Archive | Yard Management RSS feed for this section

Your garden begins in the fall

10 Sep

I love this time of year… a time for renewal, new beginnings and starting over, even for your garden.

Yes, fall is a great time to renew your garden. The best ways? Planting new bulbs for spring and summer bloom, weeding, dividing your plants, and adding a thick layer of mulch or compost. (In fact, just adding the mulch will improve its look.) Here’s a to-do list.

1. Plant new bulbs

My favorite source for bulbs these days is Van Engelen. I have never seen larger, healthier bulbs, ever. I still love Jung’s for bulbs, as well as Johannsen’s or White Flower Farm. My must-have bulbs include alliums of all varieties (but make sure to include some Globemaster alliums) and daffodils, as hungry squirrels and chipmunks do not like these two. And no garden would be complete without lilies, including Stargazer lilies and Casa Blanca lilies.

2. Weed

Cleaning up all the weeds is an important task in the fall so they do not set seed and waste your time next season. “One year of seedin’ is 7 years of weedin.’”

3. Divide your mature perennials

This is the best time of the year to do this for several reasons. The ground is still warm but not too hot, so the plants can really flourish in their new home. Your garden doesn’t always look the best after you make a division, both in the old and the newly planted spots, so by dividing in the fall, the plants will soon be covered with snow. Then come spring, they will look better than ever and as if they were always there.

4. Got soil?

High-quality soil is the best gift you can give your garden. You can just add several inches of compost or mulch each spring and fall, without burying your plants.This provides winter protection and continued nutrition for your plants.

So weed, plant your bulbs, and divide your existing perennials (these can all be done simultaneously). Then, last but not least, shovel on the mulch or compost. Your garden will be totally renewed!

Double-Digging

6 Apr

Whether planting a flat of snapdragons or a new Japenese Maple, I always double-dig. While this is a practice that has been debated in the horticulture world, I have had much success by double-digging–and no failures.

Double-digging 101: When digging a hole to plant, dig it twice as big as necessary and then backfill with both the old dirt and some good, new dirt like compost/humus or (my favorite) a $1.99 bag of organic soil from Johannsen’s.

So, to double-dig or not to double-dig? Why don’t you try it and see if it makes a difference in your garden!

Mel’s Green Garden – Tip of the Day

5 Apr

Example of a Pear Tree in espalier form photo taken at Alice Water's Edible Schoolyard

If you want healthy trees and shrubs, this is the best time of year to prune. Just be careful not to take off blossoms.

For example, I will be leaving my lilacs alone; and since most hydrangeas blossom on old wood, I will leave them alone too. Mind you, if they needed it (if they were getting too big or crowding out other plantings), I would have to sacrifice some blooms and just do it. But this year my spring pruning to-do list is to prune and stake my pear trees, which I am growing flat to my garage wall in espalier form. I also need to tackle my William Baffin Climbing Rose. With no shortage of blossoms on that one, I can prune away to my heart’s content.

Poison….Beware….Caution….

17 Feb

Anyone who knows me well knows I am “a worrier,” an “over-protective mom” of three, so it was important to me to be educated and keep my kids and dog safe when I garden.

This was my main motivation for creating a green and organic yard and garden, as I learned that most kids absorb those nasty chemicals through their skin rather than ingest them through what they eat or drink. They absorb it from running barefoot in their own backyard so I am careful not to grow anything that could irritate or harm them in any way.

I have read again and again to steer clear of the following poisonous plants:

Monkshood
Foxglove
Caladium
Gibsonii Castor Bean
Angel Trumpet, also know as Datura or Brugmansia
Colchicum

Tip of the Day – Use Autumn Joy to fill gaps

12 Dec

Have a spot you need to fill in your perennial bed?  Not sure where to start?  Autumn Joy looks great everywhere I put it, and after 6 years it is everywhere in my garden.

I have managed to divide this gem of a plant into almost every area of my yard, front and back.  It is really easy to divide and move around, which is what makes it such a great problem-solver when you need to fill gaps in your gardening landscape. And it helps that it is hardy in both sun and shade!

I used to exclusively plant it in the back of the border but have recently experimented in the front as well. I like this the best because of its lasting, seasonal flexibility with color. In the summer, it is a beautiful green and then in the fall it transitions to a show-stopper burgundy.

The Autumn Joy’s flexibility extends to floral arrangements as well. I routinely add it to the bouquets in my flower share service – both as a green filler in the summer as well as adding some texture and dark red colors to bouquets in the Fall.

