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How To Grow Great Peonies
One of the nicest early summer blooms in my perennial flower gardens are the peonies. This is an historically rich and easy-to-grow plant; one that deserves a home in every modern garden. The Name The name is said to be in memory of Paeon, the physician to the gods because he reputedly discovered the medicinal […]
Plants to Support Your Regional Eco-system.
A list of plants to support your regional eco-system. Now, this is a cool website. Go there – download the planting guide for your region (it’s in a pdf) and discover the plants you can use to create a natural haven for your region. The USA only but it’s close enough to Canadian data that […]
How To Grow Great Peonies
One of the nicest early summer blooms in my perennial flower gardens are the peonies. This is an historically rich and easy-to-grow plant; one that deserves a home in every modern garden. The Name The name is said to be in memory of Paeon, the physician to the gods because he reputedly discovered the medicinal […]
How To Get Two Blooms A Year From Centaurea
Mountain bluet is just one name used for Bachelor Buttons and the Centaure family of plants. Centaurea is a composite or member of the daisy family and with over 450 members of Centaurea to chose from, there is one for almost every sunny spot in the garden. Easy to start from seed, these plants deserve […]
Keep Your Greenhouse Plastic From Blowing Away With This Simple Trick
Holding down greenhouse plastic in backyard greenhouses is a relatively simple thing without resorting to expensive commercial hold-down systems. Commercial systems can easily cost several dollars a running foot (one foot long) and if your greenhouse is twenty feet long (and you have four sides) then you’re looking at several hundred dollars just to hold […]
Why You Can’t Grow Calibrachoa and Other Plants in Containers
Many gardeners have trouble growing plants such as Calibrachoa and don’t know why they can’t grow them in containers. Here’s the deal to understand. This plant is often described as a “high feed” or “high iron” plant and while they do love to be fed, and won’t produce well under low-feeding regimes, there are other […]
Don’t Waste Good Beer Controlling Slugs Naturally
There are usually three methods of controlling slugs naturally that you’ll read about in gardening articles. Handpicking or You Gotta Be Kidding Me The first is hand-picking. Really! Some intrepid gardener wander their gardens at night, armed with a flashlight, a pail of soapy water and (hopefully) plastic gloves to handpick these creeping destroyers of all things leafy and […]
How To Make Your Own Grow Bags of Compost
OK, so it’s silly season in the greenhouse research area. Some researchers have taken old nylons (looks to be about that size anyway) filled them with compost and started growing in them. Their results indicate that this indeed might be a good way to grow plants. They state that this might work in areas where […]
How You Can Easily Attract Good Insects To Your Garden
One of the interesting things that scientists are looking at right now are ways to attract predator insects to the garden. Instead of designing more insecticides to kill off pests, the aim is to attract predators to do the job for us. So here’s the deal. Get some oil of wintergreen. Seriously. A research study […]
Hydrogen peroxide in plant propagation?
I’ve been reading about hydrogen peroxide on some grower boards lately and there’s increasing interest in this for algae control and some seed germination experiments going on. It’s one of those topics that’s always been on the fringe of gardening and a ton of bad info is out there. I always get a little antsy […]
You Can Grow These 18 Effective Mosquito Repellents
When I had my nursery, I used to dread springtime when the mosquitoes and black-flies would roll out from the nearby cedar trees. They’d make our working lives a living hell and customers who ventured too close to that area were often seen being carried away over the trees by hordes of flying blood-suckers. We […]
Who’s Doug Green?
Let's cut to the chase here without the usual fluff you usually read on websites about authors. The honest truth is I'm super-curious about most things and I want to know how stuff works. I'm not content to read the usual blah-blah. I want real information based on real data. (just because somebody online says it works is no reason for me to believe it) This means you're going to get the best …
