Garden advice, tips & tricks for the home gardener

If you are looking for some plants to grow in your flower garden that are practically carefree and will return year after year, there are several options to chose from.
While these perennials might not be the most proficient bloomers, they will add leaf color and texture to your flowers garden all season and require very little care.
The Hosta comes in several leaf colors and will produce a spiked flower in mid-summer. Hostas can be grown in most soil conditions and in full or partial shade, making them a great carefree perennial choice.
The Daylily adds a carefree dramatic backdrop to shorter flowers in your flower garden or as a stand alone plant.
Bleeding Heart has interesting blooms and foliage. Coralbell, Geum, Bergenia and Veronica are also carefree perennials.

Caladiums needs plenty of water and fertilizer to encourage continuous leaf growth and leaf color throughout the summer.
If your caladiums are planted in pots, never allow the potting soil to completely dry out between watering. Keep the potting soil moist and feed with a water soluble fertilize every 2 weeks.
If you have planted caladiums directly in the ground, water deeply between rains. In-ground caladiums should receive water at east twice per week, and use a water soluble plant food or 5-10-5 dry fertilize every 2 weeks. Apply the dry fertilize by using it as a side dressing and just sprinkle a handful or so around the caladiums, but far enough away from the plants so the fertilize won’t burn it.
Mulch your in-ground caladiums to retain moisture and keep the soil cool.

A small landscape presents certain challenges when trying to design and incorporate a place for everything you want in your landscape. The key to a small landscape design is to think vertical.
Maximize every inch of landscape space by planting vertical growing flowering vines and vegetables.
Vertical growing plants can be trellised, planted along privacy fences or used to disguise some unsightly object in your landscape.
Don’t limit vertical growing plants to only the flowering kind, try vertical growing vegetable plants also. Cucumbers, some small melons and pole beans are vines that can be trained to grow vertically in a landscape and provide food and design detail.
Fast growing vertical flowering vines for your small landscape design are Morning Glory, Cardinal Climber and Honeysuckle. Be aware that some climbing vines grow proficiently and will overtake a small landscape if not pruned each year.

If you have updated your landscape by planting some new trees and shrubs, don’t forget to mulch them.
Mulching newly planted trees and shrubs will help retain soil moisture while the new roots are being established, keep the soil temperature stable and prevent weed growth that would compete with the tree’s and shrub’s for soil nutrients.
That’s not all mulch will do for your newly planted trees and shrubs. Mulch will also prevent damage from lawn mowers and weed eaters and mulched trees and shrubs just look more attractive in the landscape.
Mulch can be organic or inorganic, anything from hay or wood chips to leftover roofing shingles.

A hydrangea requires a lot of water for healthy growth. To ensure your hydrangea is receiving enough water, mound up a ridge of soil 2 inches high in a circle around your hydrangea plant. Make the soil circle about 6-8 inches away from your hydrangea plant so capture and hold the water and allow it to soak into the soil slowly. Always water your hydrangea between rainfalls.
If your hydrangea needs pruning, prune just after the plant blooms. Hydrangea’s set their buds for next year’s blooms immediately after this year’s bloom cycle. Remove any dead wood and prune to the desired height and shape with sharp pruning shears so as to not crush the plant stems.