A noun. A verb. A blog.
Many plants are easily propagated by cuttings. And the process is far from complex. The most important step is, of course, to do it… and not be daunted by rules or regulations. I own rooting hormone (#1 for softwood cuttings) which would have been an essential tool in the right way to take these […]
For all you Mac users: behold my success at fooling iPhoto into creating a photo collage, something it doesn’t profess to do. There are a number of third-party software choices available to let you do this… but I found a quick, easy and no-cost solution. Just pour your photos into a page template for a […]
On a visit this summer to Earth Bound Gardens in the Bruce Peninsula I discovered their very effective way of keeping deer out of the garden, particularly their hosta and lily glade. These were being regularly eaten down to nubs until they used this simple trick. Their hosta bed is in a clearing, surrounded on […]
This is one reason why I wish I had an electric lawn mower: to chop autumn leaves into bite-sized, easily composted pieces. This is a trick you can use now. My rickety, ancient push mower (all I can justify for my narrow strip of grass, which soon might disappear completely) doesn’t have the ooomph required. […]
This summer of 2009, my Rosa ‘New Dawn’ has put out a bumper crop of new shoots. Typically, in August, this climbing rose has three or four long stems of new growth. This year, at least a dozen have shot their wands to the sky. Lucky me. Really. This means my arbour is gifted with […]
What’s black and white and mulch all over? Yes, newspapers. With a family addition nearly due to distract them, our neighbours G. and W. are cleverly smothering a former weed patch in their garden with newspapers, topped with a few inches of woodchips. That should keep weeds down to a dull roar while the new […]
I’ve always been frustrated with the little teeny packets of flower preserver that you get when you buy cut flowers. Seems you can never buy this mysterious stuff in bulk for use in home-grown bouquets. No idea what it even contains. So I’ve always wanted to find a home recipe for flower bouquet longevity. I’ve […]
Like this Hosta ‘Halcyon’, many of the prettiest hostas have what’s called a glaucous leaf – with a waxy coating that gives it a whitish frosting or bloom. The glaucous texture intensifies the blue of blue-leaf hostas and gives yellow or white markings a powdery glow. Unfortunately, this coating easily rubs off if the leaves […]
Make like a squirrel now and lop off your tulip heads – or deadhead them – after they finish blooming and before they put their energy into seed-making. Instead, we want the tulip to fatten the bulb for next year. For tulips, daffs and other spring bulbs, pinch off the seed pod, but leave as […]
Here’s what I was going to write: Don’t toss your banana peels into the Green Bin (or even the compost pile). Instead, chop them up and sprinkle them around your roses, to give the roses a good, organic snack of potassium. I cut mine into bite-sized pieces and apply directly to the soil. The peels […]
As it’s growing in challenging conditions, the round boxwood (Buxus) planted by my front door has always been plagued by boxwood psyllids (Psylla buxi). They’re the tiny sucking insects that cause the tips of boxwood leaves to deform into cups. Unless you looked closely at your box foliage, you might not even realize that this […]
My name is Helen, and I am a composter. In fact, I was once the Compost Queen, the kind of girl who stole grass clippings — that had been bagged and left on curbs for the garbage truck. Few things heat up and speed up a compost pile quite like a layer of grass clippings. […]