So the next time you have a gap to fill, try the Autumn Joy!

My Top 10 Gardening Tools

1 Dec
What a difference having the right high-quality tool makes!  Gardening becomes way more fun and time-efficient.  You might want to add a few to your holiday wish-list or give some to your favorite gardener.

 

When I pack up my car to head to a gardening job, here are the 10 ten tools I must have:

 

1.  Green Velcro tape. This comes in handy for staking flowers and helping vines get started.  It is imperative for climbing petunias because the more you stake, the better and taller they grow.  I used to have to special-order this but can find it now both at Bruce Company and Home Depot.

2.  High-quality watering wand with a shut-off valve. This is great because it is easy to spot, and with the 2nd turn-off feature, you don’t have to go back to the source to turn it off.  Go ahead and get distracted while watering–pull a few weeds or stake and deadhead some flowers.

3.  High-quality loppers. These were a gift from my dad to my husband 12 years ago, and they are the best and get the most use from me.  They are great for trimming trees with a nice, clean cut.  They are also superb when you run into serious roots while digging a large hole for planting a tree or shrub or larger perennial.

4.  Choppers. I love my choppers.  I have to sharpen them every summer, sometimes twice, but I use these a ton.  They work great for large, quick clean-ups of spent perennials, for creating a nice edge to your lawn, and for maintenance with shrubs.

5.  The Cobra. My dad discovered this great tool.  He kept telling me summer after summer You’ve got to get a Cobra. I kept thinking I knew better and could live without it.  Finally I splurged, and it is great.  I could not weed without it!  It works great for both weeding and planting.

6.  Strong shovel with a curved point. It is great to invest in a high-quality shovel like a Fiskars that has a lifetime guarantee.  I use my shovel with every kind of job, small or large.  Having a shovel with a curved point makes it easy to dig in the dirt or create a clean edge.

7.  2-in-1 hatchet/rake. This is an interesting tool I grabbed at Jung Garden Center when I was there buying the Cobra.  It works great cleaning up the garden and tearing through tough weeds and roots, and I use it alongside the Cobra.

8.  Fiskars pruners. These pruners are great for tough jobs like roses, where you need to get so close to the plant that the loppers are too cumbersome.

9.  Kitchen scissors. I love a really great pair of strong scissors that are dishwasher-safe.

10.  Wheelbarrow. I couldn’t function without my large wheelbarrow.  I use it to mix my specialty grass mixture of soil and seed.  It is great for saving your back with loads of sand or humus.  I use my wheelbarrow with every single garden job, both in my yard and clients’ yards.

Honorable Mention:  fishing line,  dandelion picker and Hunter Boots

Grow Up!

28 Nov

In my little urban garden, I make the most of my smaller-size growing space by growing up.  I grow vertically in a number of ways. Here are some successes I have had.

 

1.  William Baffin Climbing Rose

This is an easy rose to grow.  It is maintenance-free except for pruning, as it gets very big and very tall. If you have never grown a rose, this is a great one to try.  I have never sprayed mine or had disease or pests.  I first learned about this rose when my sister’s amazing next-door neighbor planted one so that my sister could see it outside her kitchen window.  (How is that for a nice neighbor?  Yes, the whole family sobbed when they moved.)  The William Baffin Climbing Rose blooms a bright pink for a good part of the growing season.  Mine is taller than my garage after 5 years.  I love it!

2.  Pots on a wall

I saw this idea in Martha Stewart’s magazine and loved it.  I knew I had to do it somewhere.  I had the perfect spot, a combination of a high traffic area and an eye sore of a cement corner with no space for growing, plus  I can see it from my kitchen window.  One of my gardening goals for 2011 is to grow a living wall with Woolly Pockets.

3.  Morning glory with fishing-line trellis

Nothing like enjoying your morning cup of coffee on the sofa with a few blue morning glories.  As I wrote in a previous post, this was my daughter’s idea and a family favorite.

4.  Old-fashioned vining petunias in pots or along a fence

With help, old-fashioned vining petunias will get very tall.  I place 4 or 5 bamboo sticks in a pot and tie them at the top to form a tepee.  This guides the old-fashioned vining petunias as they grow.

5.  Climbing hydrangea

This is not yet a success, but look for a picture in a future blog.  I heard they are slow-growing.

