Gardening Ideas, Tips & Guides

One of the major benefits of gardening in a raised bed is you get to control the soil that goes into it. This is especially advantageous for gardeners with a property that has hard-packed or clay soil, issues with tree roots, or concerns about pollutants. It also comes in handy if you want to place your raised bed on a patio or driveway. Since good soil is the foundation of a healthy garden, you want to make sure you’re setting your vegetables up for success. So, what is the best soil for a raised garden bed? In this article, I’m going to share some advice on figuring out how much soil you need, what to purchase, amending a soil delivery, and more. Another raised bed benefit is that the soil will remain friable. In an in-ground garden, the soil can become hard-packed over tim

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We all want easy care routine when it comes to growing houseplants but there are a few of us, who want to grow some out of the box, high maintenance plants just to have a vareity. For those, this list is the answered prayer!

Holly, Ilex aquifolium, typically has dark green, spiny leaves and bright red berries. However, there are many different varieties of holly with different coloured laves and berries – more than 400 from around the world.

We love a good before-and-after on the GPOD. Getting to see what a gardener started with really shows the work, talent, and time that goes into creating every garden we feature on the GPOD. So today we’re going to share some of our favorite glow-ups.

With a variety of leaf shapes and vibrant hues to choose from, Coleus adds a pop of personality to any space. In this article, we’ll explore different Coleus Display Ideas Indoors that’ll allow you to elevate your home decor with their captivating foliage.

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Carson Downing, Annie Schlechter, Adam Albright

Gardening and landscaping can be a rewarding endeavor—transforming outdoor spaces into beautiful and functional retreats. However, without proper planning and consideration, common mistakes can detract from the overall beauty and functionality of your landscape.

How Much Sun Do Fuchsia Plants Need?

One group of plants you can use to create a blooming bridge between spring and summer are azaleas (Rhododendron spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9). As one of the most popular shrubs in the southeastern United States, they can last for generations with proper establishment and care. On the flip side, poor cultural practices can lead gardeners to disappointment. There are many types: native, nonnative, hybrids, reblooming, evergreen, and deciduous. No matter which type you choose, many of the basics for growing great azaleas stay relatively consistent.

My wife and I are both avid gardeners, but we typically only find time to sit and enjoy the landscape at dusk or after sunset. To maximize the evening appeal of our landscape, we have incorporated many plants that provide visual interest and scent as night sets in. If you’ve considered creating a moon garden for evening relaxation, I’ve compiled a few ideas to get your design wheels turning.

Here in the Northeast, rocks are just a part of gardening life, and even if you are raising vegetables in an old garden (one that’s been well tended for decades), there will still be some rocks in the soil. You (as well as the tines on your pitchfork) can’t help but encounter them. However, there are still plenty of vegetables that you can grow well in these conditions. Here are some of them.

If you’re a sun-loving gardener, finding yourself presented with a woodland garden or an otherwise shaded area of the landscape can feel a little overwhelming, and maybe even disappointing. But as soon as you discover the multitude of wonderful lush and leafy plants that actually prefer to grow in shade here in the Pacific Northwest, you’re going to start wishing you had a few more sun-deficient areas to plant up.

Despite working predominantly in ornamental—especially naturalistic—horticulture, I hold an “interdisciplinary minor in organic agriculture” from Colorado State University. Early in my career I worked primarily in food crops, and before I was 20 years old I spent summers in bean-breeding fields, diversified food-cropping systems, and home gardens. Through my years of food gardening, I’ve found that growing tomatoes even at 5,000 feet here on the “Front Range” is a gamble. With frequent cool, wet summers or late spring frosts—or worse, early killing frosts in fall—ours is not a favorable region in which to grow classic, meaty tomatoes.

Annual plants are a garden designer’s secret weapon. Endlessly versatile and extremely showy, annuals add nonstop color without a high price or a lot of work. They are perfect for gardeners who crave change—from year to year or from one season to the next. And they offer instant impact for filling in bare spots between slower-growing shrubs and perennials. Summer annuals brighten gardens with flowers and foliage, while cool-season annuals bring interest to the winter landscape.

The kitchen garden at Alison Jenkins' Somerset smallholding

Much like the tradition of birth stones, the origins of birth flowers are shrouded in mystery. But it's likely that since the time of the ancient Romans, people have been assigning seasonal flowers to the months of the year, the better to use them as gifts and decoration for those born in that month. It's a pretty loose tradition, and opinions vary on the correct birth flower for some months; most, in fact, have ended up with two. Some of these work best when planted in a garden, others are spectacular flowers for bouquets and arrangements. Scroll down to find your own birth flowers, and you'll know what flowers to order when your birthday rolls around.

We’re looking back again today at some of the best GPOD posts from the past, and today the theme is containers! There is so much room to be creative and playful with containers, and they can transform the smallest space—even an apartment balcony—into a beautiful garden.

