You've found the famous Dave's Garden website! Join this friendly global community that shares tips and ideas for home and gardens, along with seeds and plants!
Check out the DG homepage for a brief overview of what you'll find in this gardening mega-site.
Login
If you don't have an account yet, visit the registration page to sign up.
Few garden perennials have flowers as bizarre or beautiful as bleeding hearts. Nearly all gardeners recognize them. While the common bleeding heart is essentially a late spring bloomer, the dwarf species and hybrids bloom all season long, a feature rare among garden flowers. Read on to learn more about these wonderful exotic flowers.
Do you LOVE salsa? Me too! While at the grocery store picking out the ingredients for salsa, it dawned on me that I could grow almost all of them in the back yard! Let's plan a salsa garden! It can be in the garden or on the patio in pots. We will have the freshest salsa in town, and it will be exactly how we like it, a little spicy to fire breathing dragon!
The first time you lifted the lid of one of your winter sowing containers and found a tiny green sprout, your eyes grew wide with wonder. It worked! You threw seeds in a milk jug, stuck it outside under your deck, and suddenly you have a baby plant! Amazing. Then another sprout appeared. And another. Now you have thickets of sprouts in an acre of winter sowing containers… What to do?
Dave’s Garden has grown, and grown, and grown… and every year newcomers to our site come across a reference to a “Roundup” and wonder what it is, if it isn’t the weed-killer. In a nutshell, a DG Roundup is a gathering of gardeners for the express purposes of swapping plants, meeting fellow gardeners and breaking bread together.
High relative humidity and warm temperatures mean the air is pregnant with moisture and ripe for delivery. A lowering in air pressure and air temperature, and "water breaks"; read on to see how . . .
Each April, Paducah, Kentucky hosts the American Quilters Society show and contest. Quilters come from all over the United States, and many foreign countries come to participate. These quilters are from very different walks of life, but share many of the same interests. This year, a group of ladies made the journey from Tokushima, Japan with a special exhibit. It seems that Tokushima is an ancient location for making the lovely blue dye known as Indigo
"Each April, Paducah, Kentucky hosts the American Quilters Society show and contest. Quilters come from all over the United States, and many foreign countries come to participate. . . " Melody Rose
For years I tried and failed to grow plants in the garden. The whole reason, I was to find out, was simple pitfalls and the wrong or hard to grow plants in the garden. This is a list of simple garden perennials that you can grow in the garden and ones that will reward you year after year.
It is the oldest sweet; it is one of the purest foods; it is mentioned in the Sumarian and Babylon cuneiform writings; the ancient Egyptians used it; Plato and Aristotle wrote of it; and it will not spoil. It is referred to as the golden nectar of the gods and it has been used to treat maladies for thousands of years.
You can attract and protect honeybees and other important pollinators in your garden. Feed them. Shelter them. Don’t kill them. Sound simple? It really is!
My birdseed bill last winter was right around $100. Add the cost of thistle for the summer Goldfinches, and I'm spending almost $150 a year to enjoy the wildlife in my gardens. I started looking around my yard to see what the critters eat when the feeder is empty, and I discovered a treasure trove of goodies. This spring, I'll spend some of that seed money to add even more to the winter smorgasbord! Something that will last longer than a day or two, and give me enjoyment all summer long.
Aeoniums are one of the most ornamental of all the succulents. Even those that don't appreciate succulents seem to like these plants. Perhaps it is the fact they look like large, colorful, rubbery flowers that these popular plants have such an appeal. And luckily many are easy plants to grow as well. The following article is an introduction, along with some of my own experiences, to these amazing plants.
While most of the Jewels featured here so far have been truly regal, this one is a little closer to the "common folk" in that although it looks metallic, the metal is not a noble metal or gem. Nonetheless, it is quite special, yet a bit easier to grow than most of the others I've discussed. Read on to learn more . . .
There are several different flowers known as "marigolds" that belong to distinct genera: Bidens tripartita, 'bur marigold' , Caltha palustris, 'marsh marigold', Calendula officinalis, 'Pot marigold'. The marigolds discussed here are species of the genus Tagetes. They are mainly hardy annuals that are yellow, gold, orange and mahogany, sometimes red or white. Marigolds are indigenous to the American Southwest, to Mexico, and to South America, but they were spread throughout the world by early colonists.Two types are commonly known: African marigolds (Tagetes erecta) are tall. French marigolds (Tagetes patula) are low growing. Neither type is native to Africa or France. There are about 50 different species of marigolds within the genus Tagetes. A few of them will be discussed here.
The word ‘tropical fruits’ usually refers to those fruits which are now an everyday sight in temperate countries such as bananas, mangoes, papayas, pineapples and so forth. But the famous prodigality of tropical flora produces much more delicious goodies which will usually be found only on local markets in exotic countries.
April is always a busy month on the farm. Some years, it’s complicated by a lot of April showers, both rain and snow, but this year it was for the most part, warm and dry.
This isn't an article about politics or religion, it's just about Mothers - those gone, those here and those in the future, and how they impacted us in our love of gardening and everything in the world - the softer side of things :)
Unless you live in the tropics, you need a greenhouse. The problem of course, is the cost as permanent greenhouses sell for thousands of dollars. There is a way out though, that allows gardeners on even the tightest budget to enjoy a little piece of tropicana. All you need to do is spend a little, bend your back & apply some imagination.
