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picture from http://youngsplantfarm.com/read-plant-tag/ Here are some interesting tips about gardening. Not just for the beginner but for all of us. We have been working in the greenhouse planting so it is the season and I promise you spring is coming.
Seriously Useful Gardening Tips Every Beginner Needs to Know by Luke Miller Gardening is more rewarding when your efforts meet with success. These gardening tips will help make that happen. Start Small This is another way of saying don’t bite off more than you can chew. Consider the amount of time and money you are willing to devote to the project—not just installing it, but maintaining it as well. If you start small, there’s less investment and more chance of success because you won’t be overwhelmed maintaining it. And you can always expand your garden over time as you come to realize what is practical. This little vignette could be installed in an afternoon and would need little maintenance over the course of the growing season. Decide What Sort of Garden You Want Grow what makes you happy: produce for cooking, flowers for inspiration, shrubs and trees for long-term landscaping beauty. The choice is yours. Then determine the style. Is it a formal design with geometric shapes, a colorful cottage garden look, or a lushly planted shade garden? These gardening tips will help you narrow down your choice of plants. Rely on No-Fail Plants It’s fun to try unusual plants, but when you’re just starting out and looking for practical gardening tips to guarantee success, go with the tried-and-true stuff overflowing from the nursery aisles. These marigolds and black-eyed Susans (Rudbeckia spp.) are common for a reason: they are tough as nails. They’ll give you all the color you want—without letting you down. As your thumb becomes greener, you can always expand your roster of plants to include the more unusual. Consult Plant Tags When you’re plant shopping, plant tags are your best friend. They can tell you whether a plant is hardy in your area, what conditions it prefers and how large it will grow. That darling little tree could soon grow to interfere with your gutters, but a look at the plant tag now can save you the trouble later on. Some tags even have scannable codes, putting even more information and gardening tips in your hands. As the saying goes, information is power—in this case, power to avoid making mistakes. If you decide to plant a tree, avoid these common mistakes. Consider the Conditions We’ve all seen the poor shade-loving impatiens that burned up when planted out by the curbside. But sun- and heat-loving succulents such as this Sedum acre would have turned that failure into raving success. It’s all a matter of matching the plant with the conditions. Along with sunlight, you’ll also want to consider the type of soil (heavy clay vs. light sand) and the amount of moisture available (a low spot near the gutter spout that stays wet or an exceptionally dry patch underneath the eaves). Fear not, there are plants that are suitable to these specific conditions. Improve Your Soil No matter what kind of soil you have, you can improve it. That’s one of the most important gardening tips you’ll ever learn. A good soil is the foundation for a good garden. The easiest time to improve the soil is before planting. You can add wholesale amounts of compost (available in bags from the garden center or in truckloads from many municipalities) to boost nutrients and beneficial microbes. Compost helps heavy clay soils drain better and light sandy soils hold more moisture. It’s the perfect soil conditioner! Mix Annuals and Perennials Annuals are plants that bloom for long periods, then die. Perennials bloom for shorter periods but come back year after year if planted in a suitable climate. Get the best of both worlds by mixing the two types of plants together. That way, your garden has a longer season of interest. When these perennial coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea) are finished blooming, the annual spiderflowers (Cleome spp.) will be there to pick up the slack. Embrace Mulch Mulch has many benefits, not the least of which is that it ties a garden together. With its uniform color and texture, that underlying ribbon of mulch stitches a garden vignette together for a more cohesive look. Additionally, mulch discourages weeds, conserves soil moisture, and moderates soil temperature. It also keeps a bare soil from baking and cracking in the sun, which hinders water absorption when you irrigate. Here’s another gardening tip: use organic mulches in most situations, but stick with pebbles or stones around succulents and cactuses. Water Effectively Plants need water to survive. Often, that means supplemental watering from you. While a handheld watering can is helpful when watering potted plants, a hose is a lot more useful. For best results, hook it up to a sprinkler and water in the morning, so there’s less evaporation and so foliage can dry before nightfall and not be prone to disease. For ultimate efficiency, use a soaker hose or drip irrigation system to distribute water at the base of plants. Learn how to install a drip irrigation system. https://www.familyhandyman.com/garden/10-seriously-useful-gardening-tips-every-beginner-needs-to-know/ till next time this is Becky Litterer, Becky's Greenhouse Dougherty Iowa beckmall@netins.net So snow is disappearing but the amount of water is unbelievable. With cooler temperatures the water flow has slowed down which is good. The snow was melting in our city park north of the greenhouse and the only place for it to go was thru the greenhouse. Larry has it under control using 2 sub pumps but see what happens today. 6 to 8" of water in there yesterday morning. Hard to work in that for sure.
I am going to go to a shorter blog posting as the busy time is coming. Let me know if you like that or want the longer post. Spring is coming I promise after the flood season and the mud season. When you include flowering containers in your spring garden, you can get earlier blooms in your garden than when you plant in the ground. You can bring small hanging baskets into a shed or garage when temperatures plummet at night, and even large containers can move to a sheltered area if you employ planters on casters. Some of the most beloved container plants thrive in cool spring temperatures, including snapdragons, petunias, and annual lobelia. These cool-season annuals are at their flowering peak when daytime temperatures are in the 70s. Other container flowers, like viola and nasturtium, can tolerate early spring frosts. https://www.thespruce.com/spring-flower-guide- till next time, this is Becky Litterer, Becky's Greenhouse, Dougherty Iowa beckmall@netins.net picture from midmichigan natureandscience.blogspot.com
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AuthorHi! My name is Becky and I am a master gardener. I own Becky's Greenhouse in Dougherty, Iowa. Archives
February 2019
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