Archive for the How To Category

Kathryn and I taught a Master Gardener training class on plant disorders, diseases, and pests yesterday. We’ve learned through experience that most plant problems result from poor growing conditions. Growing conditions are physical and cultural environmental factors that affect the well being of your plants. Light, water, temperature and soil nutrients, for example, are all physical factors of the environment that profoundly affect plant performance.

Yesterday David and I taught an all day long Master Gardener class about insects. What fun! Insects come in so many different colors, sizes, and shapes it boggles the mind. Some insects (the good bugs) are a gardener’s friend and some (the bad bugs) are foes. Learning how to identify friend from foe really helps in successful garden management. Your friends are the beneficial insects, the predators, parasites, or pollinators. Predators and

This week Kathryn and I are teaching Entomology, the study of Insects, to the Master Gardeners. Insects are absolutely fascinating animals, some are the gardener’s friend and some are foes. How can you tell which is which? Use this handy guide to help you distinguish between pests and beneficial insects on your plants. Beetles, Weevils, and Curculios. All members of this group belong to the

If you’re like most people there are plants somewhere in your personal environment with which you are unfamiliar. You don’t know their names, either the common names in English or the scientific names in Latin. This happens very often when purchase a “pre-owned” home and the former owner’s garden and landscape now belongs to you. Sometime in the first year of ownership, as the various

New 2010 seed catalogs arrive in the mail filled with gorgeous color photos of the latest and greatest new vegetables. They’re so tempting. The seduction begins with color, continues with persuasive and evocative text, and caps it off with price reductions to seal the deal. I want them all, but of course, I can’t have them all. There’s not enough room or time to have

We’ve prepared a list of the ten most common problems of houseplants. If you’re having a problem with a houseplant, it’s most likely going to be due to one of the following. 1. Overwatering. More houseplants die from overwatering than from any other cause. Never let the pot sit in water in a saucer. Put marbles or pebbles in the saucer and set your pot

‘Tis the time of year when I find myself standing under a sprig of mistletoe expecting to be kissed! We’re putting branches of bright green holly with brilliant red berries in bouquets and wreaths to decorate the house for the holidays. And I see out the window, in the snow, that the ivy is in full bloom. What a crazy plant, to burst into bloom

Choosing Holiday Trees Bringing a tree into your home to celebrate the holidays is a tradition that comes to us from ancient times. For many centuries before the birth of Jesus, pagans celebrated the winter solstice by bringing boughs of evergreen trees into their homes and decorating them. In the 1850’s Christians in America began to adopt the practice amidst great controversy. But no matter

Holiday Flowering Houseplants: Poinsettia It’s December and every time you go shopping – at department stores, grocery stores, big box stores, garden centers – you see poinsettias in full bloom. They make delightful holiday decorations because winter is their natural flowering time. The bright red “flowers” and bright green leaves say Christmas for many people. I put “flowers” in quotes because those big, showy, red