- Author: Kamille Hammerstrom
Deadheading is the practice of removing spent blooms from your annuals and perennials. Flowers should be removed as soon as they fade, before forming seeds. There are a number of good reasons to deadhead:
- Deadheading may prolong the bloom time of perennials
- Deadheading may enable annuals to flower continuously through the summer
- Deadheading may allow annuals to maintain a more attractive growth habit
- Deadheading will prevent seedheads from forming, thereby preventing reseeding where you don't want it
- Deadheading can make your garden look neater
- Deadheading may be a theraputic form of stress relief!
In order to deadhead, you need only simple...
- Author: Mandy Salm
- Editor: Kamille Hammerstrom
The large, stunning landscape plant Dasylirion longissimum, or Mexican Grass Tree, is native to the hot, dry Chihuahuan desert and other xeric habitats in northeastern Mexico. The fine, graceful 4' glaucous leaves radiate out densely from a large, woody trunk and form a large half sphere. The stiff, narrow, smooth and satiny 1/4” to 3/8” leaves sway and shimmer beautifully with the slightest breeze, providing interest year-round. Given plenty of space, as it grows to 8' in diameter and 15' or taller at maturity, this evergreen, flowering plant makes a unique focal point in a xeric or drought tolerant landscape.
The requirements for this grass tree to be successful are full sun, well-drained soil and no or...
- Author: Delise Weir
- Editor: Kamille Hammerstrom
Perhaps you're busy and want your weekend to relax, or you have a bad back or you just moved and your soil is hard like concrete, or you just don't feel like digging and lifting and turning the dirt in your backyard when spring fever hits and you want to start a spring vegetable garden. Here are a couple of strategies for the lazy, busy or physically limited gardener to help you get started and incorporate some vital organic material. The object of the exercise is to transform whatever kind of soil you have into loose, rich, fluffy soil that's teeming with beneficial, microscopic life. Each one of these strategies incorporates tradeoffs between the inputs of
Time : Money : Effort
- Author: Paul McCollum
- Editor: Kamille Hammerstrom
Paul McCollum published this blog post several years ago and it holds up well today.
April To-Do List for Zone 9
- If slugs and snails are decimating your plants, collect them in the evening, when you're most likely to spot them. They make good snacks for hungry chickens!
- Plant pumpkins, summer squash, melons, and other vegetables that thrive in heat.
- Every 2 weeks from now until late summer, plant small blocks of bush beans and sweet corn to extend the harvest until frost.
- Thin fruits on fruit trees to increase their size and keep branches from breaking.
- Plant summer bedding plants, such as...
- Author: Kamille Hammerstrom
Earth laughs in flowers...
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Spring has sprung and the bloom period is beginning! To celebrate I've put together a series of lovely flower images brought to you by talented Master Gardener-Photographers. Any errors in labeling are my own. Many of these photos were taken in gardens featured in our annual UCMGMB tours. Visit our website to find out about this year's tour - we hope to see you there. In...
