Deadheading—removing faded blooms—is often touted as a must-do gardening chore to encourage more flowers. And for many annuals and perennials, it really works! But not every plant benefits from this snipping ritual. In fact, some flowers are self-cleaning, meaning they drop spent blooms on their own. Others have an indeterminate bloom pattern, and cutting their …
Gardening
There is an astonishingly long list of plants poisonous to cats! So, as a cat owner, you may be wondering: Are aloe plants poisonous to cats? If you are a keen gardener and cat lover, it’s best to know which ones to avoid, particularly if your feline likes to chew on things. Aloes make a …
There are days when the idea of turning on a stove or oven is just too much. Maybe it’s scorching hot outside, or maybe you’ve had one of those days where even the thought of boiling water feels like an insurmountable task. Great news: you don’t have to sacrifice taste or satisfaction just because you’re …
Have any recent events made you pause and think about growing more of the food your family needs? I know that’s the case for us. While we’ve been gardening for years, I didn’t really know what victory gardens were. So, I decided to learn more about how to grow a victory garden, and thankfully, one …
If you missed the spring rush, you’re probably in good company with fellow late starters, procrastinators, and overthinkers. They’re somewhere, staring at bare garden beds and wondering if it’s too late to grow anything from seed now that summer is nearly halfway gone. It’s not! Luckily, plenty of herbs, flowers, and vegetables are still on …
I’m sure you’ve seen beautiful hydrangeas of different colors. If you wish for a specific flower color on your hydrangeas, you may wonder: do you have to buy them that way, or can you change them yourself? I’ll share here how to change hydrangea colors: easy and so beautiful!!! Hydrangeas are a very beautiful plant. …
Mid-summer is the perfect time to trim shrubs that flower in late spring or early summer. A July prune can promote better structure, cleaner growth, and even a second bloom. Plus, it’s the ideal moment to tidy up climbing vines and early-producing fruit trees. Pruning at this time benefits plant health by removing spent blooms …
After putting in hours to have a gorgeous flower bed, it’s disappointing to find cat poo sitting in between your flowers. As cute as cats can be, not many of us can stomach this behavior. I get many emails asking: How can I stop cats from using my garden as a toilet? I also see …
Few things beat the flavor of a homegrown tomato—warm from the sun, bursting with sweetness, and completely unlike the grocery store kind. But growing them isn’t always as simple as tossing a seed in the ground and hoping for the best. Tomatoes are heavy feeders, sun lovers, and a bit dramatic when it comes to …
It’s a bit eerie, not to mention disappointing, to walk out to the garden and find some-or all! – of your tomato plants missing without a trace. Once you’ve convinced yourself that you did, in fact, plant them, you might look closer and see tiny nubs where tomato vines used to be. So what happened? …