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Maybe you blanched at the price of fresh herbs in the produce section this spring, or you were seduced by a bright pot of basil at your local nursery, and you thought, “Hey! This year, I will grow my own herbs!” Now you’ve got leggy basil plants blooming in a big pot, and you’re eyeing the dried herbs in your spice cabinet. It’s not too late! You can still get the most out of your herbs this summer!
Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium angustifolium) is one of our small, native plant treasures. As our sensibilities mature (along with the rest of our bodies), we become more appreciative of little things that add to the quality of our lives. We take time to see the spring violets, the trilliums, and a hundred other small beauties that we may not have noticed during our earlier years.
In spring you planted them. You pampered them like a new mother. Finally the time has come. Your tomatoes are ripe. In fact, there are so many you cannot eat them fast enough. The vines drag the ground with sweet, tantalizing tomatoes. If you enjoy Mexican food, why not make salsa from those excess tomatoes? Included in this article is a step by step recipe for making one of my family's favorite treats, Fiesta Salsa.
Until this gardening year I killed ALL weeds, without mercy. It was a never-ending and tedious job. No matter what weed cloth I used, no matter how thick the mulch I applied, I still had weeds... and I am against using chemicals. In my mind, NO weed had any redeeming qualities. I was wrong.
In a prior article[1], I introduced you to the mediterranean climate, a climate where things seem backwards. Winter is the growing season and summer is the dormant season. Winters have rain and the temperatures are mild. Summers are rainless and can be hot. Summer is the challenging season. In this article I discuss the strategies that the plants use to survive the summer.
This little known plant is hardly significant anymore. Little is said about it, very little is written about it, and no one even remembers it. Like a lot of other things, its heyday was long ago and far away.
A field of white daisies and yellow buttercups is a lovely sight to behold. But if creeping buttercup finds its way into your gardens, you've got trouble with a capital "T"!
What is a “no-wa-wa” fountain? The term “no-wa-wa”, perhaps a tad cutesy, originated several decades ago in a contest by Steve Gander, a local Iowa boy, who grew up to become one of the top rodeo event promoters in the U.S.
Summer's here and it's HOT! Our beautiful gardens aren't the only things that suffer from high temperatures and suffocating humidity. Be aware of how the heat can affect YOU while carrying out your gardening chores.
Do you remember in the story of 'Peter Pan' when the fairy Tinker Bell was sick? Peter asked everyone to clap their hands to let Tink know they believed in fairies so her light would not go out. Well, there are things you can do to let the garden fairies know you believe in them.
Understanding more about mosquitoes now may help prevent their reproduction, repel their bites, and eliminate many of the bloodsucking population in your yard and garden next year.
Previously I described the campions and catchflies from the genera Lychnis and Silene. In this article I will introduce you to their other close cousin, the soapworts. While they are also mostly pink-flowered, they have the added bonus of fragrant flowers. Read on to see which might be suitable for your garden.
I was going to tell you that everything you ever wanted to know about Wild Strawberries and the Ojibway Indians would be in this article. Not really, but you know how things can be exaggerated in the mind of a child.
Fog rolled in yesterday evening, but within an hour it will all be burned off. The sun is strong. The air smells dry and dusty, but also oddly sweet. The wild oats are well on their way to turning yellow and the ripgut brome adds a few swatches of burgundy. Insects buzz. Where the mustard is not thick, the last of the season's clarkias sway in the light breeze. On a rocky outcrop, a couple of yuccas send up flower stalks like exclamation points, alerting us that something is about to happen.
Have you been looking for something different for your garden? How about a plant that is very fine-textured and almost fernlike, and which arches gracefully from branched, upright stems? How about soft mounds of billowy foliage that wave freely with the slightest breeze? If this sounds like something you might like, then bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa) is an ornamental grass that deserves your consideration.
Is a CSA right for you? CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture, is an idea, no, a movement that is sweeping the nation's smaller or organic farms. Read on to find out how to participate in this new way of connecting with your food and the land.
Close all the windows and lock all the doors… the zucchini are coming! The much-maligned zucchini is about to multiply in gardens everywhere and soon the same old zucchini jokes will start making the rounds again. We laugh every year but it’s the frenetic laugh of complicity, knowing we too may soon be bearing lumpy bags of extra zucchini.
These aren't your local yard variety of dandelion, although many a spring morning as a child in rural Indiana were spent gathering dandelion greens for supper. Of course, my parents with 9 kids had no thought of a weed free lawn so chemicals weren't even a thought.....it was just head on out and gather greens for supper!
