Planting bare-root roses is the best and most cost-efficient way to make your spring and summer bloom like mad
If your garden dreams include a lush and colorful rose garden, the best time to plan and plant it is in the winter months when bare-root roses are available in local and mail-order nurseries.
Bare-root roses are dormant bushes that are packaged and shipped without a container. Shipping the plants in this form saves a great deal of money for growers compared to shipping potted bushes after they break dormancy, and those savings are passed on to you. You can often purchase multiple bare-root bushes for what a single potted rose will cost you later in the year.
Each year growers come out with a few new rose varieties, but there are always old favorites available as well. Whatever roses you choose, it’s best to get them planted as soon as you can. Here are the basic…
Brighten your life and your garden by planting a citrus tree
Citrus trees are one of my favorite choices for almost any garden. They are evergreen, prolific, and relatively low maintenance. And they just make a garden look sunnier!
Selecting and planting
In climates where frosts do not occur, citrus (Citrus spp.) can be planted at any time. Elsewhere, plant trees in early spring.
Citrus is best suited for USDA zones 8 to 11. Best results come from planting in full sun, but they can tolerate some shade in most areas and do well with afternoon shade in the hottest regions. The general rule of thumb is that sweeter citrus types need more heat and sour types need less. …
Follow these basic steps to be a more successful seed-starter!
Growing most plants from seed is easy as long as you provide the basics that all plants require — soil, heat, light, and water — and then avoid a few common pitfalls.
The Basics
1. Begin by purchasing a commercial seed-starting medium or mixing your own blend. Whichever you way you decide to go, you need the medium to be sterile and fast-draining. I often use a good-quality potting soil (as opposed to a seed-starting mix) that I lighten by adding perlite to improve the drainage. I avoid using seed-starting media that is primarily made of peat, especially those tablet-like peat plugs. Peat has a weird relationship with water — it repels it and repels it, then it sucks it up like crazy and won’t let go of it. …
Let the beauty burst forth with these easy-to-grow bulbs
Potted amaryllis bulbs in full bloom are one of the loveliest sights of winter, with their big, bold flowers on strong, upright stems. The explosion of color in shades of deep red, bright pink, salmon, white, or even green can really brighten a frosty cold day. You may have received or purchased an amaryllis bulb during the holidays, so if you’re ready to see some of those gorgeous blossoms in your home, it’s time to get them planted.
Planting amaryllis
Amaryllis bulbs like to feel cozy in their containers so choose pots that will leave no more than an inch of space surrounding the bulb. Make sure the container has a drainage hole because letting the bulb sit in waterlogged soil is likely to cause the bulb to rot. …
All good things must come to an end. Here’s how to know when to bail and how best to do it.
Finding a good, supportive writing group can be one of the more valuable steps a writer can take in their creative and professional development. The right group can help to keep you inspired and productive, hone your editing and critiquing skills, and stretch your creative habits and goals.
But in time even a good writing group can cease to be helpful. Sometimes changes in the group membership can shift its focus or tone. Sometimes you’re the one that changes and the group is no longer a good fit for your writing purposes. …
The smartest, laziest financial move of my life came from watching Netflix
I am the last person who should be giving financial advice.
The list of financial blunders I’ve made in my life is long. I’m a responsible person and I clean up my messes but along the way I’ve made stupid investments, accrued bad debts at outrageous interest, and made career moves that were never financially smart (although I don’t regret any of them).
At times when my income has been steady, I’ve been a consistent and substantial saver, enough that I was able to buy my second new car (a 2000 Volkswagen New Beetle) with cash.
But I’ve spent more than half of my post-college working life as a freelancer and, as any freelancer will tell you, that is not the path to a steady income. …
One crop in particular rejuvenates your soil while it also feeds you.
Warm-season crops like tomatoes, peppers, and squash pump out lots of produce all summer long for you, but all that fruit-bearing takes a toll on your soil. Even if you’ve regularly fertilized or added compost, your soil at the end of the season may be deficient in multiple macro- and micro-nutrients, but especially low in nitrogen. Nitrogen is the nutrient that really drives the greening of your garden; when your soil is nitrogen-deficient, nothing will truly thrive.
A soil test will tell you definitively what nutrients your soil needs, but even without a soil test, you can safely assume that your soil could use a boost. …
California is burning. Don’t let your garden become a tinderbox.
Fire safety should always be a consideration for gardeners and never more so than in October, often the driest month of the year. Wildfire awareness tends to be a fact of life in rural areas, but the massive Oakland Hills Fire of October 1991 still serves as a lesson to all that landscaping for fire safety is necessary even in urban areas.
Don’t assume that just because your garden is lovely and well-tended that it’s also fire-safe.
Fire-safe landscaping requires the removal of excess “fuel,” that is, grasses, brush, dense shrubs, woodpiles, or any flammable debris around your property. Check with your local and state agencies to the required or recommended standards for your area. For example, California state law requires that you keep a 100-foot “defensible space buffer” around your house that not only will minimize fire risk but will also create a safer space for firefighters to defend your home in case fire does break out. …
And 1 Thing Never to Do
Whether you’ve had a summer of bumper crops or less than stellar results, it’s time to switch gears and shift from a warm-season edible garden to cool-season growing.
In some ways, cool-season crops are easier to manage. For one thing, you are likely to have less trouble with insect pests and diseases than you did with summer crops. The major challenge is the weather, but if you plan appropriately for your climate, your cool-season garden can be just as productive as your warm-season garden.
Remove dead and dying plants
To start, remove all the dead and dying plants from the area where you’ll be growing edibles. That includes raking up fallen leaves and flowers. While there are benefits to leaving fallen leaves on the ground around your ornamental plants, sanitation in the edible garden is especially important. Plant debris left on the ground can provide cover for insect pests to over-winter and disease pathogens to infect the soil. So clear everything from the planting area and be sure to toss any diseased plant material in the trash, not the compost. …
Medium Publications by ILLUMINATION Writers
A publication by @ClaireSplan
I’m excited to introduce my Medium publication, Garden to Table.
In the last 14 years that I’ve been a garden writer, I’ve found so many people who are enthusiastic about growing their own food. In the past six months, however, as the pandemic has led so many of us to spend more time at home and to rethink how we want to spend our time and take care of our families, there has been an explosion of interest in food gardening.
But not everyone knows how to get started or, if they have some experience growing edibles, they may not know how to do it better, how to solve problems, or how to take it to the next level. …
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