Plant Gardens 101

Bent or turned abruptly downward at a sharp angle, as is the habit of some weeping trees or shrubs.

No, I didn’t misspell the word sweet. Suet is a particular food that birds just can’t resist, to wit, a great way to attract them to your bird house.

A Suet Way To Attract Birds To Your Yard

Make no mistake about it, Suet is some nasty stuff. It is the thick, white fat from a side of beef. It is slick and hardly appetizing food stuff. That is, unless you are a bird. For some unknown reason, Suet is the chocolate of the bird habitat. If you want to attract birds to the bird house you have set up in the backyard, this is the stuff guaranteed to do it.

You can buy Suet at your local grocery store. Many offer it in a combination with bird seeds of a sort, but grocery store bird seed is not the best. All and all, you are probably better off just buying it without the helpful additives. (more…)

A dry seedpod that splits open when ripe.

The combined flora and fauna of a region.

A perennial woody plant with a main trunk and usually a distinct crown. See also shrub.

It is only by becoming acquainted with the flowering period of our plants that you can be sure that those you bring together for the purpose of constructing a contrast or color harmony will be in bloom at the same time. They should start blooming at approximately the same time and but periods of bloom should, as far as possible, coincide in length. The effect will be measured in duration by the period of the flower that lasts the shortest time.

By judicious selection of flowering plants, it is possible to contrive that there shall be few failures in this area. Succession is the very keynote of good gardening, for you cannot afford to shorten the period during which flowers are possible, nor can you tolerate empty spaces in your borders, unless you plan on filling them with a water wall fountain, patio statuary, or outdoor waterfalls.

By consulting a seedsman’s list you can select your plants and dispose of them so that as the spring blooming plants start to fail, others will succeed them for the summer months, and still others will take their place in autumn. This system of succession, when well arranged, will give you flowers from February to mid-November, thus covering the maximum period during which you are likely to be able to enjoy your garden. (more…)

Having drooping branches.

Bearing plantlets on the leaves, stems, or flowers.

How do cherry tomatoes in the dead of winter sound to you, a gardener in a northern clime wishing for summer? Impossible, you say. Not if you garden indoors. Vegetables of all types can be grown year-round indoors, with the proper light, soil, fertilizer and temperature, as well as focusing on suitable plant varieties.

If you are going to grow indoor vegetables in winter, you will need to start by raising plants from seed in late summer or early fall. It’s best to buy your seeds in the spring if you wish to do this, because it is not always easy to find seeds for sale at local garden centers in the fall.

Use a light seedling mix for starting your seeds. Its loose consistency will make it easy for the plants new roots to start to develop. After the seedlings have two true leaves, you can begin to carefully transplant them into individual four-inch containers. You can use any good potting soil for this purpose, but do not use regular garden soil. It is usually very heavy, has poor drainage and can also harbor disease and insects that can kill your new starts. (more…)

One of the usually small, paired appendages at the base of a leafstalk in certain plants, such as roses and beans.

Borne at the tip of a stem or shoot.

A cultivar that is normally propagated by seed, retaining its desirable traits from one generation to the next.

The botanical name for currant and gooseberry.

Whether it’s the middle of summer, the dead of winter, or anytime in between, one of the busiest rooms in the house may not be in the house at all; it may be the garden shed.

During the warmer months, when we’re spending a lot of time outdoors, our myriad home and landscape maintenance chores require a never-ending supply of tools and other necessities, starting with the lawn mower. There may also be a lawn tractor, or riding mower, which is essential to those who have a lot of property to maintain – or those who simply like riding around the yard. These items are only the beginning. They are followed by a parade of gardening tools, such as rakes, hoes, shovels, weed whackers, edgers, and hedge trimmers. Next come the lawn and garden supplies, which include mulch, fertilizer, weed killer, seeds, plant food, hoses, sprinklers, and perhaps some decorative stones. If you have a pool, you have a load of other equipment to store as well. (more…)

A slender shoot that grows along the ground, forming roots and a new plant at its tip end.

An area in which plants receive doses of full sun alternating with doses of full shade. Also called half shade; part sun.

Growing vegetable and fruit organically is not allowable using any chemical supplements. It must be entirely organic from the planting process, periodical maintenance up to the harvest period. Using organic fertilizer is also friendly environment. There are two kind of organic fertilizers, animal fertilizer and compost:

A. Animal Fertilizer

Animal fertilizer is organic fertilizer which made of cattle and poultry wastes fermentation. Cattle waste can be from mammals such as cows, goats, bulls. Poultry waste can be from ducks, birds, chicken. As these wastes are fermented, therefore the physical looks are turned darker colour and the texture become crumbs. Ingredients of both cattle and poultry wastes are different, they depend on type of animal, age, animal condition, animal foods and storing waste process before application. (more…)

Technically, an animal or plant product or by-product used as fertilizer, such as manure, blood meal, alfalfa meal, seaweed, or compost. In practice, usually includes mineral-based fertilizers as well, such as greensand or rock phosphate. Organic fertilizers are now processed into a variety of granular and liquid forms. These products vary greatly in the amount and proportion of nutrients contained, and in the rate at which the nutrients are released into the soil.

As a species name, means “native to mountainous habitats.” For example, mountain bluet (also called perennial bachelor’s button), Centaurea montana, is native to the Alps.

Greenhouses can be places to learn many different kinds of things. Owning a greenhouse means that lessons will be learned. In many cases, lessons that build character.

Patience is one of the lessons learned by those who own greenhouses.

It takes patience to build the greenhouse or wait until it is built. Patience is acquired while putting a greenhouse together and organizing all the various components. When you start plants from seeds your patience may reach an all-time high as you wait for the plants to emerge, the flowers to bloom and or the vegetables to grow large enough to eat. If you work with children or new gardeners in your greenhouse you will not only be learning how to be patient, you will be passing that quality along to others. (more…)