Build a Privacy Screen for Your Utility Boxes

Just because our attention is focused on keeping things steady (ahem, alive) in the garden this deep into the summer, it doesn’t mean we should neglect our leafy loved ones who live indoors—especially if you have travel plans! Houseplants have special needs every season, but summer heat and time away come with their own set of challenges. 

What if you could paint your walls the same color as your car? Porsche has teamed up with paint brand Backdrop to let you do just that. In honor of the 75th anniversary of Porsche, the collaboration features four heritage colors that you can paint your house with: Irish Green, Riviera Blue, Speed Yellow, and Ruby Star.

The term pullet refers to a young hen, usually under one year of age. Once a chick develops feathers rather than down, it is then called a pullet if it is female or a cockerel if it is a male. Pullet can refer to a laying hen or a meat chicken but it is more typically used for a laying hen.

Lovely climbing rose on the front of this house

My perennial Phlox have been a good stalwart flower for cutting and filling a vase this last few weeks. I found the pink colours had more scent but all the Phlox seemed to drink copious amounts of water (I wondered if water and scent were related). The Penstemon in the same vase as the Phlox was not as successful as they had a far shorter life. Another successful long lasting cut flower is the Alstromeria. The Reds performed better than the yellows but both lasted over a week.

Virtually no flies on your car windscreen, sterile fields with no hedgerows and a multi-million pound insecticide industry not much heaven for insects. The hope for bugs, flies and little creatures may rest in your garden.

Hosta tip – keep a cordon sanitaire of rough gravel or broken egg shells around plants to deter slugs. Call them miniature, small, dwarf or even bonsai Hostas these little darlings will give you bucket loads of pleasure. many dwarf plants are difficult to cultivate and retain but I find Hostas are hospitable and accommodating

I have just returned from Ilkley Moor (and I wasn’t courting Mary Jane). I was tramping through shoulder high bracken that was thriving after the recent rain and the lack of competition at lower levels. Bracken are a  coarse fern noted for their large, highly divided leaves (ferns on the other hand only have two divisions per leaf to create the arching fronds).

Whether you're revamping a certain space within your home or are moving into a brand new house, you may be wondering how to best select a color palette for a given room.

A stroll through a boutique garden store might lead you to believe that filling a garden with happy, healthy plants is only for the well-heeled. But those very plants that have soaring price tags in the store might be yours for free if you are willing to be a little creative. If you are wondering how to get free plants, you’ve come to the right place. Read on for five tried-and-true paths that lead you to free garden plants.

Chives are one of those perennials herbs that you can enjoy in several ways—you can infuse the blossoms in spring to make chive blossom vinegar, chop the tender stalks to use fresh in salads or as garnishes in place of green onions, and dry the leaves to grab from the spice rack and enjoy later. In this article, I’m going to focus on how to dry chives.

It’s the end of June, and my vegetable garden looks rough. The heat and the insects have wreaked havoc on my once beautiful Garden of Eden. This is the perfect time to rejuvenate some of the crops using a technique call ratooning.