Gardenig in Georgia. Tips & Guides

Space research can take you to some odd places. Siberia isn’t known for being a hospitable environment, and cosmonauts used to go into space with a gun in case something went wrong with their re-entry and they wound up having to defence themselves from bears in a Siberian forest. Even so, Russia has built a new spaceport there (Vostochny Cosmodrome), to reduce dependency on the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakstan.

If you are not sure about When to Plant Corn in Georgia, then it can result in a poor harvest. This guide will ensure you won’t any troubles!

Discover the perfect timing for cultivating delicious and nutritious root veggies with our guide on When to Plant Carrots in Georgia.

Georgia, with its varied ecological landscapes, is an ideal place for wild plant enthusiasts. The state, from the mountains to the coast, primarily spans USDA Hardiness Zones 6b to 9a, with pockets of 6a in the mountainous regions and 9b in the coastal plains. This wide range of zones fosters an array of Wild Edible Plants in Georgia that you can also grow in the garden.

How to Grow and Care for Braeburn Apple Trees Malus x domestica ‘Braeburn’

Georgia O’Keefee painted some brilliant portraits of red Poppies some times upto 3 feet wide and high, even bigger than the real thing in my garden.The last photo shows how Red and Green work well together on a canvas or in a garden setting. Oriental poppies are perennial and most Poppy species are easy to grow from seed of which 50 varieties are available from Thompson & Morgan

Cornwall and the west coast of Scotland have some fine temperate gardens well worth a visit but Yorkshire has the grandeur of the stately home garden.

In the Georgian period of the 1700’s John Aislabie set about landscaping a water garden at Studley Royal near Ripon. Today it is a verdant green garden with ornamental lakes, cascades and vistas to take the breath away.

Sorry this is not a new geranium nursery or supply business although I wish it was. It is  just a follow up and continuation of my earlier promise  to keep updating my new found enthusiasm for Pelargoniums.

The two best complimentary colours are Red and Green.  There are many ways this is demonstrated in the spring garden and they will be sure to draw compliments. The Peonies are just opening under a bit of shelter and shade.

Everyone loves falafel—it’s a year-round staple, and the frozen options at Trader Joe’s make it incredibly easy to prepare. But today, you should probably rid your freezer shelves of any Trader Joe’s falafel: In the company’s third food recall this week, on July 28 Trader Joe’s recalled its fan-favorite Fully Cooked Falafel after being informed by the supplier that rocks were found in the food.

Q: The holidays have come and gone, but some of us still have leftover food lingering around, and others are stocking up on post-season grocery sales. We got an HGIC call this week from a gentleman who was wondering how long a fruit cake can be stored. His local supermarket had a great sale on fruit cakes, and he wanted to stock up.

Virginia copperleaf is a tall, branched summer annual that can grow three feet tall. It takes its name from the copper colored leaves of its late summer color. This weed is a North American native that is found from Maine to Georgia and as far west as Texas and north to South Dakota. It is a member of the spurge family and is poisonous, but it does not have the milky sap that is typical of other family members. The simple leaves are oppositely arranged on the stems when the plant is a young seedling, but they change to an alternate arrangement as the weed matures.

Ten species of hemlock tree exist worldwide, with four of those species native to North America (NA). The eastern United States is home to two of the native NA species, Canadian or eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) and Carolina hemlock (Tsuga caroliniana).

After 17 long years, billions of cicadas are ready to emerge from the ground, and we’re going to hear about it! Cicadas are harmless insects with big, bulging eyes and see-through wings held like a roof over their large bodies. Some cicadas appear every year, some every few years, and some, like the “Brood X” cicadas, are about to emerge throughout the mid-Atlantic, appear periodically every 17 years.

Every walk in the woods is a treasure hunt as spring ephemerals begin to break through the soil surface. I am almost positive that this trout lily was not up yesterday, but today it is in full flower in the South Carolina Botanical Garden. Notice the beautifully mottled foliage, reminiscent of a trout’s belly. In South Carolina, trout lilies begin to emerge in early to mid-February when leaves are off the trees. Their range is wide in eastern North America, from Labrador in the north to Georgia in the south and as far west as Mississippi.

