Ground Ideas, Tips & Guides

Bacopa is a trailing perennial that is perfect for hanging baskets, containers and providing ground cover at the front of borders. Originally from South Africa, it is grown as an annual in the UK, because it isn’t frost hardy and won’t survive temperatures below 5ºC. It produces a mass of tiny flowers over a long period, from June through to October, in either white, pink or blue.

Coffee wakes you up in the morning and might do the same for your plants! Well, not in the same way, but this quick homemade fertilizer does wonders and is the best way to put coffee dregs to good use!

On the United States Department of Agriculture's Plant Hardiness Zone Map, Zone 6 is a band stretching in latitude from eastern Massachusetts to northern Virginia, spanning much of the nation's midsection until it crosses the Rockies and heads north to the interior of Oregon and Washington. Zone 6 has an average annual minimum temperature of -5 to 10 degrees F, so plants need to withstand a solid freeze.

When the South begins to alight in tulips, you know spring is well on its way. But before those glorious blooms start to burst forth from the earth, there are a few things to keep in mind. From the best time to plant in the South to how to care for your bulbs once in ground, these are the tulip tips you need to know for springtime success.

You may recognize those unsightly raised ridges and bumps all over your lawn as the handiwork ofmoles digging around for their dinners. But some types of tunneling are caused by a different small mammal called a vole. While moles typically make a mess of lawns, voles can be destructive throughout your garden.

JULIE SOEFER

Dianthus are easy-to-grow flowers that come in an array of colors including pure white, creamy white, wine red, and various shades of pink. With their spicy clove-like scent, dianthus are a lovely addition to borders, beds, containers, andcutting gardens.Pollinators love them, too!

Shade gardens are some of the most beautiful and rewarding gardens you can create. No one can resist the cool welcome that dappled areas of the landscape offer in the heat of summer. The boisterous flowering in the sunny portions of the garden is wonderful, but when the temps soar and the eyes need relief from the glare of the sun, to the shade garden we go! Many of us, though, only have shade thanks to a covered porch or roofed entry. In these spots, visitors can experience the same cool, lush feeling they might out in the landscape, but it hits them as they enter our homes with shady garden containers. Taking some of the best aspects of a shade garden in the ground and displaying them in pots is a chance to highlight some stars that don’t always get the proper attention. The following suggestions will survive in a pot for years in the PNW and can be replanted into the ground when you are ready for a change.

Squirrels and chipmunks won’t just irritate you by knocking over plants and pots; these adorable mini monsters cause immense damage by digging up bulbs and burying nuts and seeds in pots. But we have just the right tricks to help you keep squirrels out of potted plants without harming them!

If you’ve ever seen a weeping cherry tree in bloom or sat beneath the branches of a stately weeping willow, you know how lovely this distinctive growth habit can be. With branches that cascade from the trunk like water down a mountainside, weeping trees are coveted treasures in gardens and yards everywhere. Whether they’re flowering, evergreen, or deciduous, planting a weeping tree in your landscape adds an eye-catching focal point to the design. Types of weeping trees There are many types of weeping trees, but for the most part, weeping is not a common plant trait. Weeping

If a cup of coffee (or several!) are part of your morning or afternoon routine, it's likely that you've tossed a lot of grounds. Coffee grounds are actually full of organic matter and are wonderful to add to the compost pile to create a nutrient-rich amendment. There have been some misconceptions about used coffee grounds and whether it's a good idea to add them directly to your soil, and your houseplants.

A new report from a federal watchdog calls the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) into question over its 2018 decision to register three dicamba herbicides. 

Hi GPODers! Today we’ve got an incredible garden story from a frequent GPOD contributor that is a demonstration of how magically small our big world can be. Bas Suharto has previously shown off gardens he has designed and built (check out some of those submissions: Building a Garden With Bas and Building a Japanese-Inspired Garden) as well as his own incredible home gardens (Parterre Garden in Ottawa and A Japanese-Style Garden in Ottawa). But the garden in this most recent submission caught Bas’ eye long before he was asked to lend a helping hand the space.

Pay attention to a few Dichondra Silver Falls care basics and you’ll be rewarded with a great feature plant that’s perfect for creating a cascading effect in a rock garden, along the edge of a raised bed, or from atop high window boxes or tall containers. With its silver stems and small, fan-shaped leaves, elegant Silver Falls Dichondra combines beautifully with low-growing flowering plants like lobelia, dianthus, and dwarf ageratum. In warm climates—think zones 8 and up—you can expect Dichondra to perform like a tough perennial plant. Elsewhere, it works as an annual or an indoor houseplant. Let’s get to know more about this wonderful plant. Meet Dichondra Silver Falls Known as Silver Falls Dichondra or sometimes just Silver Dichondra, this plant’s official botanical n

A harmonious Dorset rose garden designed by Isabel and Julian Bannerman

Q: We’ve just moved into our home, a new build in the countryside, and don’t have much of a budget to create a garden. We’d like to start by sowing a traditional lawn around the house, which is just a big expanse of bare soil and weeds. Any tips would be great. CB, Co Meath

Image: Hampton Court Flower Festival. Credit: RHS

Kelsey Hansen

There are always lots of details to take care of around the house when you're preparing for a vacation. Your list might include tasks such as reprogramming the thermostat and holding the mail, but what about your garden? Your plants in the ground will usually be fine for a week or so without watering, especially if there's some rain in the forecast. But because containers have limited space for holding water and are more exposed to warm temperatures, they tend to dry out much faster.

