Spring may seem a long way off, but if you are excited for spring gardening, why not start planning now? Serious gardeners have been formulating their plans all winter long. Whether you fancy yourself growing vegetables or flowers, here are a few tips to get you started. First of all, if you have never done […]
The poinsettia, the most popular holiday plant, is best known as the plant with bright red flowers on a green background. But, the showiest part of the poinsettia is the group of colorful specialized leaves called floral bracts that surround the small, yellowish-green structures that are the true flowers, said Michael N. Dana and B.
As trees in our urban and suburban landscapes prepare for winter dormancy and cold, theycould use a little extra care from you to ensure a good start in the spring. As the seasons change, trees prepare to overwinter in a dormant state. Dormancy is not death; it is a natural state inwhich trees prepare and
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Deicing salts are essential to winter travel and provide necessary safety in a landscape setting by melting dangerous ice on precarious steps, sidewalks, entryways, and other areas of frequent foot traffic. However, winter damage from salt can be a major problem in some landscapes by negatively impacting plant health or sometimes outright killing plants from
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Looking for a fun gardening project for chasing away your winter blues? Why not try growing Stevia in your windowsill garden. It may not be the most ornamental of plants, but hopefully will present a sweet reward for your efforts. Stevia rebaudiana, also known as sweetleaf and sugarleaf, is a low-growing, tender, perennial herb grown
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Most gardeners don’t think about burying their roses, but that’s essentially what they should do to protect them from winter’s extremes. Similar to hibernation in animals, roses and other woody plants go through a dormant (rest) period in the winter. The first step to winterizing roses is to keep them healthy through the growing season.
Perhaps the last garden chore of the season is tucking in the strawberry planting for winter. Strawberry plants have already set their buds for next spring’s flowers and the crop can be lost unless you protect them from harsh winter conditions. A fully dormant strawberry plant’s flower buds can be damaged at temperatures below 15
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Evergreen needles don’t last forever, and some trees lose their needles every single year! If you have conifers in your landscape, I hope this information may save you from unnecessary alarm. Dr. Rosie Lerner, the retired consumer horticulture specialist at Purdue University, wrote about this phenomenon. “Evergreens provide green color all year long, but that
Holiday cacti are short-day plants, meaning they will begin blooming as nights get longer and days get shorter. To initiate blooming, plants need to have at least 12 hours of continuous darkness for 5-6 weeks. Flower buds will not be set if the darkness is interrupted for too long (2+ hours). Once the flower buds
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Home gardeners have a vast variety of seeds to choose from when planning next year’s garden. Understanding seed terminology is important when deciding what to buy. It is easy to get confused with terms like heirloom, hybrid, non-GMO, and open-pollinated. Select the below link for a great explanation of types of seeds, from the University
