You’ve likely heard of insect hotels, but what about a pollinator palace? At the 2017 RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London, England, in the Great Pavilion, I encountered this very unique structure for pollinators, artistically assembled, though a little wilder looking. Conceived by garden designer John Cullen of John Cullen Gardens, gabions filled with layers of live plant material and items found in nature were placed among a regular garden with trees, flowers, and groundcover.
The daylily: A perfect perennial for the summer garden
A daylily is perhaps the perfect perennial. It thrives in full sun to partial shade, grows happily in a range of soil conditions, is resistant to most pests and diseases, is drought-tolerant, and blooms for weeks each summer. Plus, there are thousands of varieties to choose from in a dazzling assortment of flower sizes, shapes, and colors.
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Shasta Daisy: Growing tips, varieties, and pollinator power
Though I love my vegetable garden, as a horticulturist my first “plant love” was perennials. I spent ten years in my early career tending 35 different perennial gardens in and around the city of Pittsburgh. That’s where I developed a great appreciation for these wonderful plants. Seeing them return to those gardens year after year, bigger and better than the season before, was a great confidence booster, especially for a young gardener. Perennials are among the most reliable and low-maintenance plants, and if you mix and match the right selections, you’ll have a beautiful show of blooms all season long. Among my most favorite perennials is the Shasta daisy, a hardy, rabbit- and deer-resistant perennial with a long bloom time and very few pest troubles.
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The best tomatoes for containers and 7 strategies for growing them in pots
Tomatoes are the most popular vegetable grown in gardens, but even small or no-space gardeners can enjoy a harvest of homegrown tomatoes when they plant in containers. Tomatoes are a vegetable that thrives when grown in pots and you can help ensure success when you pick the best varieties for containers and pair them with my seven strategies for growing a bumper crop of delicious tomatoes in pots.
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Grub worm control: Organic solutions to safely get rid of lawn grubs
Though most of the insects you find in your garden won’t cause harm to your plants, there are certainly some that do, especially if their population grows out of control. For homeowners who have lawns, the grub worm is one such pest. Also commonly called grubs, lawn grubs, white grubs, or turf grubs, these critters feed on the roots of lawn grass and can cause significant damage if there are a lot of them infesting a lawn. Before learning how to control grub worms, it’s important to know how to properly identify them and determine how many is too many for your lawn to handle.
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Fertilizer numbers: What they mean and how to use them to grow better
Garden centers and nurseries are beautiful places, but they can also be very confusing, especially for new gardeners. Shelves filled with fertilizer choices are enough to make your head spin. What’s in all of those bags and bottles of fertilizer anyway? What do the fertilizer numbers on the package mean? And does it really matter which one you choose for your garden? Let’s take a close look at plant fertilizer numbers and how they can help you grow your best garden ever.
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