It's Time to Think about Gardening!

Some helpful tips as you look forward to getting your hands in the dirt!

Longer Lasting Rose Blooms ~ During the spring if you place coffee grounds around your rose bushes, they will benefit.  Putting a cup of Epsom salts around each rose bush and rake it into the soil for longer lasting blooms.  Blending banana peels in your blender with water and poured around your rose bushes will add even more nutrients throughout the spring and summer.  All these tips make for happier roses!

Leftover Coffee, poured at the base of geraniums will produce more blooms.

 

Keep Rabbits Out of Your Garden by placing dried sulfur around the edges of the garden.

Keep Cats and Dogs Away from Your Garden by placing ammonia in small baby food containers, and burying them in the ground up to the rim.  Raccoons hate ammonia as well.

Keep Deer Out of Your Garden by hanging mesh bags of Irish Spring bars of soap or human hair around the garden.  The soap should last more than a year, but before the next gardening season, run hot water over the soap to remove any film and release the fragrance again.

 

Swap Plants with Friends and Neighbors ~ Many perennials multiply, and before long they overcrowd other plants, so why not check with friends and neighbors to see if you might be able to swap plants, and spread the joy around.

Propagate New Plants from Cuttings ~ Many plants will grow from just a small cutting. African violets, roses, hydrangeas, forsythia, azaleas, gardenias, camellias, hibiscus, holly, butterfly bush, mint, tomatoes, to name just a few.  Check out more possibilities online or in the library.  Simply cut off a small piece of the stem of almost any plant and remove the bottom leaves.  Dip in root tome and insert into moist and sandy potting soil.  Patience will yield wonderful surprises and free plants for your garden.  For detailed instructions and photos, this is a helpful link: http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/1595/
This link shows the best times to take cuttings:  http://www.floweringshrubfarm.com/repro.htm

Plant Dill Near Your Tomato Plants to discourage worms eating them.

Start Seeds Indoors to give them a head start.  I'm excited to use the many vinca seeds that I harvested last fall from hundreds of volunteer plants in red, white and a few pink, that reseeded from plants the year before.  We had plenty to brighten up the front lawn.  Vincas are also very drought resistant annuals!

No Room for Gardening ~ Container gardening is perfect for small spaces or tight quarters.  Tomatoes, herbs, flowers, and even small shrubs do well in containers, as long as they get adequate watering.  Vertical gardening using a trellis or obelisk are other possibilities for climbing roses or clematis - even pole beans.

Indoor Gardening with African Violets ~ Stick a few rusty nails in the soil around the edge of the pot for longer blooms and more of them.  African violets bloom their heads off in January and February when the rest of the world is cold and gray, so they are great to have around to brighten your heart and bring you many smiles!