From the category archives:

Garden chores

Protecting Newly Transplanted Plants

April 28, 2009

Read about protecting your newly planted treasures from the weather

I bought this little Anemone nemorosa at the post-meeting plant sale at the Adirondack Chapter of the North American Rock Garden Society in Ithaca, NY last Saturday. After doing a little research, and finding out it likes shade and woodsy soil, I planted it on the shady side of the house on Sunday evening. I [...]

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Seedling light stand cleanup

April 18, 2009

Finished reorganizing the seed stand. Culled all the broken flats. Organized the cell packs. All this for the master seed starter, not me. My eldest daughter does most of the seed starting. I taught her everything I knew, and she improved upon it. So I just get everything back in order after a winter of [...]

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Canna Repotted

April 18, 2009

Repotted my one and only canna. It was sprouting in the basement.

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Fed My Roses

April 17, 2009

Put alfalfa pellets around my 3 roses today. I can’t even remember when I bought the alfalfa. Pee-yoo!

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Chores

April 15, 2009

Compost turned today. Long-lost kitchen thermometer found. Now if they could only find the measuring cup . . .

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Mud Season Chores: Cleaning up

March 24, 2009

I hate to admit it to you Southerners, but when the snow melts, what it invariably reveals is…a mess. I’m not just talking about the dead vegetation that needs to be cut back. There’s human-made messes that ought to be dealt with, too. But let’s talk about the plants first. Cut back and clear out [...]

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Mud Season Chores: Pruning

March 22, 2009

Mud season, despite its fickle weather, not only has color, but its own set of gardening chores. For those of us living in cold climates, these chores anticipate the growth that will soon come as so many plants emerge from dormancy. Growth is so slow at the beginning of mud season that it is easy [...]

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Two things I learned while weeding today

November 6, 2008

I normally don’t weed my beds in November, because it is too chilly, wet, windy, and perhaps snowy. However, we have been enjoying a string of unseasonably warm days and I was able to take advantage of it today. Weeding grass out of daylily foliage is usually pretty tricky, because the leaves are so similar. [...]

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Goldenrod: This native plant should be kept out of the garden

October 9, 2008

Goldenrod is my enemy There, I’ve said it. I don’t care if goldenrod is a native plant; it is no longer welcome in my gardens. I tried to be understanding, truly, I did, but it just did not want to play nice with the other plants. It did not want to play at all: total [...]

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The No-Dig Garden Experiment

September 30, 2008

It all started when Jenn said my new bird bath needed some phlox. “Gosh, she’s right,” I mused. “And I have some bright pink phlox in the front bed that I want to move out before I dig out the goldenrod infestation. Those pink phlox would look perfect by the bird bath.” Bird bath transforms [...]

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The first frost: To cover or not to cover?

September 24, 2008

Carol over at May Dreams Gardens advises us to Embrace The End of The Growing Season For A Happier Life. She says, “Save yourself both time and worry and forget about covering plants in the fall.”

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Weeding for the audience

July 27, 2008

Every year about this time, the Juneberry bed looks like this: This photo was taken last July, but gives you the general idea: milkweed, musk mallow, lambs’ quarters, and a weedy form of evening primrose all detract from the daylilies that are supposed to shine here. Being a detail person, in past years I have [...]

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