Gardening in the intermountain west and high plains is not for faint hearted; even with a greenhouse to coddle plants along, the climate conditions here are tough so plants need to be strong. When temperatures can drop from 85 degrees during a summer day and plummet to 50 â or less â at night, thatâs […]
There are certain plants that announce the beginning of a new era as effectively as a clock striking midnight at Prince Charmingâs ball. The first rose of summer for instance, or the parchment of a silver birch trunk glistening in low winter sun. When autumn is on the horizon there are two that pop up […]
I need new trees. Last winter, a 100-year-old Douglas fir came crashing down on six of my specimen trees. So, now in late summer, I looked for replacements at the Farwest Show New Varieties Showcase in Portland, Oregon. If you also need new trees, early autumn can be an excellent time to plant. According to […]
What began as a cracking summer in the greenhouse fizzled out, as summers so often do, just as the kids broke up for the holidays. The days they had spent sitting in classrooms gazing out at blue skies and parched earth were swapped for sitting in their bedrooms looking out at the rain. The chillies […]
Provide landing pads for insect pollinators and predators and your garden will be first stop for their services. Storm Aileen has scooted through, the land is a sodden sponge, and Iâm out photographing red admirals in a dry crack between Septemberâs relentless downpours. A whole troupe of Vanessa atalanta seems to have blown in with Aileen: seven, […]
Over the last few years Iâve come to a greater appreciation of begonias, both in conservatories and outside in the garden. Because my main garden is on the north side of a four-story building, Iâm always interested in ways to bring colors other than green to the shade. Like many gardeners, I used to rely […]
I canât think of another glasshouse plant that suffered from such perverse name changes as this, one of the oldest of all our houseplants now known as the Jade plant. A tender succulent from Natal in South Africa this became popular way before the Victorian era. Probably because itâs remarkably tough and undemanding as a […]
Autumn is the season of lawn maintenance and this is what you do. Rake out the âthatchâ or dead grass and moss that has accumulated over the mowing season using a wire rake, powered lawn rake or scarifier that can be rented from the tool hire shop. To save money, you could hire one and […]
In the early 1970s I worked at a Research Station. Whilst there I carried out micropropagation by cutting the growing tips ( or meristems) from plants and transferring the tiny specks into a growing medium in a glass flask. A prime ingredient was coconut milk and I put the strong state of my gnashers down […]
Stephanie Niedermyer is a bean farmer. Granted, hers is miniature-scale farming operation in her Eugene, Oregon backyard. But still, she manages to produce at least 26 different kinds of beans each summer. She says, âIâm a magpie, attracted to pretty bright thingsâthatâs beans!â A road trip to the Southwest was the catalyst for her bean-farming […]
On a sunny August day, as I weed among the bee balm and tickseed, some of my favorite garden companions are likely to bustle by: bumblebees. They never move fast, but they never stay still. Every moment of a bumblebeeâs day is busy, collecting nectar for food and pollen to feed the young. I love […]
