How to Treat Powdery Mildew Using Homemade and Organic Remedies

Ornamental Japanese Maples are widely available for planting in your garden. The autumn colouring makes these trees spectacular when planted en mass in a woodland or Japanese garden setting.

For something a bit different this book on botanic art covers some of the unusual colours from black flowers, plants and seaweed like strange green, blue and puce pink.

Our transatlantic cousins still benefit from the Pilgrim fathers gardening knowledge taken to their shores centuries ago. The potato famine of 1845-50 caused Irish farmers to discover the Idaho potato. Now these and other horticultural favours can be returned by this book of organic homespun tips.

Also popular as the Sensitive Plant and Shameplant Plant, this specimen is popular for its ability to fold its leaves when they are touched, which is a plant’s safety mechanism to defend itself from harm. Let’s have a look at How to Grow Touch Me Not Plant!

Have you ever been working in your garden and been interrupted? This has happened to me many times. I left my tools, thinking I would come back to finish the job but get sidetracked. Hours or days later, I start looking for the shovel, rake, or pruners and cannot find them. One way to alleviate the problem is as easy as purchasing a can of brightly colored spray paint.

It is time to think about how you are going to prepare your Thanksgiving turkey. How do you prepare yours? Have you ever tried brining to add flavor and moisture? Brining meat is the process of adding salt before cooking to add moisture and flavor. A turkey can be brined using a wet or dry process. It is important to consider both methods before choosing which one you want to use. Both ways produce a flavorful and moist turkey but have other important considerations that may impact your choice.

IF YOU ARE STILL USING any synthetic chemicals on your lawn, I hope you will stop. So does Paul Tukey. When he founded SafeLawns in 2006, Paul says, “It didn’t occur to people that their lawns could be dangerous.”“The sad reality is that we know that a lot of the chemicals used to grow the lawn (the fertilizers), or the chemicals used to control weeds or insects or fungal diseases—all  of these chemicals are designed to kill things, and they can make us very sick, and they make the water very sick, and the soil very sick, and the air very unhealthy.”Giving up chemicals doesn’t mean you have to pave over your front yard.“We will have lawns long after all these chemicals are banned in the United States, as they have been banned in Canada,” says Paul—explaining that more than 80 percent of Canadians cannot use weed and feed products, or glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup herbicide) because they are

EXPLODING Eremurus, why vulnerability is good for us, and the answer to why bird poop is white—all, and more, in the latest collections of links I’ve loved lately while staring into my computer screen (which I alternately do between long gazes out the window). Five links worth exploring:

That’s the sort of “advanced” question I’m wondering about now, after a little episode with a packet of leftover collard seeds that I was feeling so smug about—a feeling that quickly changed to dismay a couple of weeks into their sorry time outdoors.When taking inventory, first I refer to the general guidelines for how long seeds last, summarized generally in the chart above, and detailed in this article on estimating seed viability. I always suggest a germination test of an

First, a recap of what Impatiens downy mildew (the fungus-like Plasmopara obducens) looks like:Did your impatiens seem to collapse in 2012? Early signs of infection may have been leaves that looked yellowish, as if the plant needed feeding, or foliage that curled under or seemed to wilt. Sometimes, a white material (the downy mildew) is visible on the undersides of leaves. Eventually, plants may defoliate, drop their flowers, and basically collapse. The fungus loves moist conditions and cool nights in particular. Particularly disturbing: symptoms happened earlier last year than before—as early as June.The disease, which attacks Impatiens walleriana (the species our

In Part 1 (a transcript of which is at this link) we talked with a caller curious about the wonderful tree called Stewartia and how to make it happy—plus Ken recommended other garden-sized, multi-season trees to consider adding to your landscape, including dogwoods, redbuds, and tree lilacs.Ken, of Ken Druse dot com, is a longtime garden writer, author and photographer and all-around great gardener—and great friend. If you have a question for a future show, you can submit it in the comments on either of our websites, or use the contact form to send us an email from either site, or ask us on my Facebook page.Read along as you listen to the July 10, 2107 edition of my public-radio sho