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13 Dec
First snow in the garden
20 Nov
Clearing the air with houseplants
With the garden going into dormancy for the winter, and only a few evergreens to look at, I’ve recently taken an interest in houseplants, a group that I have long thought little of. I used to think that indoor plants could never match the interest of their more flamboyant, showy outdoor cousins. That is, until I came across Norfolk Island Pines on sale at the Great Big Greenhouse. As I was admiring their graceful fern-like foliage, I saw on the tag that they they thrive indoors. “Awesome! An indoor conifer! Yes, that’ll make a nice living Christmas tree!” I thought to myself, being an avid conifer connoisseur. At the same time, I remembered a number of news articles I had read about how houseplants are good at “scrubbing the air” in a home and replacing toxic particles (dust, formaldehyde, benzene, etc.) with oxygen. The plants mentioned (Peace Lily, Golden Pothos, Snake Plant, ZZ plant, and Chinese Evergreen) were displayed right next to the Norfolk Island Pines, so I wandered over to take a look. Next thing I know, I’m walking out the door to my truck with a cart full of these plants, now on display in my bedroom. Being an annual allergy sufferer, I was excited at the thought of being surrounded by exotic looking plants that aren’t just lending a tropical look to my room, but will actually help me breath easier.
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15 Nov
Seeing red! And yellow, and orange, and…
During this summer’s drought of epic proportions, I was worried that we would miss out on fall color this year, that the leaves would turn brown and drop and skip the annual show of bright electric oranges and reds and yellows. But several well-timed rains have put those fears to rest, as you can see from these pictures of my Euonymus alatus (Burning Bush) and my hydrangeas. Also got some pansies planted in a container along with tulip and crocus bulbs for the spring.
1 Nov
Plant info, straight from the horse’s mouth
Monrovia, which produces and grows the vast majority of plants you see at retail garden centers, put together a great video section on their website, full of tips for caring and planting, as well as information on brand new varieties of plants from annuals and perennials, to trees, shrubs, and fruits. Check it out!
26 Oct
Bonsai!
Last fall when I had paid my annual visit to the National Arboretum, one of the things I found fascinating there was their bonsai exhibit. Here you have these 20, 30, 40, 50, even 200+ year old trees…fully mature in appearance…yet only 12” or so tall. Maples, Junipers, Ginko, Elms, Azaleas, Cypresses, you name it. All painstakingly trained and pruned and guided to particular growth patterns. I guess I started becoming interested in bonsai because the growing season is wrapping up and there’s not a whole lot left to enjoy out in the garden. The beauty of bonsai is you can enjoy plants indoors while outside everything is dormant for the year. Anyway, here are some pictures I took from a return trip to the Arboretum two weeks ago.
11 Oct
Free garden resources for book worms!
For those of you who have one of the various e-readers out there (Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, etc.) or simply do not have time to run out to the bookstore to read up on gardening ideas, I found a great site that lists thousands of free (out of copyright) books that can be downloaded to whatever e-reader you have, or just to plain text or HTML. Among these thousands of ebooks, I came across a good many gardening texts published in the late 1800s and early 1900s, several with great illustrations. Having read through most of them, I found the information to still be applicable today, and as a result, I highly recommend them.
23 Sep
Twitter garden chat
For those of you on Twitter, there is a fun and informative garden chat every Monday night at 9. You can ask questions of the host (which changes every week) and take part in a great discussion on anything gardening. Usually there is a certain topic set for each chat, but the last 15 minutes or so are open-ended.
Just search for “gardenchat” and use the #gardenchat hashtag when posting.
7 Sep
Blueberry fields forever!
My girlfriend and I recently had the pleasure of picking blueberries at Swift Creek Berry Farm. Acres upon acres of row after row of thick stands of blueberry bushes (Vaccinium spp.) on either side of a long, narrow, raised gravel road as we drove in. In fact, you could actually smell the blueberries. We got our buckets and set off down one of the rows, skipping past the first field that had already been picked over. It was late afternoon, about 6:00 and the sun was casting an orange glow around us as we picked and sampled. The blueberries were perfect…large, sweet, and juicy. I made a mental note to myself to come back at exactly this week next year. As my bucket was approaching half-full, I thought to myself: it would be pretty sweet to walk out my back door and gather my own harvest of blueberries. That got my thinking about picking up a few blueberry bushes from the nursery.
For the home gardener desiring some edibles for the yard, blueberries are a great place to start. Given the right soil (well-draining but moist and acidic), Blueberries are tough shrubs, bothered by few pests or diseases. They should be grown in full sun, and mulched heavily as their roots are shallow and close to the surface. They require a highly acidic soil, so if a soil test shows your soil is either neutral or alkaline, add peat moss or leaves or pine needles to the soil around the planting hole to lower the pH. Plant several varieties (at least 3) for the heaviest fruit set. There are a number of blueberry plants that set fruit at different times during the season, allowing for a near-continuous harvest. The following varieties are recommended for Zone 7:
- ‘Premier’ – early
- ‘Jersey’ – early
- ‘Earliblue’ – early
- ‘O Neal’ – early
- ‘Tifblue’ – mid to late
- ‘Powderblue’ – mid to late
- ‘Bluecrop’ – mid
- ‘Blueray’ – mid
In addition to delicious berries, blueberry bushes show off excellent fall color with shades of yellow, orange, and red before the leaves drop.
