so what’s this about ‘woo-woo’? a video explains

Read McKendree

Winter is coming, and with it come gardeners fretting over frostbitten plants and damaged crops. Fear not, ladies and gentlemen – let’s introduce you to our extensive guide on how to protect plants in winter.

The Chervil or Anthriscus cerefolium is a delicious annual herb that never fails to create a solid impression in kitchen gardens and outdoors with its lush green look. With a unique, sweet, peppery flavor that loves to grow in cool, shady spots, it can be a superstar plant to grow at home.

There’s an ugly truth behind those beautiful alstroemeria, dahlias, and roses we adore—80 percent of them are grown overseas and imported on gas-guzzling jets—often soaked in pesticides—despite the fact that they can be grown right here in the U.S. These blooms are often called “fresh” cut flowers, but they’re anything but. 

In an oval roundabout in Menston a dozen Poplar trees were planted in the 1970s. As you can see only about half survive and these have been mistreated by polling them to restrict height.

After the ‘Lord Mayors Parade’ gardeners get the manure. After the snow and sometimes during the snow gardeners get the Glory of the Snow or at least the glory of Scilla. To have a display that looks like a professional start 3 years ago.

I have 3 good sized compost bins and the Metro district council supplies and takes away a brown bin  each month (for an annual fee). However that is still not enough at this time of year and I can fill the car boot many times over to take thick hedge prunings and woody bits to the local recycling center.

A writer for a popular gardening magazine reached out to me recently and asked what my favorite garden tools for homeowners and small hobby farmers were. Of course, this is an impossible question to answer in just one blog post, so I have compiled my favorite weed management tools for you.

“There’s orange water coming up through the ground!” said the homeowner who called me last week, wondering what kind of contaminant had made its way into her yard. If you’ve ever come across this orange-tinted water in a stream or seeping up from the ground, you may have been alarmed too! Not only does the water appear “orange” or “rusty”, but it can also have a “fluffy” appearance. Not to worry, this is nothing more than iron-oxidizing bacteria. These bacteria are not harmful and occur naturally in streams, lakes, and ditches. They are most commonly found in streams or seeps fed by groundwater rich with iron. Even though they’re not harmful to humans or aquatic organisms, they may cause some odor and taste issues if found in well water.

“And so I said very little,” his email continued, “and hoped (as I tend to do with my more serious doodles about depression) that people such as yourself would understand the enormous thing I did not try to say. If that makes sense?“I shall get back to my slightly passive aggressive doodling now. Ha. I am currently drawing a ladies bottom. I am as yet unsure how this will eventually become a garden doodle.”Stay tuned, dear readers. Next week promises to be a doozy. (I love my Andre emails almost as much as my Andre doodles, frankly. Well, except ones like this Quantum Physics Diagram, which actually does relate to gardening…and about 500 others.)Thanks for being Andre, Andre. And yes, of course it mak

SPRING OR WINTER? Who knows–certainly not the garden, or the weather, which is running hot-and-cold, literally, as it has all “winter” long. The last week or so has seen the first bulbs, a snowstorm (something we haven’t had but once or twice this season–just ask my unused snow shovel), and a lot of buds on early blooming shrubs daring to swell and shake off their protective coverings, despite my telling them “No, don’t do it!” A little slideshow of the vagaries of this non-February.

Don’t be horribly alarmed; I didn’t fail to notice an entire branch emanating from the ground-level root zone. This is a high-grafted tree–a weeper made from combining roots and a trunk of one variety with the desired flowering and fruiting head of another–so the branch came from just below the union where top meets trunk, sneaky thing that it is.I don’t have the heart to prune off the errant branch until some bird or another comes to enjoy those little golden gems, but then I promise: I will. I do know how to prune, I do. I just sometimes don’t know how to pay attention, apparently.