Gardening with deer presents a unique set of challenges. Those of us familiar with the battle know how difficult it can be to have a beautiful garden in deer territory. The furry buggers seem to know exactly which plants are our favorites, don’t they? Over the last twenty years I’ve tended over 40 gardens as a professional horticulturist, and I’ve learned a lot about the ups and downs of gardening with deer in that time. Today, I’d like to share all of the things I’ve learned and present a four step plan for building gorgeous, nearly deer proof gardens.
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A chopstick tip to help separate seedlings
A couple of years ago, when I was volunteering in the annuals greenhouse at the Royal Botanical Garden, I got to do all sorts of different tasks. At one point during the winter, my job involved taking flats filled with delicate little seedlings and separating them into their own pots. Guess what my most valuable tool was? A chopstick. One of the volunteers taught me a chopstick tip to gently separate seedlings that are growing too closely together.
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Planting a spring herb garden for homegrown herbal teas
Last winter I was doing some research on the best herbs for container gardening, and the deeper I dove into the subject, the more I noticed that many of the herbs mentioned were also my favorites for making herbal teas. Mint, for example, is an excellent plant for teas, but its rambunctious, spreading roots make it a no-no for the garden (unless you have a whole lot of room!). Lemon balm came up repeatedly, too; I love it for the lemony zing it adds to teas, but it will easily overrun the garden. My takeaway from all that research was that most tea herbs are perfect plants for growing in containers. So, I added planting a spring herb garden to grow herbal teas in containers to my to-do list last March. Then, when planting time arrived a few weeks later, I came up with an awesome idea for creating a container herb garden that uses a unique repurposed container: an umbrella!
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Crops in pots: success with vegetable container gardening
There are many reasons to grow food in containers; no space for an in-ground garden, condo or apartment living, or you’re new to gardening and wish to start small. For me, I have a large raised bed vegetable garden, but I still love to fill my back deck with food plants. They’re nearby when I need a bunch of basil or a handful of cherry tomatoes, and they look great when paired with annual flowers like petunias, geraniums, salvia, and dianthus. Whatever your reasons for planting in pots, there are easy ways to increase your success with vegetable container gardening.
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6 things to think about before preparing a raised bed garden
Are you planning to build and/or install a raised bed? I like to emphasize that raised beds can go anywhere that gets six to eight hours of sunlight a day. And they can be any size you like. However, for the purpose of this article, I’m going to talk about the standard rectangular raised beds that are generally built from untreated, rot-resistant wood (like Niki’s amazing raised bed setup) or concrete blocks, as well as what you might want to think about when preparing a raised bed garden.
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Choosing the best bee plants for a pollinator garden
It’s a mighty good thing that so many gardeners have bees on the brain these days. With numerous North American native bee species in dramatic decline due to habitat loss, forage scarcity, pesticide exposure, and other negative impacts, bees are in desperate need of a helping hand. Thankfully, many gardeners are now stepping up to the plate, creating pollinator gardens for these incredible insects and providing them with much-needed nectar forage. But, our native bees need more than just nectar to survive. Well-equipped pollinator gardens are designed with bee nesting habitat in mind, too. Today, we’re teaming up with the folks at Nature Hills Nursery to take pollinator gardening to the next level by introducing you to the best bee plants for fulfilling both of these important bee needs.
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