A fully grown garden spider can be an intimidating sight. Often spotted in the landscape when they reach maturity in late summer, these big, black and yellow spiders and their large, circular webs are hard to miss. They almost seem to appear overnight. But, despite their intimidating appearance, garden spiders are good guys who deserve a home in your garden. Continue Reading
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Garden spider: A welcome friend or a scary foe?
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How to divide irises
The front garden in my first home featured huge, gorgeous bearded irises that framed both sides of the front door. The massive blooms were a deep purple hue, and you had to be careful not to brush them with your clothes as you went into the house. Sadly, that house and garden were torn down after we sold, but luckily, I had divided some irises and gifted them to my mom, who in turn gifted some to me once I moved into my current house. These beauties live on in my front garden. Now it’s time to divide again, so here are a few tips that explain how to divide irises.
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When to harvest potatoes in garden beds and containers
Potatoes are one of the easiest crops to grow producing a bounty of tasty tubers when planted in garden beds and containers. Plus, there’s so many awesome potato varieties to grow – from fingerlings to russets – in a rainbow of colors. But as the crop is produced below ground, it’s hard to tell when the tubers are ready to dig. So, how DO you know when to harvest potatoes?
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How to get rid of slugs in the garden: 8 organic control methods
Slugs are one of the most common garden pests, though unlike most other leaf-munching critters you find in your garden, they aren’t insects. Instead, slugs are land-dwelling mollusks that are more closely related to clams than beetles or caterpillars. Facing a slug infestation is serious business, filled with slime trails, damaged leaves, and missing seedlings. Figuring out how to get rid of slugs in the garden without turning to harsh synthetic chemical slug baits, is a task ripe with old wives’ tales and useless homemade remedies. But, the truth is that effective organic slug control is both manageable and affordable, when you’re armed with the following tips and information. Continue Reading
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Growing cucamelons in a garden
What’s the most popular crop in our vegetable garden? Easy! It’s cucamelon. The fruits, which look exactly like tiny watermelons, rarely make it into the kitchen; instead, we gobble them up by the handful, straight from the vines. The plant is a distant relative of cucumbers, and these inch-long fruits do have a cucumber-like flavor with a pleasing citrus tang. Growing cucamelons in garden beds and containers is an easy way to enjoy this unusual vegetable.
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Dwarf flowering shrubs for small gardens and landscapes
Gardens in suburbia seem to be shrinking. As houses grow bigger, yards grow smaller and there’s less and less room to garden. Combine that limited space with shrinking free time and narrowing gardening budgets, and you have the perfect recipe for an overgrown landscape. Smaller gardens quickly become overrun by full-size shrubs when the homeowner doesn’t have the time to be constantly pruning them to a suitable size. Thankfully, plant breeders are coming to the rescue by selecting and developing many new varieties of dwarf flowering shrubs for small gardens that stay naturally petite without a lot of fuss. Continue Reading
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