My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant's point of view. ~H. Fred Ale

�They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.� ~ Tom Boddett, originally uploaded by Abby Lanes.

Meet some of my latest rose blooms. After adding a picket fence to my front yard, it was quickly followed with the addition of some pretty pink roses.



I'll share photos with the fence soon too.

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[Source: Simply Flowers]

Dividing Perennial Plants

The idea of dividing perennials can scare new gardeners. Division of perennials is an easily mastered gardening technique that is good for the plants and your garden. Most perennial flowers will need to be divided to remain vigorous and continue blooming season after season.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Gerber Daisies, Transvaal Daisy, African Daisy - Gerbera jamesonii

Gerbera jamesonii (Gerber Daisy)

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Winter Rose Care

All rose plants need some attention going into winter. Winter weather can really challenge rose bushes, particularly the hybrid teas. You will need to discourage new growth and make sure the rose plants in your garden are well water and well mulched. Look out for overwintering garden pests and diseases too.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Coral Bells - Heuchera

Heuchera (Coral Bells)

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Garden Magzines - Top Picks

Gardening magazines are monthly garden inspiration. They tell us about new plants, garden design ideas and gardening techniques. Gardening books are like old friends. Garden magazines offer endless new gardening possibilities. Here are my picks for the top gardening magazines.




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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Iris

Iris (Bearded Iris)

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Carpet Phlox, a great groundcover

When this blog started I really liked Ice Plant and it was my favorite groundcover. Not anymore. As much as I liked ice plant for it’s drought invulnerability and it’s nonstop all summer long flowers, it is only marginally hardy here and I had problems keeping it coming back.
I planted some carpet phlox way back [...]

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[Source: Backyard Gardening Blog]

Growing Okra

Okra is grow for its long, pointed seed pods, which are used in gumbos and soups. Okra is a warm season vegetable that can easily be grown in home vegetable gardens. Its flowers resemble hibiscus and okra makes a nice ornamental plant as well.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Whitefly

Whitefly

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Container Garden Plants

Container gardens offer the advantage of changing your garden with every season. The choice of plant material is limited only by your climate and your imagination. Keep in mind the scale of the container and how aggressively the plant grows. While you want your container garden to look full, fast growers will quickly outgrow their pots.

The following choices should get you thinking.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Saving Tomato Seeds

Seed saving is the only way to make sure you have seeds of your favorite plants to grow each year. Tomato seeds need special handling to ensure good germination. Here's how to begin saving tomato seeds.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Rose Growing Problems

Choosing the right type of rose and giving it the care that it needs are common sense approaches to carefree plants. Planting your roses in combination with other plants, rather than in an exclusively rose garden, can further cut down on problems. However we are often drawn to the beautiful prima donas in the rose world and these will require more attention. The best remedy for rose problems is a good defense.




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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Scale Insects

Scale are tiny parasitic insects that adhere to plants and live off the plant�s sap. They look like bumps on the plant�s stem and are often mistaken for a disease. There are some 7,000 species of scale insect, varying in color and size.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Cucumber Bacterial Wilt

Cucumber vines that mysteriously wilt and die off are probably infected with bacterial wilt. Cucumber bacterial wilt is transmitted by the cucumber beetle. There�s not much you can do once the vines are infected with cucumber bacterial wilt, but you can take some measures early in the season to protect your young cucumber plants. Here�s help for cucumber bacterial wilt.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Earwig Control in the Garden

How to get rid of earwigs in your garden. While earwigs do feed on plants, the amount of damage they do shouldn’t present a major problem in most gardens. In fact, earwigs even eat aphids, snails and some types of larvae, so it might be a plus that they are there. However, there are times when earwigs can be considered a pest. When that happens,

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

No Deadhead Perennials

Some perennial plants require no deadheading to remain attractive all season. These perennial flowers won't bloom again, so no deadheading is needed. There's less effort on your part, but just as much enjoyment.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

How to Protect a Row of Seedlings from a Late Freeze

I live in Michigan, we are not blessed with the longest growing season known to man. So we try to stretch that, and to stretch it we need to be able to protect plants from late frosts or Freezes as late as late May if we’re really unlucky.
You can put in a hoophouse or something [...]

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[Source: Backyard Gardening Blog]

Garden Maintenance

Flower gardens require constant maintenance to look their best. Common garden chores like pruning, pinching and deadheading are easy to master, as show here in this step-by-step photo tutorial.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Roses from Cuttings

Ever wonder if you could root and grow branches from your favorite rose bush? With a little care, roses root very easily. You won't always get exactly what you started with, but it's fun trying. And here's how.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Groundhogs How Can One Animal Eat So Much?

