Planting Vegetables from Seed and Seedling
You can plant vegetable seeds indoors or outdoors. If you plant seeds indoors, you transplant them into your garden later. With direct seeding, you skip the indoor step and sow the seeds directly in your [more…]
Making Compost - Black Gold for Your Organic Garden
The best and most refined of organic matters is compost,which is organic matter and/or manures that have decomposed until they resemble loamy soil. Thoroughly decomposed compost contains lots of humus [more…]
Steps for Fool-Proof Repotting
Ready for a little repotting? It's not that difficult even if it's your first try at repotting a plant, and if you're an old hand at it, you may discover some helpful new techniques. Before you remove [more…]
Planting a New Lawn from Seed
Starting a lawn from seed is the least expensive way to transform your home or garden with a new lawn. Find information and step-by-step instructions on how to turn grass seed into a lush, beautiful lawn [more…]
Planting a Window Box Container Garden
Window boxes need no introduction. Picture the classic eye-catcher: a narrow box painted perfectly to match the house trim, abundantly spilling forth ivy geraniums, pansies, and petunias. You can come [more…]
Mowing Your Lawn the Right Way
Proper mowing is one of the most important practices in keeping your lawn healthy. Grasses are like most plants — if you clip off the growing points (for grass, it's in the crown, where the new leaves [more…]
Fertilizing Your Organic Garden
Organic fertilizers generally come from plants, animals, or minerals. Soil organisms break down the material into nutrients that plants can use. Some organic fertilizers contain significant amounts of [more…]
Container Garden Bounty: Growing Vegetables and Herbs
If you grow vegetables in the ground, you know that the No. 1 rule is to keep them racing along — with plenty of water, fertilizer, sunlight, and whatever else the specific crops require. Vegetables and [more…]
Designing an Herb Garden
An herb garden is its own theme, but you can specialize by choosing only herbs from the Bible, herbs for teas, or herbs for dyes. Or you can tuck herbs into other specialized gardens. Use the designs presented [more…]
Consider Vines for Your Landscape
Vines are useful in the landscape as groundcovers, as a covering for a fence or blank wall, or as shading on an arbor or trellis to cool a patio or deck. Just remember that they can be very vigorous and [more…]
Identifying Rose Classifications
Rosaceae is the third-largest plant family. This family includes many ornamental landscape plants, fruits, and berries, including apples, cherries, raspberries, and pyracantha, characterized by the shape [more…]
Gardening with Feng Shui Principles
Feng Shui, which is a Chinese design philosophy, means literally wind and water. In traditional Chinese beliefs, wind and water are the source of all life energy. This life energy, called [more…]
Containing Your Container Garden
The perfect pot for your container garden is one that enhances the plants and the location in which they're displayed. Choosing the right container involves a number of decisions: Determine the type of [more…]
Growing a Garden on a Small Balcony
With planning, a small balcony can offer some of the same amenities as a garden in the ground: lush foliage, colorful flowers — even vegetables. A small balcony garden has plants up front and up close [more…]
Deciding Where to Locate Your Bee Hives
You can keep bees just about anywhere: in the countryside, in the city, in a corner of the garden, by the back door, in a field, on the terrace, or even on a rooftop downtown. You don't need a great deal [more…]
Designing a Garden for Fragrance
Of all the senses, smell most strongly evokes memory. The strong perfume of sweet peas, or the spicy smell of nasturtiums can bring back an acute longing for a favorite garden from the past. [more…]
Planting Flowers for Your Bees
Flowers and bees are a perfect match. Bees gather nectar and pollen enabling plants to reproduce. In turn, pollen feeds baby bees and nectar is turned into honey to be enjoyed by the bees and you, the [more…]
Beneficial Insects in the Garden
Not all garden insects and bugs are bad. In fact, gardens rely on beneficial insects to keep the general insect population in balance. Beneficial insects are the ones that prey on or parasitize insect [more…]
Using Cactus in a Low-Maintenance Container Garden
Light and temperature are the defining needs of many succulents. In general, most need a great deal of bright light, although some take part shade. Most cannot survive for more than a night with temperatures [more…]
Understanding the Benefits of Garden Mulch
Using mulch is a good gardening habit but not mandatory; the benefits, however, make it worth the effort. A really good job of mulching your garden usually offers these benefits: [more…]
Fertilizing Fundamentals for Houseplants
The secret to fertilizing your houseplants lies in moderation. [more…]
Creating a Low-Maintenance Feng Shui Garden
You can achieve a beautiful Feng Shui garden even if you don't have a lot of time to devote to gardening. Keeping a garden low maintenance is easy if you plan carefully and keep up with chores so they [more…]
Protecting Roses from Winter Damage
Generally, if you live where winter temperatures predictably reach 10 degrees F (–12 degrees C), many of the most popular roses — such as hybrid teas, floribundas, grandifloras, and climbers — need some [more…]
Choosing the Right Vines for Your Garden
Ask yourself what you want from a vine. Do you have a good spot, or can you create one? Some vines are big, rambling plants; others can fill and remain in their allotted spaces. Some vines offer temporary [more…]
Planting a Hillside Rock Garden
Instead of viewing a slope in your yard as a landscape liability, consider it a great opportunity — a place to display a rock garden. Rock garden plants are quite beautiful, and growing them on a slope [more…]