6.  Scarlet runner bean

My biggest success of the 2010 summer – I grew this both as a garden entrance to our Magical Kingdom and as a good cover-screen to hide our unsightly rain barrels.  We ate both the edible flower and the edible beans chopped up in our salads every night for dinner this past summer.  This was a really fast grower so both the entrance and the screen for the rain barrel had good coverage in just a few short weeks.

7.  New Dawn Climbing Rose

I just planted this rose last summer, hoping it is the white version of the William Baffin Climbing Rose.  I will get back to you on it.

8.  Green beans

I love to grow these up cornstalks.

9.  Bougainvillea

I absolutely love Bougainvillea.  I see it all over where we stay in Palm Desert, California, and I have one in a pot that I bring in each winter, as it is not hardy in our Zone 5.

 

10.  Clematis

A great perennial climber, it loves to be on the south side of a house.  There are so many different varieties of clematis, you could always have one in bloom in a different color.  I love the fall-blooming white clematis paniculata.  It has a great fragrance.

My garden plans for 2010

27 Apr

This is an exciting time of the year. After thinking back on the highlights and low lights of last year, I can now turn my attention to the new planting season!

We’ve definitely turned the corner with our weather here in Wisconsin, and I see gardening opportunities everywhere I look! Here are some of my ideas and goals for 2010.  I thought it would be fun to share.

Ornamental edibles

Dwarf Pear Trees grown in espalier form behind my garage or along my dream fence.

Hardscape fence with arch entrance for the “magical kingdom”.  (magical kingdom is the nickname my daughter gave the space behind our garage; it is full sun.)  We grow most of our edibles so a fence would be nice to keep the dog out, and maybe the bunnies, too.  On this fence or arch entrance, I would like to try growing Birdhouse Gourds up and around, possibly in conjunction with another climber, like Clematis Paniculata.

As I edit this blog, I have already changed this idea. I will keep it for you to see, but what has changed is that buying a new arch for the magical kingdom is definitely not in the garden budget this year. So I created a very large, very dramatic entrance with my tallest gardening stakes and then put my largest bamboo pole above.  I plan to grow Scarlet Runner Bean up and around this from seed.  I chose this because it produces both an edible flower and a bean we can eat, and it is a very fast grower.  I am excited about this garden entrance and will try to remember to share pictures throughout the growing season.

Artichokes.  I have started these indoors since I learned about them last June and started them too late.  I am most excited about these!  I am growing these both for the visual interest and because we like to eat them, too.  They are beautiful and kind of remind me of the Allium Globemaster look.  So I will have the Allium Globemasters blooming in May and June and, I hope, the Artichokes for July, August and September.

Brussel sprouts.  Again, I’m growing these because they look very sharp; the bonus is we love to eat them and they are full of vitamins.  My kids will eat anything they grow.

Sweet corn. Another ornamental edible I am excited to try this year is a sweet corn that is really good-looking.  The past few summers, I have successfully grown a nice trio of “plain old” sweet corn with green beans growing up it and little pumpkins below.  The new varieties I want to try are Zea Mays, Japonica and Tiger Club.

Other Ornamental Edibles I am planning to grow for both looks and nutritional value are Bright Lights Swiss Chard, Rhubarb, Broccoli, Ornamental Peppers, Kale, Cardones, Basil, Brassica Olemcea Kale, Parsley, Rosemary, Purple Hyacinth Bean, Pumpkin on a Stick, Edible Flowers, Pot Marigold, Nasturtium, Calendula Officinallis, Marigolds, Ornamental Millet, Sunflowers, and Beets.

Black/Dark Dramatic Flowers

I love the color black, and I am drawn to black flowers and foliage in the garden.  It adds nice contrast and a neutral dramatic color.  I am excited to try Ornamental Millet Purple Majesty in my 2010 Garden; the birds are going to love my backyard once again!

There are a lot of dark Ornamental Edibles. I am going to try Nero di Toscano and stunning, dark-leafed Kale.  I am also going to try Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli.

Dark purple petunias. I love petunias because the smell of them takes me back to Palm Desert, California, heaven on earth for me.  I loved how Allen Centennial Gardens in Madison had these planted in masses; they smell amazing in the evening.  I plan to plant these underneath my 4 family-room windows in hopes of having the wonderful Palm Desert, California, smell enter my house.  Again, I am going to buy early because I tried to do this last summer after visiting Allen Centennial Gardens, and all the stores were sold out of the dark purple.