Truth be told, I think groundhogs are adorable looking creatures. But much like Bambi, when groundhogs are in your garden, they're going to need more than a cute face to escape a gardener's wrath. Unlike Bambi and her kin, it seems groundhogs have never met a plant they didn't find tasty. They can wipe out a garden overnight and bring a grown gardener to tears.

Many people will tell you there is no solution for groundhogs except trapping them. Even that is only a temporary cure, since new groundhogs will find the old burrows and tunnels and move right in. Of course, first you have to identify the perpetrator as a groundhog, since you won't often catch them in the act. David Beaulieu can help with that, as well as offering some other Options for Groundhog Control.

Photo: Tim Boyle / Getty Images News

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[Source: About.com Gardening]

Hydrangea Colors

Hydrangeas have a reputation for being chamaeleons, but not all hydrangeas change color. Generally you will need to grow Big Leaf Hydrangeas, Hydrangea macrophylla, to get the pink or blue color you are seeking. You needn�t become a chemist, but you will need to understand why your hydrangeas change color. Here's why.


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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

#10 -There are Many Bellflowers, but Campanula persicifolia Makes the Cut

Peach Leaved Bellflower

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Backyard Frog Pond

Backyard Frog Pond

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Fall Bloomers

Perennial gardens change with the seasons and the fall garden is one of the most colorful seasons in the garden. Many fall blooming perennial flowers display jewel tone blossoms that complement the fall foliage display of trees and shrubs. The choice of fall blooming perennial plants keeps growing.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Spittlebug

Spittlebugs are so named because the nymph can whip up a frothy covering to protect itself. All you are likely to see of spittlebugs is the foam on a plant leaf or stem joint. Spittlebugs look unsightly, but they don�t really do much damage. To control spittle bugs,




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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Cabbage & Kale

Cabbage and kale are among the hardiest and most nutritious vegetables a home gardener can grow. They are also very easy to grow, especially for home vegetable gardeners in cooler climates. Beautiful, in shades of pale yellow to wrinkled steel blue and ranging in flavor from sweet and crisp to tangy, cabbage and kale are versatile vegetables and there�s a variety suited to almost every garden.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Pictures of My Front Yard

My front yard is looking really good this year, and I thought I would share a picture. Here it is circa May 23rd 2009.


Click the picture to see it bigger. The two smaller beds are brand new, I’ve got two dwarf apples and a paw paw tree planted in them, as well as some vegetables. [...]

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[Source: Backyard Gardening Blog]

How to Stake a Tree

Short answer, don’t. Most trees that are staked do not need to be. In fact I would venture that most trees you, the individual homeowner, plant do not need to be staked. Yes, any tree small enough to be handled by one person really doesn’t need to be staked. Trees only need to be steaked [...]

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[Source: Backyard Gardening Blog]

Recycle Nursery Pots, Grow Potatoes

What do you do with the big mammajamma containers that trees or large shrubs are delivered in from the nursery? Well you could recycle them if they’re made of #2 plastic, but many are made of #5 or something and unable to be recycled (at least at our recycling center) and in anycase reuse is [...]

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[Source: Backyard Gardening Blog]

Ripening Green Tomatoes

There are always green tomatoes left on the vine in the fall. Deciding whether to pick green tomatoes is a tough call. And then there�s the problem of how to get green tomatoes to ripen. Here are some tips to keep your tomato plants healthy into the fall season and for getting those green tomatoes to ripen on the vine or how to salvage the obstinate green tomatoes you actually have to pick while still green.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Dividing Bearded Iris

Bearded Iris are tall, elegant additions to the flower border, but they are also relatively high maintenance. You can help cut down on the incidence of soft rot and borer damage through regular division of the iris rhizomes, every 2-3 years. This will also keep bearded iris performing and blooming at its best. Dividing iris isn't hard. Start by carefully digging and lifting the rhizomes, as shown here.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Container Ornamental Grasses

Growing ornamental grasses in containers is a great way to feature grasses without the worry of them spreading or taking over the garden. The downside is that when growing grasses in containers, their hardiness is raised by about 2 zones. An ornamental grass hardy to Zone 5, when planted in the ground, will only survive to Zone 7 in a pot. However, you can always grow container grasses as annuals. Here are my top ten picks for ornamental grasses grown in containers.


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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Video: How to Build a Raised Island Bed with Retaining Wall Bricks

I’m doing videos now, this is the first one I’ve posted (though the fourth I’ve filmed). Some notes.
1. Expect to spend around $5 a linear foot for a 2 brick above ground (3 rows total) retaining wall as in the video. This assumes $1.50 per brick.
2. Use high quality soil for back filling. I used [...]

