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.
The life of a street tree can be tough. It has to put up with car exhaust, salt and sand from winter road crews, heat from asphalt and pavement, and many other things most “normal” trees don’t have to deal with. How can you be sure that you are making the proper choice for a street tree?
Starting a vegetable garden from seed is a huge undertaking even in warm, hospitable climates. In cooler areas such as Zone 5 and 6 gardens, this can be an even bigger challenge to fight with Mother Nature’s unpredictable last freezes and cool ground temperatures. Use this guide to help you know how to plan and prepare for your veggie starting this year.
All evergreen trees are not created equal. Most people cannot tell the difference between a spruce, fir and pine, though many distinct differences do exist. Read more on what specifically makes spruces and firs different from pines.
With my Colorado hard clay soil, I struggled to raise vegetables. Not just “good” vegetables, but “any” vegetables. I tried to till in one or two bags of composted manure, watered till my husband was blue in the face while paying the bill, and stared longingly at my dirt clod for hours. Good vegetables never resulted. But this year I got serious about it, and in a very cheap way.
Inevitably, all gardeners must leave their precious plants at some point for extended periods of time. Whether it is on vacation, to tend to a family emergency or a work trip, sometimes our plants just have to fend for themselves. Here are a few tips for how to care for your potted plants if you do have to be away.
During March, the writer's group at Dave's is penning articles about their favorite gardening book series and authors. I don't really have a particular series or author that I sway toward, but I do have a favorite organization that everyone should know about. They recently came out with a new book chronicling 25 years of hard work in the gardening industry. Plant Select's new book is a must-read for anyone that is struggling to find plants or resources on tough plants. Moreover, every gardener should support organizations like Plant Select, which lead to better, stronger, and more resilient plants for our gardens.
I’ve talked with many gardeners, green and seasoned, who have a hard time remembering what is what within a botanical name as well as how to use it. This is a quick reference, reminder, or education for anyone who has a tough time (and most of us do at one time or another) with botanical Latin.
Picking a garden color scheme is a lot like composing a painting. You have to look at all the components together and make choices about composition and colors as a whole. If you've never successfully composed a painting, or never thought about composing your garden this way, read on.
Whether you or a loved one is about to be married or you just love the romance of weddings, creating a nuptial themed spot in your garden can be a special undertaking.
Equally daring and endearing, if not a little illegal, Guerilla Gardening is a movement taking some parts of the world by storm. What is it, you ask? Read on for a brief introduction to this interesting alliance of tactical growers.
Nothing’s worse than realizing you‘ve missed a prime opportunity to buy the perfect plant. So I would suggest planning your spring plant shopping sprees this winter and in the meantime save your pennies. An added bonus: this practice is also an excellent way to quell cabin fever.
I’ve been contemplating themed gardens in lieu of my random mish-mash of plants recently. Generally, if I like a plant I’ll buy it, whether or not I have a place for it and it definitely never crosses my mind if the plant would look good in my existing landscape.
The cold has pretty much set in hard here in Colorado. The pond is closed down for winter, the perennials have all entered their dormant sleep, and I have let go of the gardens while nature takes care of them for several months. What will I do with my time now that the weather is prohibitively cold? I plan on brainstorming for new, bigger, and better planned gardens for next year.
Whether you love to blog or don't even know what one is, the Dave's Garden Blog feature is just about as easy as jotting down a note in a blank notebook with good ole pen and paper. The difference is, you can't misplace your blog on Dave's! Read on to get started using this great tool today.
Can you even imagine trying to garden in USDA Zone 4 or lower, which can get down to temps of 30 below zero? It kind of makes you think that the rest of us are just borrowing the term “perennial,” and using it loosely. If you are looking for the hardiest of hardy perennials for your garden, due to your zone or because you just want tough plants, you might want to try some of these plants.
Even if you are completely propagation challenged, starting brugmansias from cuttings is a breeze. With a few tips and a tiny bit of care you can have your own plant thriving in no time.
As the weather cools, the air outside and in your home will likely begin to dry out a little bit. Dry air can make our hard working, gardening hands dry out quickly and become a source of unneeded pain. Here is an overview of several popular commercially available products specifically made to ease our industrious and sometimes abused hands.
