Hostas are beautiful shade-loving plants that grow big, lush leaves, and long shoots with purple flowers in late summer. They come in an almost endless variety of colors and shapes – green, blue, silver, variegated, and more. You can get hostas that will stay small and hostas that will make your garden look like a tropical paradise at the height of summer.
Have you ever thought about creating a moss garden?
Moss gardening is one of the hottest new trends in gardening but it isn’t a new trend at all. As with most trends, the enthusiasm and interest surrounding the practice come and goes, and it’s probably based on something that got perfected centuries ago.
Have you ever considered rock gardening?
Rocks have always been a big part of landscaping and gardening. That is because they are found so abundantly in nature. Moreover, gardeners are great at using natural elements to their advantage.
Are there any rock garden pictures you have been drooling over lately? Have you been wishing for a hillside covered in beautiful natural stone and creeping succulents?
Many American gardeners probably aren’t familiar with the French potager garden concept. This is especially true for those who grew up in the Midwest where farms are still abundant and land is plentiful.
Potager is pronounced po-toe-jay, and it literally means “for the pot.” As with many other French ideas around gardening, eating, and living, the term used to describe this type of gardening doesn’t do justice to the artistry and beauty the French have brought to the craft.
Do you dream of planting a field of wildflowers in your yard, dotted with several types of fruit trees? Do you have plans to make a strawberry patch, an herb garden, or have lots of flowers in your landscaping?
If you know anything about how plants work, you might also be thinking about bees. For example, how to attract bees to your yard, how to make them stay, or even how to keep them to harvest their honey and wax.
Remember when Chipotle had that rash of food-borne-illness outbreaks a few years ago? A few hundred people were exposed to E. coli, salmonella, and norovirus that were traced to Chipotle restaurants in several stores all over the United States.
Since then, the brand that was known for its dedication to sourcing its food locally. It also is using the most natural products available has become more well-known for losing the trust of its clientele.
How does backyard chicken benefit gardening? Stay with me and I’ll explain.
There’s an urban farming movement sweeping the world. For some countries, urban farming has been around and will continue to be around as long as there is a city.
However, in the United States, the rise of factory farming made part-time backyard animal husbandry a thing of the past for a good, long time. Say that five times fast. Part-time backyard animal husbandry!
Are you looking for a way to have a low maintenance garden?
Everyone wants beautiful, lush plants to frame their homes. We all love color and texture and variety to see from the windows and when we pull into our driveways at night. And if you love to garden, every plant is enticing, no matter how needy it seems.
The trouble comes when all those plants start to thrive. It’s not only the plants we want to grow which thrive. Weeds thrive. Then you need to deadhead, divide, mulch, water, feed, and trim back your plants. In addition, you need to maintain your grass.
If you are a gardener or a lover of plants and all things green, right now you are in your happy place. The air is warm, all danger of frost has passed, the sun shines almost every day, and your flowers are blooming.
Your vegetable garden may be coming in too. All of your ornamental pots and window boxes are looking beautiful. You might, right now, be considering what else to plant in your garden or how you can expand it and make it even more amazing.
However, will it add value to your home? Not all of us are able to stay in a forever home, well, forever. Most people will eventually need to sell, even if it is to downsize later in life.
You may see references to plant hardiness zones everywhere as a gardener. Planting zones are mentioned on blogs like this one, written on seed packages and plant tags from nurseries, and even on weather stations.
We all think we know what it means. Simply find your area of the country on the key and coordinate with where the tag says to plant, right?
Well, that’s not wrong, but it’s not the full picture of what planting zones are meant to convey. It also doesn’t take into account weather patterns that can be very different within the same plant hardiness zones.