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[Source: Backyard Gardening Blog]

How to Grow Rudbeckia

Rudbeckia are easy to establish, naturalize well and require little maintenance other than deadheading. Black-eyed Susan's come in a rich array of yellows, golds, oranges and russets. For a dependable, long season bloomer that brings a smile to faces, you can�t go wrong with Rudbeckia. Here are some tips for choosing and growing Black-eyed Susans, Brown-eyed Susans and all the Gloriosa Daisies in between.


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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Growing Rhubarb

Is rhubarb a vegetable? A fruit? An ornamental plant? It�s a very ornamental vegetable that is usually prepared and eaten much like a fruit. All that and it�s perennial in many areas. Rhubarb is a cool season crop that is grown for its fibrous leaf stalks, which are a wonderful sweet-tart treat. These tips should help you get your rhubarb started right and growing well.



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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Top Cut Flowers

Repeat blooming annuals are favored for cutting gardens, but many perennial flowers do wonderfully well as cut flowers. What makes for a good cut flower is a stem that is long enough and sturdy enough to hold the flower in an arrangement and a flower that lasts and looks good for several days. That gives the gardener a wide choice for choosing flowers to grow in a cutting garden. The following lists offer suggestions for great cut flowers.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

More Plants From Cuttings

Increase the plants in your home and garden by taking cuttings from existing plants and rooting them to make more plants.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Growing Hot Peppers

Chili peppers have the distinction of being welcome I both vegetable gardens and flower borders. While hot peppers may seem exotic, they are very easy to grow almost anywhere, even indoors. The assortment of hot peppers, whether Jalapeno, Serrano, Cayenne, Habanero or Thai, offers something for every garden and every pallette.


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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

How to Protect Plants from Frost, and Building Microclimates

So, bad knews. I thought last weekend was the end. I allowed myself to say “Wow, no late frosts this year, awesome!” Boy was that stupid. Now, tonight, they’re predicting a late frost.
I bought some hardy kiwi vines in 2004 and they have grown quite a bit. Had I known in advance I would have [...]

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[Source: Backyard Gardening Blog]

Growing Lettuce in Summer

Summer is thought of as a cool season crop, bolting with the first hint of heat. There are a few tricks to prolong the lettuce harvest throughout the summer season.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Fall Perennial Pruning

It can be nice to leave some perennials standing for winter interest. But many perennial plants don�t survive rough weather well. Many plants have recurrent problems with pests and diseases, which will over winter in their fallen foliage and surface in the spring. The following list of perennial flowers survive and thrive better if pruned or cut down in the fall.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Using Pressure Treated Lumber in Raised Garden Beds

I am a man of science. I don�t believe in anecdotes, and having an analytical mind and having been exposed to rigorous scientific study in college when I was a research assistant in a lab, as well as of course the academic work in college, I�ve always looked at things scientifically, and today I�m going [...]

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[Source: Backyard Gardening Blog]

Controlling Japanese Beetles

p]Japanese beetles can create havoc in a garden by feeding on the leaves of a number of different plants, skeletonizing the leaves and eventually defoliating the plants. An individual Japanese beetle doesn�t do that much damage while feeding on a plant, but they tend to congregate in large numbers and can easily defoliate shrubs and trees. If the problem beomes severe, try one of these control suggestions.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Black Foliage Shrubs

Shrubs add four season stucture to a garden. They are considered the bones of a garden's design. Elderberries (Sambucus) have long been garden favorites because so many shrubs in the species Sambucus offer great foliage, fall color and wonderful berries. Sambucus Black Beauty (Sambucus nigra �Gerda� PP12305, Canadian BRAF) and Sambucus Black Lace (Sambucus nigra �Eva� ppaf) are two recent introductions that add depth and interest to any garden with their deep purple, almost black foliage.



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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Staking Perennials

Many perennial flowers need to be staked or supported as they grow, to keep from flopping. Staking should be done before the plant is full grown and before it sets flower buds. Early spring plant staking will provide a more natural look and not disturb flower production or growing roots.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Dealing with Leaf Galls

Leaf gall, those alarming bumps that appear to be something suddenly infesting plant leaves, are actually the plant�s defensive response to insects or mites that have been feeding on its foliage. Leaf galls are far less harmful to the tree than their appearance would suggest.




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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Growing Plants from Seed

Starting plants from seed isn't rocket science, but there are several seed starting tips that will help your success rate with seed germination and give your seedlings a healthy start. Here's how to start seeds indoors and the seed starting supplies you'll need to grow plants from seed.

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

#8 -One of the Best Repeat Blooming Spiky Blues

Liatris spicata (Gay Feather, Dense Blazing Star) 'Kobold'

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]

Gaillardia, Blanket Flower

Gaillardia, Blanket Flower Photo

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[Source: About.com Gardening: Most Popular Articles]