I am just about the laziest gardener you’d ever want to meet. Around my field plots at the school things tend to look good –but that’s part of my job. Around my home, well, I probably water my plants once or twice a year, I fertilize every few years. I almost never use herbicides or … Continue reading Being Lazy Has Its Advantages
Today I was sent a link to a posting on “droopy leaves.” Essentially, it suggests that droopy leaves are a means to conserve water on hot days and that watering these plants causes more problems than it solves because the roots don’t get enough oxygen. A link to the science of transpiration is provided. The advice … Continue reading Hot weather and not-so-hot advice
Every extension specialist or educator that mentions any kind of pesticide in a talk or article always includes the disclaimer ‘Read and follow all label directions.” However that caveat ranks somewhere between “Your seat cushion may be used as a flotation device” and “Do not remove tag under penalty of law” as the most ignored phrase … Continue reading Read and follow label directions…
Spring (in either hemisphere) is an incredibly busy time for anyone even remotely associated with horticulture – a frenzy of growing, selling, buying, planting, and information-disbursing. If gardening were this wildly popular year-round, there might even be some money to be made. For us Hort faculty, spring means field trips, student plant sales, cramming even … Continue reading Pause for effect…
Soil solarization is regarded as an environmentally friendly alternative to pesticides for controlling nematodes, weeds and disease. Sheets of plastic (generally clear) are spread over the ground and solar energy heats the soil underneath to temperatures as high as 55C (or 131F). Since the soil environment is usually insulated from temperature extremes, the organisms that … Continue reading Mortal Kombat – garden version
This week I got a complimentary copy of Urban Farm, dedicated to “sustainable city living.” The cover story is Lasagna Giardino – follow this recipe for a lasagna garden that grows perfect plants – Italian or not. This is not a new idea, but was popularized several years ago as a way of preparing soil … Continue reading Is “lasagna gardening” really worth the effort?
We’re supposed to get an inch or two of snow tomorrow. It was 75 degrees last week. Typical schizophrenic spring weather. But spring was already in full bloom a few weeks ago in Dallas, Texas. Our group of Virginia Tech floriculture faculty and grad students visited for the National Floriculture Forum, a meeting of researchers … Continue reading It’s Spring-o’clock Somewhere…
Recently I posted that many of the “rules” that gardeners cling to so tightly regarding tree planting (i.e., dig the planting hole 3 times the width of the root ball, always amend the backfill with organic matter) are probably better considered ‘suggestions’ than rules. While these practices won’t hurt, there are much better ways to … Continue reading Keep Calm and Carry On: Part II
Doing this… I must identify each and every Wave petunia! leads to this… and this… Unfortunately, the second and third photo are from a college teaching and display garden. There are a lot of inexpensive yet more attractive ways to relate plant identification to your visitors. We all do this, of course, to some extent … Continue reading Mouse Tombstones
You were too smart for me this week. Though my husband was convinced that Friday’s photo was not enough to help identify the plant, JRR, Foy, and an unnamed commenter all recognized hellebore: Always a welcome sight in the spring. And don’t be fooled by those old wives’ tales that hellebores don’t like wood chip … Continue reading Heck, it’s hellebore!