Starting a small lawn from seed, while not faster, can be cheaper than using sod. It is not as hard or laborious as most people think; and with a few tips, a healthy green lawn can be right around the corner; nay, right in your front yard!
Unfortunately for gardeners in more intemperate climates, most interesting vines are annuals, tropical or completely invasive. If you are on a search for vines that will remain robust perennials in your zone, here are 10 hardy vines you should know.
The Pike's Peak Region of Colorado is a difficult place to garden. With erratic weather patterns coming over the Front Range, one cannot predict much more than the skies being unpredictable. A drought-filled summer and a cold, wet winter one year could be followed by a cool, rainy summer and a desperately dry winter. In a climate like this, experimentation in the garden is a must. What better way to see what can thrive in this changing climate than visiting a demonstration garden? The Horticultural Art Society of Colorado Springs maintains a sumptuous demonstration garden for the public to enjoy and evaluate plants. Here is a brief tour and history of the beautiful grounds.
Hopefully you’ve already set up a basic Dave’s Garden Journal through the first two parts of this series. Now what on earth do the rest of all these crazy words mean? Cloning, milestones, statuses and hopefully any other questions you might have will be explained here. Now you’re really getting organized!
If you’ve decided to take the plunge and start a Dave’s Garden Journal, good choice! Once you get the journal going, you will feel more organized and I promise, if you keep up with it, you’ll never be scrambling for a plant’s name again. This part of the series will help you get a basic journal going. It’s not as hard as it looks.
The Dave’s Garden Journal feature is a vast organizing tool that you need to start using today if you don’t already. It will clear your brain of all those loose cultivar names and hard-to-pronounce-much-less-remember genus and species names. Don’t be scared, once you get the hang of it you’ll be a pro. This 3 part series will guide you step by step through the powerful software to set up your own journal. In Part 1, you'll learn what the Dave's Garden Journal is, why you should use it, and how to plan for the most effective journal.
If you don't have a splashing fountain or waterfall in or around your water feature, you may have a drier environment around your pond than most. If this is the case, you have a virtual plethora of plants you can use in the surrounding area of your pond. You can play with textures and colors, but you want to make sure the roots won't be so vigorous they destroy your pond liner and that the leaves won't shed into the water too much.
Penstemon is a wonderful native American genus of wildly varied, flowering perennials. This is a little known genus of vast proportions that would be hard to comprehend in one sitting, maybe even one lifetime. From dwarf ground covers to tall shrubs, xeriscaping to consistent moisture, Penstemons run the gamut of diversity. Here is a brief overview of this wonderful wildflower, straight from a Lay gardener's research journal.
Cosmos are one of the easiest and most drought tolerant annuals you can grow. Marked by their feathery foliage and a slew of bright colors, Cosmos are an excellent choice as a sun-loving colorful annual. Cosmos are easy to start from seed and readily reseed in many different conditions. Cosmos come in a range of colors from deep magenta to pure white to yellow-orange. Dive in!
Seed starting itself is a 'cheap trick' gardeners know and love. Why pay for full price for a plant when you can start it from seed? Trading, rather than buying seeds, makes seed collecting and starting even cheaper. Once you've got the seeds, try these money saving tricks to make your next garden your most thrifty yet.
When I got married about two years ago, I racked my brain to come up with a good party favor that would be meaningful to my husband and me, as well as be something the guests could keep for a long time to come. While monogrammed napkins and bubbles are nice, they didn’t really speak to me or about me. I needed something relatively cheap since I was going to have 150 guests and something that I could personally make. After much consideration and research, I ended up deciding to use both my gardening and creative gifts, to come up with my perfect party favor: home-propagated African Violets in hand-made clay pots. The following is a short tale of my journey to matrimonial insanity and back.
Have you ever just wished you had a close friend to garden with...someone close in proximity and in camaraderie? Someone who would go on Saturday morning nursery trips with you and make you feel less-bad about all the money you spend while there? True, we all have each other here on Dave’s Garden, but some of these friends can be half a world away. Here are some tips on how to create a gardener out of a supposedly “black-thumbed” friend who can be your new gardening buddy. This feat is actually a lot easier than you might think.
