Cypress Mulch Problems

I have posted this note from the WaterKeeper Organization (they’ve targeted garden writers and you’ll see it posted all over the Net on different garden blogs/sites in the next few weeks). I have also asked the Louisiana Forestry Assoc and their Secondary Producers Trade Association for comments and responses. Read more

Change of heart - need your help

I’d like to make a deal with you and I’m going to need your help with it.

You see, I’ve just spent three months in a warmer climate than Canada and while this is the perk of being a writer with a laptop, it also comes with a price tag.

In this case, I was only able to watch U.S. television. It was a fascinating process but essentially a negative one. And it’s taken me 3 months to get a handle on this thought. Read more

Give Me One Reason You Can’t Do This

Earth Hour is coming up on Saturday, March 29. We’re going to ask you all to shut down your power - all of it - for one hour beginning at 8pm and ending at 9pm.

It’s a small thing but watch this video to get the impact. Read more

Web Seminar on Water Management

I just signed off from a web seminar put on for the media and featuring speakers on water management in the garden. Let me summarize what I took away from the event. Read more

Blogger’s Bloom Day

I confess I cheated a little bit with this picture. It really isn’t in my garden at home but in the garden where I happen to be at the moment. Read more

How to Grow Shamrocks

It seems a proper time of year to be talking about how to grow Shamrocks. And the good news is that you’re going to have a ton of choices about this charming (but potentially invasive in Southern climates) plants. To begin with the wood-sorrel family contains about 900 species of these plants - from annuals to perennials - from rhizomes to bulbs. Read more

Guys Don’t Need No Garden Fitness

The Net is awash right now with all the helpful hints (mostly from female bloggers I note) that we should all get ourselves ready for gardening by getting fit. Read more

Things I’ll never do in my garden

Ah gentle readers, don’t do this to the garden design you so truly love. I’ve visited two flower shows in the last few weeks and there is a plague let loose on the land. With the popularization of the garden as indoor/outdoor room - an extension of the house kind of thing, we have a serious influx of really, really bad garden design.

It used to be that a person couldn’t really make a garden design mistake Read more

Two Plants I Want But Can’t Have

There are two plants I want but can’t have Read more

Why Stars in a Garden Sky?

I usually write notes to myself first thing in the morning. It’s my writer’s way of getting my act in gear, of sorting out and getting rid of the “stuff” in my life so I can get on with finding words. This morning I got thinking about stars in the sky. And while the process of getting to the question was a little longer, the bottom line question was, “Why do I need stars in the sky?”.

I mean, really - do they have any measurable impact on my life? They’re quite a goodly distance away - tiny pinpricks in a clear night sky.

And after first dismissing stars as having any value to me, a few seconds later I changed my mind. I decided that.. Read more

Hottest Container Plant for 08

I’ve been to a few flower and trade shows this spring and I can now confirm the hottest plant you’re going to see in containers and gardens this spring is the Sempervivum (Hens & Chicks). I’m seeing these things tucked here, there, and everywhere in display gardens and containers.

And frankly, why not? This is one plant your mother-in-law can’t kill. You can do anything you like to it, including going away on holidays for 2 months and the darn thing will be alive when you get back. The rest of the container will be stony-dead but this plant will be alive.

How to grow ‘em? Wave them anywhere near soil. (or simply bury the roots a bit but not the fleshy part). Water for the first week to establish and then ignore. Tuck them between other perennials at the edge of containers or use all by themselves (plant several different varieties together) in flower pots. Overwinter by putting in garage or plunging the pot.

The only thing you really need to know is to *never* purchase a flowering plant. The thing about this plant is that the mother plant usually dies after flowering. Leaving the babies around the edge to grow.

And yes, it survives quite nicely if you feed and water it (not waterlog) and grows like stink. I ran some experiments once to see if it was worth propagating this plant commercially. I was able (on average) to get 12 babies per year per mother plant with a regular fish-emulsion feeding. (weekly) And no, I never did propagate them for other nurseries. Too much bending up and down and digging to harvest them on a small to mid-size scale.
photo credit: Gertrud K.