Wireworms are the soil-dwelling larvae of the click beetle, and live predominantly in undisturbed grassland. In gardens they can sometimes cause problems by eating the roots of seedlings and older plants, as well as burrowing into root vegetables. There’s around 60 species of click beetle in the UK and only a handful of their larvae cause problems, yet all of them are a source of food source for creatures such as birds and small mammals. In general, wireworms may only be a problem in ground that has been converted from lawn or grassland into a vegetable plot, particularly when root vegetables such as potatoes are grown.

How to Transplant Bird of Paradise Plants

Like phone books and VHS players, it appears box springs are joining the list of obsolete household items from our childhoods. Not to be confused with the modern bed foundation, box springs contain steel coils inside that offer a little give.

Although air conditioning is the most popular go-to for cooling down a room fast, not every home comes equipped with a central AC system. And while window AC units can help take the edge off, they don’t necessarily boost curb appeal or promote energy efficiency.

Creative gardeners are always looking for ways to boost production. One topic that gets a lot of buzz in garden forums is using coffee grounds to fertilize plants. Coffee grounds can provide benefits to many plants, including tomatoes, but the impacts vary depending on how they are used. Learn how to effectively incorporate coffee grounds into your gardening routine to supplement tomatoes and other garden plants.

More and more homeowners are seeking to replace their traditional lawns with ones that are easier to maintain or more environmentally responsible. It sounds straightforward enough, but choosing the right plants for a lawn can be challenging. One must consider sun exposure, expected foot traffic, moisture requirements, and situational obstacles such as clay soil and juglone fromblack walnut trees (Juglans nigra, Zones 4–9). This list aims to help Southeast gardeners choose the lawn replacement with the best chance of success for their yards.

My fondest memory of childhood summers is picking red raspberries from my family’s small patch. The wonderful flavor and fragrance of these berries led me up and down the rows until I reached my saturation point. Now that I’m an adult, my own garden holds a prominent place for raspberries. In fact, for 10 years I grew raspberries commercially and sold them to area restaurants.

While there is plenty of design inspiration to be found for decorating your backyard and outfitting your front porch, it seems one outdoor area is often ignored—we’re talking about your deck.

As many of us know by now, there are lots of great ways to repurpose and reuse old items at home. Rather than tossing things in the trash, reusing can be an ideal option to be more sustainable—and it's a great way to save money.

These beetles with glowing abdomens create a blanket of tiny, flashy living bulbs that can turn any garden into a sparkling fairyland!

Watching birds sip and splash around in your bird bath is enjoyable, and it’s also a great way to support a healthy bird population year-round. “During hot summer months and drought, there aren’t many water sources, and a bird bath can become quite popular amongst the local birds,” says Jennifer McCarthy Tyrrell, engagement manager, Audubon South Carolina. “During the winter when water is locked up in the form of ice, providing fresh water with a bird bath heater can bring in many birds for a drink.”

Do not be surprised to start seeing evidence of the periodic cicada invasion. Females damage small branches by their egg-laying activities. They use their ovipositor to cut slits through the bark and lay eggs. Heavy egg-laying can damage the branches enough to cause them to die back. The branch “flagging” can be alarming, but the trees will recover.

Are you curious about how to get rid of slugs naturally? Slugs and snails might be lovable for their cute storybook-character looks and because they’re just cool creatures. But slugs and snails in the garden that are eating away at your plants are not so lovable: Along with those adorable optic tentacles comes a voracious mouth that files through leaves and fruit, ruining it for the rest of us.

In our new-old country garden, right next to the small farmhouse that has stood on the gently sloping site for more than 200 years, is a patch of sun-baked ground so stonily resistant to the sharp tines of a garden fork or the steel blade of a spade that I have had to find clever ways to get plants to grow.

Turning a house into a home can be expensive, taxing, and, worst of all, disappointing. Nothing stings quite like doing research, trying things out, and ending up spending a lot of money on a big home purchase that doesn’t live up to your hopes.

If there’s one thing the most exciting gardens have in common, it’s that they always have something beautiful happening. And that “something” usually means something in flower. Bringing that idea home may seem challenging for gardeners, but happily, plant breeders know we want more—more beautiful foliage, more interest across every season, and most importantly, more and better bloom—and they have answered our calls. This is excellent news because, let’s face it, most gardeners today have less time to spend in the weeds (or looking for strong bloomers) than in years past. And everyone stands to benefit from bigger, continuous summer blooms with less effort. The following group of superstars starts flowering at the onset of summer and keeps going all season long, many even going right into fall. Use them as supporting players for those that shine more briefly, or switch it up and make them the centerpiece.

2024 is a big year for football fans and punters assessing the best sign-up offers, with Euro 24 in Germany kicking off in June. However, when studying the form of the players and sides ahead of the summer showpiece, have you ever stopped to wonder what a footballer has in his garden?