Share my passion for all things gardening!
I recently wrote about using “vernalization” for starting artichoke seeds. There are two other seed-starting terms that you might find both interesting and useful. Those are stratification and scarification and they apply to the seeds of different plants. I thought it might be helpful to define and elaborate on all three terms here. That way, so everything is together in […]
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I know I’m forcing the issue here but I can’t help myself! The bulbs we’ve all known for so many years as Amaryllis are actually called Hippeastrum. So here is an update on how my Hippeastrum is doing! (After all, as a garden writer, I should probably be using the correct terms myself, right?) This gorgeous flower is ‘Papilio’ and […]
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Well, here we are in the dead of winter and I’m talking about how to propagate geraniums by taking cuttings. Why now? Well, the cuttings I took of my ivy geraniums last fall have been doing so well, I decided it was an important skill to share with you. The take-home message from my latest video is simple: Don’t be afraid […]
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Have you ever noticed how we humans tend to focus on the things we have done wrong? Yet we neglect than all of the things we’ve done right? Well, we gardeners are no exception. We often fixate on our “failures” rather than learning from them, which ultimately leads to success in our gardens. As a garden writer, I often hear […]
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Do you enjoy growing Amaryllis bulbs? Those are the popular bulbs that are usually sold during the fall months for growing indoors over the winter months. Their flowers are huge and gorgeous. But what if I told you they’re not Amaryllis but Hippeastrum instead? Say what?! Yup, all these years, we’ve been calling them by the wrong name. There are […]
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I absolutely love watching the birds in our garden! And because of that, you get to watch them, too… vicariously, at least. In the video below, you will see pine siskins goldfinches eating seedheads in our flower beds. We certainly wouldn’t such a wonderful variety of birds in our garden if it weren’t for some extra effort to make it […]
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In late September, I wrote about overwintering zonal geraniums. It is so simple to do and is a great way to save money. Last year, I wasn’t successful at getting my ivy geraniums to overwinter so took some geranium cuttings as a “Plan B” for this year. What happened last year was that my ivy geraniums were huge plants by […]
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I’ve been meaning to dig up my canna lilies for the past couple of weeks. That’s due to my crazy schedule these days. However, our weather is changing dramatically. It includes includes temperatures in the teens along with the “S” word). That convinced me to go right outside and get the job done! A couple of years ago, I researched […]
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Today is a bit of a milestone for me. Every season, I write 33 columns so this is #33 and I’ve paired it with video #33! Wow. Today is a season wrap-up. Yet I also want to reassure you that I will continue to post to my blog and Facebook page. After all, there are still plenty of gardening topics […]
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When I shot the video below about how to overwinter geraniums, I had no idea how popular it would become! In the two years since it was filmed, almost 87,000 people have viewed it. Isn’t that crazy? But it underscores the interest in this topic. After all, most of us gardeners buy geraniums for planters or flower beds, right? But […]
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