If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might remember that I got rid of our lawn (getting rid of your lawn post) at our Seattle house . It took too much water to keep it green in the summer, and the resulting ornamental landscape was more ecologically diverse and aesthetically pleasing for such a small site.
[This blog post has been provided by Bec Wolfe-Thomas, an administrator for the Garden Professors blog group on Facebook.]
Woodpeckers (Picidae) frequently get a bad rap from gardeners. It’s often their impression that the birds irreparably damage trees, but this is untrue. Most woodpeckers are insect eaters; they can hear insects under the bark and in the wood of trees. They then target their drilling with uncanny precision to get their meal.… Continue reading this article “Woodpeckers: Friends or Foes?”
Dig up dirt. Treat like dirt. Dirt poor. Replace the word “dirt” with “soil” and you get phrases that make no sense. This is a roundabout way of explaining that “dirt” and “soil” are not the same things, either in idioms or in the garden. Yet many of us effectively turn our soils into dirt through poor garden practices.
For the purposes of this post, we’re going to use a single criterion to distinguish between soil and dirt: one is a living ecosystem and the other is not.… Continue reading this article “Soil or dirt? It’s really up to you”
It’s Halloween and terrifying things abound – particularly at garden centers. Below you’ll find a pictorial approach to four frightful follies. Enjoy – and keep your garden safe!
Scary soaps. No. Not on your soil to aerate it. Not on your plants as part of some homemade devil’s brew. Soap stays in your house.
Petrifying phosphate. Not for flowers. Definitely not for transplanting. No matter how friendly and natural they look on the shelf, they are death to mycorrhizae and any aquatic system they wash into.… Continue reading this article “Garden potions and notions to avoid”
In the fall a gardener’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of pruning (with apologies to Alfred, Lord Tennyson). In particular, people worry that pruning too late in the summer or early fall will stimulate plants to send out new growth, which is then damaged by freezing temperatures. Let’s dissect what actually happens when woody plants are pruned during this time.
First, we need to separate temperate trees and shrubs from tropical and subtropical species. For the most part, the latter don’t become winter dormant: pruning them at any time means you will have regrowth as long as there are sufficient resources.… Continue reading this article “Late summer pruning: what happens, what won’t, and why”
This isn’t the first time I’ve ranted about bad mulch choices and it certainly won’t be the last. But this pictorial cautionary tale is too important to pass up.
We already know that sheet mulches can be death to microbes, plant roots and animals living in the soil underneath. Our newly published research shows that landscape fabric reduces carbon dioxide movement between the soil and atmosphere about 1,000 times more than wood chip mulches do: plastic mulches are even worse.… Continue reading this article “Landscape fabric – a cautionary tale”
Regular blog readers will remember that we moved to my childhood home a few years ago. With an acre or so of landscape I finally have enough room to put in a vegetable garden. My husband built a wonderful raised bed system, complete with critter fencing, and we’ve been enjoying the fresh greens and the first few tomatoes of the season.
We filled these raised beds with native soil. During a porch addition I asked the contractor to stockpile the topsoil near the raised beds.… Continue reading this article “Why soil tests matter: lessons from my vegetable garden”
About this time last year I posted photos of the installation of my new pollinator gardens (all perennials). As you can tell from the photos below, all of these plants have not only survived but thrived with their midsummer rootwashing.
The only ones that didn’t make it were the six Lavandula stoechas ‘Bandera Purple’ (see above). They did fine through the summer and well into winter. But with our surprise snowstorm in February (along with a 20-degree temperature drop in one night – from 33 to 14F), all but one of these marginally hardy plants (USDA zones 7-10) gave up the ghost.… Continue reading this article “Give me your huddled root masses yearning to breathe free”
Way back in 2010 (and then again in 2012) I wrote about a bizarre belief that cornmeal could be used to treat fungal diseases, from lawn spot to athlete’s foot. Rather than rehash what’s already been written, I’ll invite readers to read those posts for background. And of course look at the comments, which are…interesting.
The weird thing is that this post from 2010 is the single most popular post on the blog. (Our stats are only for the last two years since we migrated the web site – who knows how many there were before May 2017?)… Continue reading this article “Cornmeal magic – the myth that will not die”
Today’s blog post is courtesy of Mary Blockberger of Sechelt, BC. As you’ll see, Mary and I go way back. I thought it was important to our ongoing discussion to see how the industry can use the root-washing technique effectively and economically. Here’s Mary:
“Before I began managing the Sunshine Coast Botanical Garden in Sechelt, BC I had a small residential landscaping company. By small, I mean that I was the employee of the month every month of the year! … Continue reading this article “Bare Rooting – a guest post from a commercial landscaper”