Garden advice, tips & tricks for the home gardener

An outdoor cat is one of the best defenses you can have to keep small animals out of your garden. A cat will keep rodents, squirrels, birds, rabbits, etc., out of your garden and away from your vegetables.
An outdoor cat that keeps small animals out of your garden presents another problem, however. How do you keep the cat out of the garden so it won’t trample tiny seedlings and use the garden soil as a litter box? Coffee grounds.
Sprinkle used coffee grounds around the perimeter of your garden and toss on some orange peels, and that should keep a cat out of your garden.
The coffee grounds and orange peels are good for the garden soil too.

Miniature roses are the little darlings of the rose family. The miniature rose bush is very petite, with some varieties only reaching a mature height of 6 inches. Blooms are about 1 inch across and are usually double blooms.
Miniature roses are small scale replicas of their larger counterparts. They require they same care in planting, feeding, watering, sunlight and pest control, just in smaller doses.
Miniature roses are frequently used in rock gardens, as they are low growing enough not to overwhelm the rock garden space, and are texturally and visually pleasing.
Try growing miniature rose bushes as border plants for flower beds and grow one in a container. These tiny roses grow well outdoors or indoors.

Do you have uninvited guests prowling around your garden, destroying your garden plants and eating your vegetables?
Marshmallows and human hair can stop those uninvited guest of they happen to raccoons and/or groundhogs.
To stop raccoons from destroying your garden, set a raccoon trap and bait it with a marshmallow. Put a marshmallow in the raccoon trap and a small piece of a marshmallow just outside the trap. Raccoons have a sweet tooth and they will choose the sweet marshmallow treat over the garden vegetables..
If you have problems with a groundhog in your garden, next time you have your hair cut, save the hair clippings. Scatter the hair all around the perimeter of your garden and it will keep the groundhog out of your garden.
It’s the scent of human hair that does the trick and also works to keep deer and other small animals out of your garden.

The slugs and snails eventually find their way into our gardens. The gross little creatures can do a lot of harm to garden vegetables, unless you get rid of them.
We try to avoid using chemicals in our gardens, so here is a natural way to get rid of garden slugs and snails.
Take a cheap, aluminum pie tin that has no holes in the bottom and bury it to ground level in your garden. Fill the pie tin with stale beer or water and a few drops of vinegar. The smell attracts the garden slugs and snails, they fall into the pie tin and drown.

You can attract hummingbirds to your garden with the addition of a few flowers or flowering shrubs which are a favorite of the hummingbird.
Petunias, Rose of Sharon, Crepe Myrtles, Canna Lilies, Azaleas, Impatiens, Trumpet Vine, Honeysuckle and Hostas.
If you have limited garden space, there is one bush that is a real garden work horse, serving 4 purposes when planted, and that’s the Butterfly Bush.
A Butterfly Bush will attract Hummingbirds, provide beauty and fragrance to your garden, and of course attract a wide variety of butterflies.
Hummingbirds eats constantly and will go where the food source is, so the more above mentioned flowers and flowering shrubs you have in your garden, the more hummingbirds you will have as summertime guests.

By now, your peonies should be swelled with buds and covered with ants. Should you kill the ants or do the peonies need the ants for the buds to open?
There are two trains of thought on this matter- Some gardener’s say the peony must have ants to eat the waxy film that covers the peony bud, or the bud will not open. Other gardener’s say ‘hogwash’ to that notion and kill the ants.
I am a gardener that is in the second group- I say hogwash and kill the ants. Peonies will bloom just fine without an ant ever touching them. Grow a peony indoors in a container or cut and bring in some peony buds and you will see for yourself.
Ants seem to like the taste and the moisture from the peonies, that is why they cover them in the spring. I don’t like ants feasting on my flowers and building their home in my flower beds, so I get rid of the ants.

Mulch is one of a gardener’s best friends, keeping the soil cool, preventing weed growth and helping the soil retain water. However, using only hardwood mulch could cause problems.
Hardwood mulches will compact over time and not allow the water to reach the soil, less water absorption by the soil means less water for your plants.
Hardwood mulches are pretty and long lasting, doing their job quite well and adding organic matter back into the soil, you just have to layer the hardwood mulch with another organic mulch to prevent compaction.
Layer hardwood mulch with pine straw, hay, gravel, etc., to help prevent the hardwood from becoming compacted.

Sooner or later, you will find pests on your garden plants, and some of those pests will actually be beneficial to the garden, like Lady Bugs.
But if the ‘bad’ pests are taking over your garden and you must apply insecticide, the best time to apply it is in the late evening, and only apply the insecticide to the affected garden plants.
In the morning is when the beneficial garden pests and pollinators are active, if you apply insecticide in the morning, you will kill the ‘good bugs’.
Healthy garden plants are more able to resist any attack by pests, so focus on growing healthy plants by providing good soil conditions. Plant companion plants in your garden that will naturally deter pests, like marigolds and nasturtiums, and if must use insecticide, remember to only apply in in the late evening.

You don’t have to use boards and nails to build a privacy fence, you can go green by planting a living privacy fence. There are several varieties of bushes, shrubs and trees that can be planted and used along your properties perimeter that will provide you with the privacy want, while adding value and beauty to your property.
Evergreen hedge bushes or trees will also save energy and help lower utility costs when planted on the north side of your house, they will act as a windbreaker to keep the cold winters from reaching your house.
Privet hedge, honeysuckle hedge, lilac hedge, Douglas-fir hedge, red leaf bayberry hedge and purple leaf plum hedge and just a few of the colorful (some evergreen) plant choices for planting a living privacy fence that is eco friendly.

If you have Chrysanthemums in your flower garden that need to be divided, do so in the spring as soon as the new growth appears.
Lift the Chrysanthemums out of the soil, divide by gently pulling the new shoots apart and replant immediately. Replant at the new shoots at the same soil depth from which they were dug up.
Each new Chrysanthemum shoot that has it’s own roots will develop into a new plant and produce late summer blooms the first year it is divided and transplanted.
When Chrysanthemums grow to be about 4 inches tall, pinch out the tops so the side branches of the plant will bush out and produce more blooms.