On a side note, it seems to me that the purple flowers are more fragrant than the white flowers.  I planted loads of White Petunias because I love how they look at night, but it seemed that the purple flowers had a stronger scent.  I just had the same thing happen in my house last week with Hyacinths. I bought both white and purple from Whole Foods, and I noticed the purple ones were way more fragrant than the white ones.  I’m just sayin’ . . .

Black elephant ears. Another idea from the amazing Allen Centennial Gardens that I plan to copy is to plant large Black Elephant Ears in between my existing White Hydrangea Limelights.

Fragrant Flower

More fragrant Lilies under key windows.  I love the smell of Casa Blanca Lilies and Stargazer Lilies and have many of them in my yard.  This summer I want to plant them in key spots to get the smell where I can appreciate it without having to cut them and bring them inside.

Shade Garden

I have a nice base of Hostas, Liguria, Ferns and Hydrangeas in the shadiest corner of my garden.  I am hoping to pull this area all together by weaving Hakonechloa Grass throughout this shade garden.  It is also known as Japenese Forest Grass, and its lime-green color should be a great accent in this shade garden.

Liriope or lily turf.  My mother-in-law told me about this plant, and I am very excited to try it.  It likes shade so I am going to put it in my shade spot that could use a makeover.

Plant What I Like to Decorate With

In the fall, I love decorating with Bittersweet.  One measly little bunch can be $15-$20, so I am growing my own.  I have heard Bittersweet can be thuggish, so I am going to plant carefully, but I do want it in my garden.  I also love to decorate with Red Dogwood Branches and Winterberry in the winter.  Every winter I think Why am I buying this?  I should have these to cut from in my yard. But then in the spring I forget about it.  This spring I am not going to forget.  It will be much cheaper to buy the shrubs than to purchase those individual twigs.  I also have a nice assortment of Evergreens to cut from to fill my window boxes:  Pine, Boxwood, and Cedar.

Plant Where It Counts

Both for fragrance as well as vantage point,  I am going to plant Lilies and Petunias underneath key windows and by doors.  The window I look out most is my – you guessed it – kitchen window.  I am going to focus on having 4-season interest.  This has been a work in progress, and I have finally made some strides here.  But it still needs work.   So for 2010 I hope to achieve this goal.

So far I have beautiful Alliums to look at in the early spring.  I am going to add a New Dawn White Climbing Rose that I see again and again in P. Allen Smith’s garden photos.  I am also going to make sure one of the Dogwoods with the red winter twigs will be in a spot that I can see out my kitchen window.  Of course it doesn’t get any better than a hot-pink Zinnia or sunny bright yellow Sunflower.  Annuals are great to plant in a key vantage point as they keep their color all summer long.

Reflecting on my 2009 garden

26 Apr

For me, surviving a Wisconsin winter entails poring over gardening magazines, catalogs and books.  I love mapping out my garden and coming up with new ideas.  I am happiest when I am creating.

A big part of that process is reflecting back on the previous year to understand what went right and what went wrong. I’ll share my thought here and then follow-up with a post about my plans for 2010!

The 2009 successes

Using white Cleome and white Snapdragons as a border mixing tall and medium and short. It provided a lot of white for nighttime interest and helped to protect Lilies from bunnies somehow.

Another big success for my garden has been Alliums.  Alliums are great because they are bulbs, which suppress weeds and form a natural barrier.  Alliums are also great because they are resistant to pesky predators like bunnies and deer since they are part of the onion family.  Rodents leave them alone.  Alliums also look great in the garden at all stages, when they are in bloom and when they are brown.  They also need very little attention such as staking.  I have grown the Globemaster Alliums but hope to get some other varieties, like Stars of Persia, into my garden.

Another 2009 Mel’s Green Garden hit was using fishing line for an invisible trellis. I will definitely be repeating this, as well as planting loads of White Cleomes, Dinner-Plate Dahlias and Old-fashioned Vining Petunias.

A successful 2009 Mel’s Green Garden combo that will definitely be repeated and rolled out on a larger scale was lime-green Zinnias combined with dark-purple Basil, dark-purple Persian Shield and dark-purple Transdancantia.

The 2009 misses

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted. — Randy Pausch

Birdhouse gourds

My biggest gardening failure of 2009 was with growing Birdhouse Gourds.  I was so excited to grow these to turn into birdhouses with my kids.  So I planted the seeds from Seed Savers.  I managed to grow only 2, which was a bit disappointing since I have 3 kids, but that was okay.  Then I picked them and started the drying-out process.  Something went seriously wrong, and they molded and became totally rotten and smushy.