On Saturdays, the Writer's Group would like to say thanks by presenting a "You Supply The Caption" photo. A gardening related photo will be presented, and you the Readers will provide humorous captions. The wit available on Dave's is some of the best around, so please join in the fun! This feature is not a "for compensation" article - just our way of saying Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy...now let's hear some funny stuff!
We all have them, some more than others. Some we rarely see, some that we can expect every year. Some are very poisonous, some are helpful. No matter what type of gardener you are sooner of later they will show up and you will need to deal with them, WEEDS.
If I followed my every plant purchasing impulse, I would have to get a real job. Admittedly I am mesmerized by low-price tags. But I think I also feel a bit self-righteous in saving the dogeared victims of too many days on a table. Clearance shopping for perennials, bulbs, shrubs and tropicals is a great strategy for the gardener who wants to invest a little more time in shopping and caring for new plants, and a lot less money.
My main reason for gardening is the tranquility and relaxation I gain in return and I've been doing this "therapy" for many years. Having my hands in the cool earth, sweating out the impurities that have invaded my body, hoeing my demons away and too many other labor intensive tasks to mention have helped my body and spirit in so many ways. So imagine my surprise at finding out how much enjoyment and calm I receive from playing with the little 10$ desk zen garden given to me as a gift. Nothing heavy to tote, no hot sun, zero garden bugs and the ease of going no further than my computer desk to seek an outlet for everyday stresses. And so began my journey into the world of the famous Japenese Zen Gardens. I hope to give you some insight of the philosophy behind these landscapes, show you amazing pictures of several large and small gardens and finally to walk you through making your very own . All you must do is choose which one that best suits your wants and needs.
I cherish the Reticulated Iris in my garden as they are my harbinger of Spring. Although their grass-like foliage begins to appear sometime around Christmas, their little pointed buds save themselves until the first few warmest days of February. Expectantly I wait through the colder days, hoping that the iris got a good, dry summer baking for maximum winter flower.
Name a shrub that can have an attractive floral display, showy fruit production, excellent fall colour, can be used as a groundcover, foundation plant or rockery specimen and is attractive to wildlife. It's a short list but the low-growing Cotonester species would be one correct plant. Read on to learn more about the various groundcover type cotoneasters which can grace your garden.
California poppies are easy to grow. They are drought-tolerant and can grow in poor soil. They self-sow and refuse to be pampered. This is no high-maintenance Hollywood beauty, but she does have quite a wardrobe for playing whatever garden role you like. You don't like the orange dress? How about white, or yellow, or rose? Do you prefer the satiny sheath of four petals or the frilly tutu of eight? She's here to please.
Friends see the lush green plantings at our house and exclaim, “Oh, you have such a green thumb! What’s your secret?” I say, “I water them,” and they look at me in disbelief. But watering – not watering enough, or watering so much that plant roots get soggy – may be the biggest issue for those who think their thumbs are black. Fortunately, it’s often an easy problem to solve. Polymer moisture crystals are one of the best watering aids I’ve found.
Weather conditions are extremely important to us as gardeners. If you are like me, you keep an eye on the weather for signs of heat, cold, rain, snow, or other possibilities that will impact your plants. In this group of articles I'm going to help you understand some of the "what" and "why" of weather phenomena. This is knowledge that you can use to get better gardening results. . .
Welcome to the first article ever on this wonderful and ever growing group filled with people who, for the life of themselves, cannot stop the plant bug that already is growing in their soul. Come on in and introduce yourself and let me tell you how to know if you need the services of Gardeners Anonymous.
There is nothing more beautiful on an early spring morning than to come upon the lovely trillium, stretching her arms and raising her lovely face to catch a glimpse of the morning sun. But with all that beauty, it is the one thing that spoiled Aunt Bett's wedding day.
The Shasta Daisy is one of the backbones of a perennial border, with long lasting 3 inch wide sparkling white blooms and yellow centers on sturdy stems that grow up to 40” tall, flowering in June through September. The flowers make wonderful cut flowers, and in the landscape they attract bees and butterflies.
If you have bulbs blooming in your yard or garden this spring, perhaps you have experienced the same dilemma I’ve faced in recent years: I’d love to pick some for a bouquet, but then I feel like I’m diminishing the beautiful show. I admit that this feeling may sound a bit fussy, but I’m a senior citizen now, and old garden duffers like me are allowed a bit of eccentricity now and then!
In the classic Arsenic and Old Lace, Aunt Abby and Aunt Martha poisoned lonely old bachelors with their concotion of spiked elderberry wine. Let's talk about some less lethal uses for the elderberry shrub.
This is the story of a wild flower I found last summer. At first I thought it was a weed, but with some care it turned out to be an attractive & hardy addition to my garden.
Every tropical plants enthusiast nowadays knows about passionflowers, those wonderful climbers which are native (for 98%) to the New World and which have been grown by amateurs for decades both in Europe and the USA, mostly the hardy ones (P. caerulea and P. incarnata). The rest of the 650 species recorded today are to be found from Mexican deserts to the Andean high mountains and the Amazonian lowlands, plus the odd ones in Australia and South-Eastern Asia. So this is a pretty vast subject and we will restrict here to passionflowers hybridization, a peculiar aspect of this fascinating subject.
We each have our own secret addictions. This is my confession: I am addicted to pots. Plastic, clay, terra cotta, stoneware, even the styrofoam ones look pretty good to me.
Whether your nemesis is deer, or burrowing rodents that dine on your bulbs and ornamentals, plant these critter-resistant varieties, then sit back and smile.