I really hate to make mistakes that last for decades and simply cannot be corrected. I have made a few in my lifetime, and the one that I am going to relate to you might never be resolved. I guess I will just have to live with it.
In today's sluggish economy, sometimes it feels like the safest thing to do with your hard-earned money is to bury it in the garden. But while stock funds are wilting, your garden can be thriving if you give it adequate water and plenty of horse manure! Read on to find out about some plants you can incorporate to figuratively "be in the money."
I grow well over a thousand species of succulents outdoors in my dinky yard in southern California zone 9b, and though many look okay most of the year, some stand out as exceptionally attractive all year round and trouble free and easy. The Graptoveria hybrid 'Fred Ives' is one of those plants.
Long leaves of green, and tall waving plumes. A beautiful privacy screen, a refreshing wash of greenery, and so easy to maintain. Ornamental grasses are one of the easiest ways to transform a modest bit of property into a lush garden setting.
Pollen bees? These are the native North American bees that were responsible for all of the pollination before the Europeans brought honey bees to the New World. There are over 3,500 species of pollen bees in North America alone.
Today is the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere, the longest day of the year. It is also known in many places as Midsummer Day, although astronomically, it is only the beginning of summer.
Bees are busy all day, but who works the night shift? Moths. You're familiar with small dull moths that bumble into your porch light, but prettier moths may be closer than you think. Impressive moths can be found in the night garden if you know how to look for them.
Stinging Nettles are not popular plants, I have received many stings from them over the years. Despite their stings, some lovely butterflies and moths choose them as their main food plants, so even Stinging Nettles give us something very special.
Last week I introduced you to the genus Lychnis. This week I will discuss the other campions and catchflies from the closely related genus Silene. This genus , like Lychnis, was and still is, very popular among our temperate gardens.
You should know from the outset that I am not a bee keeper. If you’re looking for information about honey and hives, this is not the article you want. My bees are not honey bees. They are mostly large bumblebees that buzz around sipping from my gardens and amusing me.
"You Supply The Caption" photo is a fun opportunity for Readers. A gardening related photo will be presented, and you, the Readers, will provide humorous captions. The wit available on Dave's Garden is some of the best around, so please join in the fun! This feature is not a "for compensation" article - just a way of saying Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy...now let's hear some funny stuff!
An old Victorian parlor plant makes a 21st century comeback! Coleus is enjoying a new popularity with colorful hybrids and sun tolerant landscape varieties. Easy to grow and inexpensive,Coleus has become a gardener's highspot!
How can you perfectly describe a pollinator that floats through the air on micro-thin, decorative wings? How can you explain the beauty of a flying flower that flits around without pretense? The butterfly is a beautiful creation; a masterpiece. I do not understand how such a delicate creature can survive in our industrialized world, and yet, thankfully, she does. Enjoy some awesome pictures and 10 tips to welcome butterflies.
Once in a while a flower grabs the gardener’s attention and screams, “Buy me, buy me!” That’s the way the glory lily did me when I saw its picture on a bulb bin at a garden center one spring several years ago. I’ve never regretted the demand, for the flowers delight me with glorious blooms every summer.
Think of flower pollination and most often, bees come to mind. After all, they do the lion's share of pollination, especially in our agricultural and garden plants. However, some of our plants don't attract bees at all. What they do attract, and how they do it, may surprise you . . .
Bees, which are valuable pollinators, are often blamed for the trouble caused by the aggressive wasps called yellow jackets. Here are some tips to help distinguish them.
Unless you have been living under a rock, you are probably aware of the disappearance of honeybees, due in large part to “Colony Collapse Disorder”. Scientists worldwide are working to pinpoint the cause, and find a cure. Now, an associate professor of biology at San Francisco State University is enlisting “citizen scientists” in a coast-to-coast study on the health of pollinating bees. You and your children can join in, make a real contribution, and have fun at the same time.
There are many reasons to create a hummingbird habitat in your yard and gardens, besides the enjoyment gained from watching the antics of these special little birds. Hummingbirds also spread flowering plant pollen necessary to produce vital greens, fruits, vegetables and grains.
Aspidistra has been with us so long that we tend to look upon it as one of our own. Introduced into the United States in 1824, it was immediately embraced as a fitting specimen in smoky barrooms and Victorian parlors. It is no less popular today as gardeners are quick to note its cast iron constitution.
An economical meal that tastes wonderful is a good thing. Growing up in the South, we ate grits, tomato gravy and cathead biscuits because it was an economical meal. I thought we were poor; now I realize how rich we truly were.