Many years ago, while attending a winter gardening symposium at Calloway Gardens in Georgia, I first observed paperbush (Edgeworthia chrysantha) in full bloom. While exploring the gardens during a break between sessions, I discovered a huge paperbush flowering near the butterfly house. I was amazed by the beauty and fragrance of the flowers and immediately fell in love with the plant.

Dr. Matt Cutulle reports, “I saw my first nutsedge plants this year pop up in the plastic mulch of a fellow researcher’s trial last week in Charleston. Soil temperatures in plastic mulch systems are going to be higher, which may lead to earlier sprouting of yellow nutsedge tubers. New tubers begin forming four to six weeks after a new shoot emerges. Individual nutsedge plants may eventually form patches 10 feet or more in diameter, thus it is important to practice field sanitation once an infestation is recognized.”

Rob Last reports, “As we see temperatures increase, strawberry flowering is reducing. Plants are still heavy with fruit, so managing diseases such as anthracnose and botrytis through fungicides and sanitation are key. Pests and diseases in cucurbits are currently low. With watermelon and cantaloupes, a gap in fungicide protection of 7 days can lead to disease. Given the increased chances of rainfall, we are increasing protection against gummy stem blight. Cucurbit downy mildew is active in South Georgia, so any cucumber growers should be prepared to apply fungicides. Some additional rainfall in the area would be most welcome.”

Big, yellow spiders, anyone? South Carolina has them, and as summer heats up, they get more and more noticeable. One of these spiders is the Joro spider, a non-native species first found in northern Georgia in 2014. The Joro spider is now present in the Upstate and parts of the Midlands in South Carolina. These spiders can be nearly 3” across with their legs spread.

A frequent question to the Home & Garden Information Center: “I canned my green beans in a water bath canner. Are they safe?” Often this question is prefaced by “My mother and grandmother taught me to can green beans in a water bath, and they survived. Why should I use a different method?”

First, the disclaimer. I know I said the plant is specifically Pinus strobus ‘Nana,’ and that’s how mine came to me, but here’s the wrinkle: ‘Nana’ is kind of a grab-bag name for many relatively compact- or mounded-growing Eastern white pines, a long-needled species native to Eastern North America, from Canada to Georgia and out to Ohio and Illinois.Today, you can shop for named varieties that are really compact, with distinctive and somewhat more predictable shapes, like‘Coney Island’ or ‘Blue Shag’ (to name two cultivars selected by the late Sydney Waxman at the University of Connecticut, who had a particular passion for this species).I could have pinched the tips of the new growth, or candles, by half each year to keep

(They’re also really beautiful, if you look at them up close–but beautiful in the way that Japanese beetles are beautiful, meaning not enough for me to count them as beloved pets and keep them around or anything.) Squish!The cross-striped cabbage worm larvae are sort of blue-gray, and as their name suggests striped across their bodies. Not so many years back, it was more a pest in Southern farms and gardens, but has gradually made its way to southern New England, at least. I read up on them in various places–U-Mass Amherst; at the University of Georgia, and so on–and what I conc

When it first came into mass production less than 10 years ago, I was working at Martha Stewart Living, and the folks at Ball Horticultural who were touting the plant to wholesalers and the press send me some babies to try. Baby they did not remain for very long, since ‘Dragon Wing’ is a lusty creature: One plant will easily fill a 10-inch pot all by itself, and gets to about 2 feet tall. It grows in semi-shade or even pretty substantial sun in my experience, and wants regular watering (but never to be sodden) and a dose of fish-emulsion and seaweed solution pretty regularly. A hungry thing.‘Dragon Wing,’ which also comes in a pink-flowered form, blooms and blooms all season, with pendulous trusses of hot-red blossoms. When it came on the market, cooperative extension agents from many of the Southern states raved about it for its heat tolera

Its native range, says the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, is New York and southern Ontario to Wisconsin, and northeast Iowa to Maryland, also appearing in the mountains from Georgia to Tennessee.  Depending whom you ask, twinleaf is hardy in Zone 4 or 5 to 7 or 8.The New England Wildflower Society’s Garden in the Woods, in Framingham, Massachusetts, was the first place I saw it in profusion, though it is apparently not technically a

When you’re trying to enjoy your flower garden or tending your tomatoes, nothing’s more annoying than the constant whine of mosquitoes. Besides being nuisances, many types carry diseases including West Nile virus, encephalitis, and canine heartworm. “You can’t avoid mosquitoes,” says Elmer Gray, entomologist at the University of Georgia. “They’re everywhere from suburban yards to woodlands to salt marshes, and some types can travel miles to find a meal.”

