I should add “in absentia”… Played hooky from the convention center Thursday afternoon for a trip out to Plant Delights Nursery, Inc. with my former grad student and plant geek extraordinaire, Paul Westervelt. We followed proper Plant Delights etiquette: you make an appointment to visit at a time other than open house or tour. I teach herbaceous landscape plant i.d. as well as ornamental plant production courses, and take every opportunity to bring back images of new technology, growing systems, and great plants to my students. … Continue reading this article “More Good Stuff from the Garden Writer’s Conference in Raleigh”
Category: Diversions
My Favorite Class Project
Every year I teach a class called nursery management. In this class students have the opportunity to try all kinds of different growing techniques out in the nursery. They get to use a tree spade and prune and all kinds of other stuff. But something else that I have the students do is to make hydroponic systems for growing plants. No, hydroponics is not a common technique for growing plants in a nursery, but to grow plants hydroponically you need to know what you’re doing, and so this is a convenient way to make the students think about the plants they grow and what these plants need to prosper.… Continue reading this article “My Favorite Class Project”
Buddleia or Buddleja? I prefer butterfly bush…
…because apparently they can fly:
Buddleia or Buddleja?
I recently heard that Mike Dirr has come out with the next edition of his book on woody landscape plants. Dr. Dirr (I can’t seem to bring myself to call him Mike, even after all these years) was my major advisor in graduate school, so I’m really looking forward to getting it. In the meantime I heard that he included a section on my thoughts about how to spell the scientific name of the butterflybush, a plant that I worked on to get my Ph.D.. … Continue reading this article “Buddleia or Buddleja?”
Slugs and Beer: Not So Fast, My Friend…
[To those new to our blog, there are many past posts of scientifically-proven garden advice and research results…so pardon if we slip off the wagon just briefly.]
In response to the previous post:
Dr. Gillman, I’m simply shocked at your sloppy “materials and methods”.
What is that, a Frisbee? And you drink a beer called Moose Drool? Sounds intriguing, but probably too hoppy. No wonder the slugs were simply mocking your feeble attempts at attracting them.… Continue reading this article “Slugs and Beer: Not So Fast, My Friend…”
Slugs and Beer
Around my home I have gravel and hostas. Just perfect, as you might imagine, for lots of slug damage. This is where I do my work on slug remedies. And there are lots of remedies for slugs! One of the oldest of these remedies is beer. Almost any beer will be adequate (including alcohol free), but generally the darker the beer the better. When I first started testing different cures for slugs about five years ago one of the first ones that I looked at was beer. … Continue reading this article “Slugs and Beer”
Mmmmm…mulch!
It’s a nice sunny September day in Seattle and I’m in my happy place. What better topic to match my mood than mulch?
For those of you not familiar with my fixation on woody mulches, I’ll refer you to an article in MasterGardener Magazine here. Briefly, I am a fan of coarse, chunky organic mulch, particularly arborist wood chips or other chipped material from trees and shrubs.
Rather than send this material off to the landfill, it’s so much better to use it as a protective layer on top of your landscape soil. … Continue reading this article “Mmmmm…mulch!”
No Way! Something that actually works?
Sometimes I feel guilty because I always seem to be putting down the products that people sell to make their living. But not today! Today I’ve got something that actually works! No, it isn’t pretty, and it does have some irritating problems, but I can honestly say that it does what the company that manufactures it says it does. And that product is the Aqua Globe.
This is a very simple contraption (which is part of the reason that it works). … Continue reading this article “No Way! Something that actually works?”
Global Warming, Carbon Dioxide, and Plants
There was an article published recently that traced the melting of glaciers in the US over the last 50 years. This study showed, pretty convincingly, that the glaciers are, indeed, melting, and melting rapidly. Meanwhile, in our atmosphere, levels of carbon dioxide from humans burning fossil fuel are increasing in a manner roughly correlated to the increase in temperature that’s melting the glaciers. But is the carbon dioxide actually causing the warming? Believe it or not this is still an area of discussion among scientist, and the answer isn’t as simple as many newspapers make it out to be. … Continue reading this article “Global Warming, Carbon Dioxide, and Plants”
The Pile Of Ash On My Floor
Part of the problem with being a professor is that companies assume that I have a bottomless supply of funds to test their products and that it is, in fact, my duty to do so. And of course they assume that this testing will ultimately find their product useful.
The truth is that I do love to test things, but I don’t have the funds to do the comprehensive tests that these companies usually want, at least not without them helping out at least a little – and most of them don’t want to spend money on tests! … Continue reading this article “The Pile Of Ash On My Floor”