]
Gardening Catalogue Deluge; What to Plant?
Apparently all the nurseries have a conspiracy to bury us gardeners in catalogues starting the week after Christmas. I don’t get why, but apparently we all must start thinking about what we want to plant as soon as we’re done taking down our Christmas tree. In the past week and a half I have gotten […]
Brewing Compost Tea on the Cheap
“Wow, a picture of a bucket in a garage, nice blog you run Chris.” In all seriousness, this is my compost tea brewing system. It isn’t pretty, but it only cost me about $15, $5 if you discount things I already had. Compost tea is a great product. What it is is compost seeped in […]
Hardy Perennial Hibiscus
The flower form of hibiscus is very common to the tropics, blooms typically 4-6 inches across that are brightly colored and form on shrubs. Many people in more northernly climes also grow them as patio plants. But did you know you could plant hibiscus plants with flowers twice the size in the ground in your […]
Edible Ornamentals
When planning your garden design do not forget that you can use vegetables in your ornamental beds. Yes, I said it, vegetables in your ornamental beds. For some reason people see an ornamental bed as featuring eye-pleasing designs with organic layouts and nice flowers. Whereas a vegetable garden needs to have straight orderly rows like […]
Butterfly Bush
I’ve blogged about butterfly bushes, or Buddleia, before, but I felt the need to do so again today. You see, I went outside and noticed no less than 10 large monarch butterflies on one of my bushes. I tried my best to get a picture of them all but it wasn’t working well, the best […]
Black Spot on My Roses
I’m no stranger to fungal infections on roses, it seems every year in late summer I get powdery mildew, it usually doesn’t cause too big a problem though and does hit all my roses. This year, I’ve not been so lucky. I had a massive attack of black spot that affected almost every rose bush […]
My New Tanyosho Pine
I went to Rome in June, read all about it here. I fell in love with the beautiful stone pines that dotted the landscape. They are a very graceful pine with no understory branches and an upside down pyramid flat-top upperstory. Unfortunately they are not hardy where I live in Michigan. Well, a few weeks […]
Deadhead your Daylilies to Make More Blooms
For me, July is prime daylily month, and July is now over. That means it is deadheading time. Truth be told I deadhead constantly as I wander around the garden but this post is meant to remind others to do it, not myself. You see, many popular daylily varieties, possibly ones in your garden right […]
Sambucus nigra. “Black Lace” Elderberry
Sambucus nigra. “Black Lace” is a hot new elderberry cultivar that was available in very limited release in 2006. I first saw it in Wayside Garden’s fall catalogue last fall. When I went to order one it was already sold out. I finally got on their waiting list late this Spring when they started offering […]