But I will not give up!  I will try these again, and I have been consulting with other gardeners who have grown these successfully, to figure out where I went wrong.  Here’s to hoping that the birdhouse gourds appear in the “hits” post for 2010!

Better planning for the vining petunias

Buy more Old-fashioned Vining Petunias earlier.  Seeds, too.  This is one of my favorite flowers, and stores were sold out of the plants as well as the seeds very early.  I plan to hold back some of the seeds for July/August, to plant this continually to have the blooms constantly.

Fix the eye sores and neglected spots

I am going to try to do a better job growing a screen around my rain barrels.  They are very large, very white and really don’t look that great. I have grown Morning Glories up and around them in the past, and this works well but takes a while to get started.  I am going to try to have more coverage with a mix of taller grasses.

Plant more shrubs . . . the new perennial!

I am a big fan of of using Boxwoods as a border. But a look I see again and again that I would like to copy in several areas of my yard is to create a neat and tidy border with Boxwoods.  I think I am going to try this in my front yard.  I currently have Lamb’s Ear to edge my front-yard garden beds, with larger Boxwood in the shapes of cones.  I think it would look great to have the smaller Boxwoods in front as a neat and tidy border and to have different dimensions of the same plant.

At a recent Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society meeting, Ed Lyon, the director of Allen Centennial Gardens, said that this is the decade for Hydrangeas.  I love Hydrangeas and should have mentioned Limelight Hydrangeas and Annabelle Hydrangeas in the 2009 successes.  I would love to try a few other Hydrangea varieties, like Pinky Winky, Pee Gee and two that are new to the market this year:  Incrediball Hydrangea and Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangea.

Creating an Outdoor Living Room

21 Mar

When my daughter’s five-year-old friend asked if we were having a garage sale, I knew I hadn’t yet achieved the outdoor-living-room look I was going for.  It was time for me to pull it all together; my eclectic look wasn’t working.  It was evident that I finally reached my goal this past summer by the amount of time we spent in our outdoor living room.  My husband came home almost every night and worked on his laptop from the outdoor sofa.  We dined outdoors, weather permitting, most summer nights, which was great with my 15-month-old son — less mess.  Having a comfortable, beautiful outdoor space is an asset to your home and quality of life.  My outdoor living room is still a work in progress, but here are some tips I hope will help you create yours.

Furniture, Fabric, and Comfort

My number-one goal for my outdoor living room is comfort.  I want it to be a go-to place.  So I invested in a comfortable, good-looking outdoor sofa and pillows with great outdoor fabric.  I bought outdoor pillows from Restoration Hardware 9 years ago, and I leave them out in the rain and they still look sharp.  I bought white, wood Adirondack chairs from Cub Foods years ago for less then $20 each; yes, the pillows cost more than the chairs.  The outdoor sofa and cushions were from West Elm, but many stores carry a version, so there is one available at every price point.  To get a cohesive look this past summer, I took the garage-sale table, Craig’s List table and hand-me-down table and covered them with layers of burlap.  This is a fun choice because it is a neutral color and blends in with nature.  It can stay out through all weather and still look great, and it is cheap, cheap, cheap.  I love using burlap as an outdoor fabric.  I also purchased some fabulous sunbrella fabric, yellow-and-creamy-white-striped. I used this fabric to make curtains for our mudroom but have found it also makes great tablecloths, and I plan to make more outdoor pillows with the sunbrella fabric.

Lighting

I have not mastered this myself but enjoyed one of my friend’s gardens last summer at a night-time party.  She definitely mastered just the right amount of lighting by placing garden lights every 5-6 feet and then having traditional strings of lights hanging above.  It was remarkably beautiful and not too much.

Bug deterrent

I learned the most fabulous tip during our annual movie night for our block.  It was especially buggy, and a neighbor suggested we put out a fan.  She ran home and got a fan, and it was amazing.  It totally kept the air moving and the mosquitoes off of us and our outdoor-living-room area.  So for an organic, deet-free mosquito repellant, plug in a fan outside.

Lots of flowers!

Of course nothing beats hanging out on your comfy couch surrounded by beautiful flowers that smell great and attract fun birds and hummingbirds and monarch butterflies to watch for entertainment.

My outdoor living room is still a work in progress, but it is a comfortable and entertaining place to hang.

← Older Entries

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,191 other followers