Gardening

It is simply not summer without sunflowers. For me, summer is synonymous with sunflowers. Every year I grow them from seeds carefully saved from the previous season and every year I am again amazed by their size, beauty and subtle ability to remember to turn my face to the sun, a not so oblique reference to their ability to follow …

For me, summer is really here in Michigan when peonies bloom. The showy, huge flowers of this perennial open in late May and mid-June, just in time for the summer solstice. Inspired by a wonderful peony garden many years ago, I started growing my own. Michigan Peony Garden My love of peony flowers started when I first saw the Nichols …

Like daffodils, tulips are an iconic flowering spring bulb, filling gardens with colour well before most other flowering plants have gained momentum. The plants have two to six spacious, strappy leaves with a waxy coat which provides them a blue-green colour. The blossoms are often cup-shaped, with three petals and three sepals. Additional tulips are star-shaped. Tulips are among the …

When I started gardening, much of my attention was focused on sustainability. In my small courtyard, I wanted to grow the garden as efficiently as possible, gradually introducing new plants that would be useful. Although the garden was mostly full of vegetables, there was always a flowering plant in the rows: calendula. Soon I would find out that my garden …

For most experienced gardeners, the prospect of adding a new crop to the garden is exciting. As a cut flower grower, I often add new plants to the flower cutting field. Browsing online, it’s easy to be blown away by the beautiful images of professional bloggers and growers. When I saw the large rows of dahlia flowers in full bloom …

On warm summer nights what better place to be than in the garden, enjoying the soft and fragrant breezes and bright plants in a moonlit garden. White flowers, silvery foliage and fragrant flowers combine with discreet lighting to give a dramatic touch to your garden. Ready to enjoy some moonlit foliage and flowers at night? The best plants for a …

It can be disheartening that your hard work in the garden goes to caput due to unexpected challenges. That’s why Gardening Know How’s goal is to help you avoid these problems, or at least modify them, by providing the best possible information for your garden to thrive – and this includes answering the gardening questions that plague us all. Here …

Here in the southeast, where summer temperatures can become quite high accompanied by suffocating humidity, it is not uncommon to have plants that wither on hot afternoons. Withering of tomatoes, peppers and some other crops is common, especially when the scorching afternoon sun reaches them daily. Occasionally, they recover when temperatures cool later in the day, but this is not …

San Francisco is not the only city that has revived the dunes, but it is the one I know best. The western third of the city near the Pacific Ocean is located in an area once full of dunes and called the Outer Lands. My place is about 10 blocks from the order and when I dip a shovel into …

Do you know what voles are? They are a kind of cute lawn mice with short tails. While I hate killing anything (even spiders!), These small mammals can devour my crops, destroy my sod and make tunnels that disrupt other plant root systems. Flights and plants are like oil and water, they just don’t mix. Vole deterrents are the first …