When To Cover Plants

Plant them a little closer if they're slow growers.Keep in mind that some groundcovers that spread rapidly can become aggressive. Of course, your budget is also an important factor.) is a hardy, well-behaved evergreen that can eventually spread to a width...

Plant it for its outstanding color, its ease of care, its salt and drought tolerance, and for its attractiveness to us as well as to butterflies and other pollinators.POSTHUMOUS THANKS TO FLORIDIAN FOR SHARING HER PHOTOGRAPHS, INCLUDING ONE OF DUNE SUNFLOWER...

This article can help.When using ground covers around pavers, you want them to meet several criteria. It also needs a little fertilizer every spring to keep its bright color. This low-growing ground cover grows in all 48 states in the continental U.S

Many times, they may look too harsh or are prone to allow difficult to remove weeds to grow. Above all, they must be low growing plants.Here are several low growing grasses and ground cover plants that meet these requirements:freestar.queue.push(function()...

Surround your trees with circles of ground cover and you'll give your landscape a professional, finished look.Choose your ground cover plants according to the trees around which they'll live.

After snuggling some pine needle mulch around the tiny plants, we resumed the laborious task of learning about prepositional phrases.As we continued our studies, the little plants grew and filled in the planter.

I could really find it much more easily if I could see it "in person," but where?The US National Arboretum is my biggest, best and closest place for unique plant observation. More digital digging turned up a helpful tool on the U.

Once winter gets going, I like to add a low row cover tunnel to provide a barrier to ice, snow and howling winter winds. Deep mulch that reduces repeated freezing and thawing of the soil is a good way to enhance the cold tolerance of parsley, celery,...

Remove any staples or tape then position each sheet of cardboard with generous overlaps to make it harder for weeds to push through. Ground Resistance Resistance is far from futile! Consider covering bare soil with a cover crop or green manure to crowd...

Grass clippings are readily taken down into the soil by earthworms and other soil fauna, and also add a small supplement of nitrogen to the soil. It makes a great path surface if replenished annually, but if using it on beds let it rot down first.

Then use a measuring tape to estimate the site's rise (elevation gain) and run (distance from front to back). This is one of the little quirks you learn from gardening on a slope. Measuring a slope's rise and run is a first step in creating a hillside...

There are dozens of cold-tolerant species from which to choose, or you can use a cover crop blend offered by your favorite seed company - a great way to get to know clovers, mustards, vetches and other green manure plants.

This may seem like bizarre advice, but by making a plant work harder it will concentrate more of its efforts on fruit production and ripening. Squashes need to be cured before storing , a simple process that will keep your ripe fruits in good condition...

This hybrid generates large amounts of organic matter and needs little encouragement to grow 5 to 12 feet tall. University and private researchers are going back to the basics and experimenting with beneficial plants to determine how they can best be...

Soft shoots can be pinched out with your thumb and forefinger. Make pruning cuts to an upward-facing bud to prevent branches from drooping too much when heavy with fruit Some plum varieties, like ‘Victoria', tend to grow branches that spread outwards...

Dried chilies are just as versatile as fresh chilies. Again, a pair of gloves will come in handy for this. Using a Dehydrator to Dry Chili Peppers An alternative to air-drying is to use a dehydrator set to a suitable temperature.

You can use taller crops to shade shorter ones, but in scorching weather drastic action may be needed. Fruit trees, canes and bushes can be mulched with chunkier materials such as bark chippings, or fibrous materials like straw.

Keep them on a cool, bright windowsill. Seed potatoes for second cropping are sold by garden suppliers and potato merchants anytime from mid to late summer. A small pot just 30cm (one foot) tall and wide can hold one potato plant, while larger containers...

Many tree fruits, including apples and pears, naturally thin their fruits in early summer during the so-called June drop . Plums are notorious for over-producing – with often-disastrous results.

Greenhouse whitefly are tiny but can seriously weaken plants Greenhouse Whitefly Organic Controls Whitefly can strike any time from the middle of summer. Encarsia formosa may sound like the Latin name of a beautiful vine, but it's actually a special type...

Using row covers can keep the chill at bay and extend your harvests into fall 6. Top up mulches with new material. Pickings from fruiting and pod-producing vegetables such as beans and tomatoes are coming thick and fast right now, but as summer wanes...

It's important to follow the instructions on the label very carefully. Simply leave some areas of your garden unmanicured, or you can install a bug hotel . Or, if you keep chickens let them search and destroy for you! Healthy soil helps to make your plants...

Savoy and other winter cabbages benefit from a light frost to bring out their flavor. Transplant cabbages when they have at least three or four adult leaves Transplanting Cabbage The seedlings are ready to transplant about six weeks after sowing, by which...

Sit the smaller pot inside the larger pot, levelling up the rims by pouring sand into the base of the big pot till they are even. It doesn't have to be grandiose; a self-contained fountain powered by a small electric pump brings the soothing gurgle of...

Watermelon radishes provide a unique color in the kitchen that's welcome in salads, sandwiches and sushi Thin slices of watermelon radish turn any salad into a rainbow, or you can pickle them to add color and crunch to sandwiches.

Like a fine wine, chutney matures with age as all the ingredients meld into a delicious symphony of flavors. The cooking process then needs to be stopped in its tracks by plunging the blanched vegetables into ice-cold water (I use a clean bucket of water...

After the first frost passes, harvest your rutabagas during a period of dry weather. A little goes a long way, so allow only three pinches per plant. By any name, a buttery mash of potatoes and rutabaga is a wonderful dish for a brisk fall day.