Straddling the seasons, rhododendrons are the buxom queens of spring, leading us into the floriferous summer months without any subtlety. They can grow into vast shrubs that, in bloom, are wondrous clouds of colour formed of handful-sized flowerheads.

Potentillas are hardy garden plants that are divided into two groups: shrubby potentillas and perennial potentillas. Both types are commonly known as cinquefoil. Shrubby cinquefoil (Potentilla fruticosa) has twiggy arching branches and finely divided, deciduous green leaves, from which long-lasting displays of five-petalled, saucer shaped flowers are borne in summer. Perennial potentillas are clump-forming and make a handsome summer display of saucer-shaped flowers on slender stems. Both types make excellent plants for garden borders and are easy to grow, requiring very little maintenance.

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When we think cherry blossoms, we picture a large tree full of flowers in the garden. What if you don’t have a yard, but you still dream of having one? Well, it is possible and I’ll tell you how!

5 Common Causes of Holes in Basil Leaves

It’s unusual to find a shrub or tree with blue flowers, so if you’re looking for a shock of blue to light up your garden, look no further than a ceanothus. When in flower it’s a stunning sight, smothered in flowers in shades that range from powder blue to deep azure.

The basic idea of No Mow May is simple. Just don’t mow your lawn in May, which allows some wildflowers and weeds to bloom. This provides valuable nectar and habitat for emerging pollinators. And they in turn are a food source for birds, bats and other wildlife.

Flip through any seed catalog and you’ll quickly discover that there are many types of lettuce to grow. Certain lettuces, like loose-leaf and oakleaf, are best enjoyed as baby greens while others, like iceberg and butterhead, are grown for their mature heads. Texture can also vary and some lettuces, like butterhead varieties, have tender, buttery leaves and others, like romaine, have crisp leaves for a satisfying crunch. In this article I’ll share the different types of lettuces and offer advice to help you choose the best ones to grow in your garden. The best types of lettuce to grow With so many types and varieties of lettuce available to gardeners (romaine, butterhead, loose-

When you’re pruning in the garden, rather than adding the spent branches to your green bin or bagging them up and taking them to the recycling centre, why not make the most of this valuable resource by shredding it for the compost or for use as a mulch? A garden shredder chips garden waste so that it takes up less room and breaks down quickly and easily, and if you want to save money on compost and mulch in the future, they’re an essential piece of kit.

Spring is in the air. There's no better time to get outside and make sure your lawn is looking its very best.

The HGIC Visit to Riverbanks Botanical Garden in Columbia ~Part 2~ This is a beautiful place to bring the whole family. There’s a 3-acre interactive Children’s Garden that features a dino dig, giant tree houses, splash zones, and more. Plant a visit soon!

Ruby-throated hummingbirds: “Glittering fragments of a rainbow” John J. Audubon

Here are some out-of-the-box unusual perennials plants you can grow this summer for a stunning display of foliage and flowers in the warm season!

A lush, green lawn is a source of pride and joy for many gardeners but it’s often where all the action takes place in the garden. The focal point for gatherings with friends and family, it can suffer from overuse and too much wear and tear. Terrific turf needs a good lawn care regime to achieve it and while regular mowing and watering will take you so far, there are a couple of additional tasks for your to do list, which will help keep your lawn in tip-top condition. Regardless of how often you cut your lawn, over time the soil underneath the turf becomes compacted, while above ground a thick, impenetrable layer of thatch and organic debris develops around the roots. This undesirable combination prevents air, water and nutrients from reaching deep down to the grass’ root system and ultimately weakens its growth, leaving the plant susceptible to pests and diseases. Scarifying your lawn will help remove thatch and debris, but if you need to relieve compacted soil underneath the turf, it’s best to aerate it. Aeration is the process of making air holes in the lawn to create ventilation. In small lawns a simple garden fork can be used to push holes into the ground but you can also buy manual aerators, either solid or hollow tined, which require the same effort as a fork. However, if you have a lot of lawn and not much time, other types of aerator are probably the best option. Whether you’re pushing a roller covered in spikes, or using a powered machine, these aerators are a labour-saving version of the trusty garden fork, mechanically making a series of holes in the lawn.

While we’re all used to swapping around our inside decor throughout the year, our outdoor spaces get understandably neglected during the colder months. The upside of this is that it’s often much easier to pull in new trends to enjoy once patio season returns.

This week we’re going to do something a little different on the GPOD: We’re going to be looking back over the years of gardens we have shared and pull out some of our favorites to visit again. And today the posts are all going to be stunning shade gardens. Gardening in shade can feel a bit like a challenge or limitation, but lots of GPOD contributors have turned that challenge into an opportunity and made beautiful gardens.

Flowers that grow from cuttings come with a big advantage—ease of propagation, where you can divide them without spending a dime! You just need a donor plant and you are good to go!