Fighting with Japanese beetles
This week, Japanese beetles showed up in the garden. They are the ones with the green heads and copper bodies, about a half-centimetre long. They are quite beautiful in the abstract; the problem is they have a taste for flowers, leaves, and fruit in gardens. We found them on our hibiscus, on our Rose of Sharon, and on our Stargazer Lilies. They are ravenous and eat through several layers of petals to the point where blooms look like Swiss cheese. They are known as skeletonize
Incorporating Art in your garden design
Incorporating Art into your garden is a great way to express your personal taste in your backyard or front garden. From the follies of English gardens, that were designed and built to look like classical Greek, Roman, Romanesque or Gothic ruins, to kitschy plastic flamingoes designed in 1957 by Don Featherstone, to garden gnomes that originated in Germany in the 19th century, Art in the garden has come a long way. What do you want to say with garden Art?
The first thing you
Deadheading spent flowers keeps more blooms coming
Many plants—and most annual bedding plants like geraniums, petunias, and begonias—will re-bloom if you deadhead them. Deadheading spent flowers (pruning them off) tricks the plant into producing more flowers. Flowers are the reproductive organs of many plants. So, the lifecycle of a plant is: grow, flower, get pollinated, produce seed, and die. When you deadhead flowers, the pollinated flowers are prevented from producing seeds. Instead, the plant produces more flowers, agai
The “5 Fs” of great garden design
The “5 Fs” of garden design are used by garden designers to take into account the many aspects needed in a successful planting plan. A garden designer uses live trees, shrubs, and plants to realize the homeowner’s vision for the space, whether this is the front garden, the backyard, or a side yard. Garden designers use the “5Fs” to consider the characteristics of each plant and their role in the overall garden design. In smaller gardens, all plants have to do double or triple
Treating sap-sucking scale in your garden
Gardening teaches you to be observant and to be patient. A case in point: One way to look at your garden is to admire your own handiwork. Admire the fruits of your own labour, so-to-speak. Another way of looking at your garden is: What is really going on in my little plot of land? What am I missing, meaning what insects and diseases may be lurking here, that I’m not paying attention to? Wise gardeners inspect their gardens weekly to see what is really going on. On our week
