6.Feed flowering shrubs, trees and vines Although compost makes an ideal spring tonic for plants, to keep them blooming their best, flowering shrubs, trees and vines benefit by a dose of fertilizer too. Apply slow-release fertilizer granules formulated for flowering shrubs and vines such as roses, clematis and rhododendrons – then stand back and watch them [...]
5.Compost Rules! Take only one piece of advice and yours will be the most robust garden in the neighbourhood: Feed the soil to feed your plants. One of the best ways to feed the soil of perennial garden beds is to top-dress them with a layer of compost every spring. Compost adds nutrients to the [...]
4.Plant before the rush Hardy perennials can weather the pre-May 24 weather, so beat the rush to the nursery and select some of the season’s choicest plants as soon as they arrive. Once the ground has thawed and dried out, it’s a good time to plant shrubs and trees too, especially magnolias, birch, oak, yews, rhododendrons [...]
3. Divide and conquer Think back to last season. Did the flowers of your phlox seem a bit smaller than previous seasons? Did the middle of your clump of dianthus brown out? Were the stems of your yarrow so tightly packed that they seemed to be choking the life out of the plant? These are [...]
2.Prune it out Rule one of pruning: if a shrub blooms in spring or early summer, wait to prune until after it blooms. Otherwise, you’ll be nipping the current season’s flowers in the bud! Now is the time to prune late-flowering shrubs such as rose of Sharon, hydrangea (the mop-headed Annabelles can be cut right [...]
1.Make Cut Backs Stems and stalks of perennials like sedum, coneflower and phlox look wonderful growing through drifts of snow, but let’s face it, they’ve served their purpose, and as the world around them starts to turn green, their unsightly brown clumps should be chopped to the ground. Also remove the dead leaves of coral bells, [...]
From October 16 to 18, the tiny town of Bala celebrated its 25th anniversary of the annual Cranberry Festival. Why cranberries in Bala? Well, it seems that this area of Muskoka is filled with acidic marshes and wetlands that are so ideal for cranberry-growing. Like most first-time visitors, I trekked out to Johnston’s (Est. 1952) for a tour [...]
9. BirdCam “Look at the birdie!” has never had more meaning. While roaming the exhibit hall for new gardening products at the 2009 Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh, North Carolina, I found a great bird-watching gadget. The Audubon BirdCam actually lets you capture images of the birds that visit your backyard feeder. This weather-resistant outdoor [...]
Who would have thought that a lecture on plant pests and disease would be one of the highlights of the 2009 Garden Writers Symposium in Raleigh, North Carolina? Here’s why Jim Chatfield’s talk ranked #3 of 12 great things I found at Raleigh. 3. Jim Chatfield Got diseased or buggy plants? Who you gonna call? [...]
I should know by now that gardening life rarely leads us down a straight and narrow path. But a cooking show, and a healthy one at that? But that’s exactly where my gardening friends, Carol Cowan, Carol Gardner and Lorraine Hunter and I wound up. Last week, W Network’s Healthy Gourmet, televised on the VIVA channel, taped [...]
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