Janet Macunovich and Steven Nikkila help you grow
Issue #182, May 27, 2012
Scroll this Summary of the What's Up news.
Each title takes you to a fully illustrated article.
This week: 20 new articles with 101 new images
Top stories of plants and procedures.
For peonies in a vase: Snip them in bud -- no ants taken in, none required.
Bonus: Peony plant stays healthier when it's deadheaded, and why.
Tips for better cut flowers: Clean water, separation from bananas, no one-sided light and leaving the best to seed your garden.
The bud says it all about this issue: Full of promise, pretty when opened, intriguing to lots of different critters!
A primer for planting well and tending container gardens so they just keep getting better right into fall. Start with a light, airy soilless potting mix, water well, and then fertilize like a pro and deadhead ruthlessly.
Fallen behind, or just overwhelmed on a regular basis? Track your work in a small, important area, use that to make a realistic estimate of what-all you can do, then apply. Examples in a small garden, large project and regarding individual plants. With tips for finding garden help.
Redbud wants to be 30 feet tall, we can allow 15-20. Illustrated how-to.
Gold Mop false cypresses reclaimed from being too tall, foliage-thin and awkwardly shaped.
Many Japanese maples and other frost damaged trees now have all new foliage. Most are still in the process of pushing new growth from bare wood. Give plants yet another week before pruning as more bare wood may revive.
We are keeping a chronological report and damage lists on GardenAtoZ.com and on our Forum.
We feel very sad for those who thought the earlier frost damage was death and removed a tree before it could re-leaf.
You plant the tomato only a few inches deep but it performs based on an 18-inch root run. How we perforated a buried rocky hard pan to make a grand new vegetable bed.
Some big trees lost all their leaves to frost, produced another set... and used double the water. A tree draws heavily, from a big area. Look now at which understory plants need supplements.
Can the joy of spare clean gloves cancel out the burden of heavy, sticky mulch and a wimpy low-tire garden cart?
Have you battled quack grass in a lawn? Have ideas for others waging that war, or want ideas for your own fight? Other than to tear up the lawn and start with new sod, that is...
We're listing, and gathering, ideas for effective Search of ours and others' sites.
These insects leave squiggle patterns in the leaves, but they don't kill the plant. In fact, it's pretty tough to kill columbine! So we have options, including a quick, drastic cut.
No frost in the ground this past winter, so the runners ran further around. On the other hand, climbing hydrangea's flowers may have fizzled forlackof cold. In our news and on our Forum.
We are never alone in the garden, for the gardening advice that came to us from a parent, neighbor or other veteran gardener grows on.
Mom's voice comes back to Janet with every tomato set in deep and on an angle. You can net a few extra tomato roots, too, and a stronger plant, if you like she taught.
More stories below, we simply pause for this plea:
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Enough said! They must be seen to be known, sniffed to be rated.
"What happened next" from previous articles. Celebrating the hits, updating the misses.
To clean a blade in case of disease, dip or wipe with 10% bleach or 70% alcohol for 30 seconds. However, experts now say that it's more important to work dry and clean ourhands.
We haven't meant to "cut you out." We have more Garden by Janet & Steven sessions and talks planned. Bookmark our calendar! For pruning, don't miss Conifer College July 12.
Gardening along a fence? Don't forget to plant a root barrier to stop the low level creeps that will try to invade your yard.
Once again, we see the flowers, then right away the wilt and dead vines. Let's make it the last year for such disappointment, and look into resistant replacements.
Once in a great while, all the gloves come home to roost. For a chance at a new pair of great gloves, want to guess how many flocked at our last gathering?