Win one of three, three-book sets that I’ve purchased to share as prizes—no, not my old food-splattered copies, above, but new ones–the latest edition of each book, promise! All you have to do to enter the random drawing is comment below. All the details are at the end of this post.First, as promised, the resources for canners and would-be canners so you can get started right away stashing those peaches, plums, cukes, tomatoes and more:USDAThe USDA Complete Guide to Home Canning: The tried-and-true resource, revised in 2009. A must destination for all would-be and experienced canners. (You can buy a print copy from the Purdue University online store.)The Extension ServicesMost state Cooperative Extension Services have extensive online resources; your county off

Dr. Elizabeth Andress, is a Professor and Extension Food Safety Specialist at the University of Georgia, and oversees my go-to reference website about all matters of putting up food sanely and safely: It’s called The National Center for Home Food Preservation. We hope to inspire you to plant extra and make this the year you enjoy the fruits of your garden labors all through the offseason–whether canned or dried or frozen. Read along as you listen to the Feb. 27, 2107 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).getting ready to preserve the harvest

I CAN’T WAIT FOR THEM to announce themselves noisily, though readers have been writing in, expressing varying degrees of cicada anxiety. Brood II of the periodical 17-year cicadas—the brood that returns on that uncanny schedule specifically to parts of the East, from Georgia to Connecticut, are already being sighted where soil temperatures have warmed to the preferred 64 degrees.

Who better to get schooled in the world of fireflies by than Lynn Frierson Faust, author of “Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs” from the University of Georgia Press, a guide to the natural history and identification of fireflies of the Eastern and Central U.S. and Canada.Read along as you listen to the May 14, 2018 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).Plus: Enter to win a copy of the firefly field guide by commenting in the box at the very bottom of this page.firefly q&a with lynn frierson faustQ.

I have the pleasure of interviewing entomologists and ecologists pretty regularly on my public radio program and podcast, and in 2018 a few conversations touched on my question about what insects are after.The year ends in my northern garden with outdoor insect activity at its low point, but I’ve nevertheless been thinking of them, and of some key takeaways from interviews this past year about “the little things that run the world,” as Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson famously called insects and other invertebrates. I rounded

You know Joe Lamp’l as host of the “Growing A Greener World” show on PBS and of the Joe Gardener podcast, but apparently besides being a great gardener, he also had a show on the DIY Network for three years. So before all my vining crops and tomatoes need support, or the seedlings are screaming to be gridded out at proper spacing and other such impending issues, Joe shared some proactive garden organizing tips, DIY-style, based on the wire panels.Read along as you listen to the April 2, 2018 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).joe lamp’l’s diy garden projects using livestock panelsQ. Welcome back, Joe. I’m ready for some he

Spanning 22 miles between the towns of Torquay and Brixham, the English Riviera in South Devon takes in secluded coves and sandy beaches, fishing villages with cobbled streets, and dramatic red sandstone cliffs and off-shore stacks. The mild climate here makes for some terrific gardens, too.

Are you planning a holiday by the sea? Discover some of our lovely coastal 2-for-1 Gardens to visit, uncover the unique plants that thrive in these microclimates and enjoy the views out over the water. Make sure you pack your2-for-1 Gardens card in your suitcase before any trip away, to ensure you’re saving money on garden visits.

Move over, red tomatoes. There’s a new tomato in town, and it’s promising to be even healthier than its already uber-healthy red counterpart: Meet the purple tomato.

Tomatoes love and need a lot of sunlight and heat to grow. But too much of a good thing can cause the plant to get sunscald–the plant equivalent of a sunburn. “Sunscald in tomatoes can happen in all parts of the country, but it is more prominent in the South where the days are longer and the weather is hotter,” says Greg Key, gardener and CEO of Hosstools in Georgia.