As the sun was rising I was starting up my computer, sipping on a hot coffee and listening to XL96 Moncton. I had heard it was suppose be a warm day but they were talking about a hot day. Great way to start spring.

It was going to be 20 degrees or better today. The perfect day to take a walk to downtown Moncton  as it’s time to renew my drivers license. The 35 minute walk both ways would do me good. Another great way to start spring.

Well my license is now renewed and I am so glad I walked. I had on a spring jacket and my hat, to keep from frying my brain. I get enough of frying my brain in the hot sun all summer long while I’m out fishing with friends.

It was really windy when I started walking but once I turned off Mountain road I didn’t get so much wind and then found it really comfortable walking. Glad I buzzed off all my hair so my head feels like Velcro now and helps keep my hat on in the wind.

I walked through the park and as you can see in the photo above we don’t have very much snow left for still being in March. The path only had a bit of snow and a few puddles, didn’t even get my sneakers wet.

As I walked past a building I saw a Canada and New Brunswick flag. Had to snap a picture of that.

My usual walks never lead me downtown. I prefer to walk through neighbourhoods and see what they do with their yards. It’s great to watch the yards as they change from early spring through summer and fall.

One of the homes I past I saw a duck that looked like it was part hedgehog. I’ve seen a lot of ornaments but haven’t come up with any ideas for what I want in our yard, maybe this year we will decide on a few.

The snow in the yard has dropped to almost nothing. The water levels in the yard most years is like a small pond but not this year. The water is in small puddles but there are places I can walk on dry lawn.

If this keeps up I might just get out and start cleaning up the yard. I might even get to level off the vegetable garden as it froze up before I could get it done.

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

I have heard about companion planting for a long time but never understood what it really was. My thoughts were that companion planting is what you were doing when you planted things together to make them look good. Then I thought it was something like using corn stalks to support growing beans. I guess I was a bit off.

What is Companion Planting

When I read the following article I nearly slapped myself in the forehead as I had heard that before and it just slipped right out of my thoughts. So it’s good to know what it really is and I’ll be using some of the tips in the following article to make it work in our vegetable garden. So on with the definition.

Companion planting is the method of planting specific plants in close proximity to another because one can benefit the other. Now that I have read the article I can remember way back to my childhood and vaguely remember my mother telling me something about planting marigolds in and around the vegetable garden. I imagine I nodded and then went back to my little cars and the area of dirt I played in next to the vegetable garden.

The practice of companion planting has been utilized for decades because my mom told me about it more than 50 years ago. I had just forgot most of what she told me long before ever having a vegetable garden of our own and by then she was no longer around to give me guidance.

Companion planting is a great option for the many organic gardeners today, myself included. Anything I can do that help me without using pesticides.

Like Mom said, plant marigolds in your vegetable garden is beneficial to your plants that are susceptible to aphid infestations.

Plus Marigold plants have gorgeous flowers, and they’ve a natural ability to repel aphids in your garden.

All you need to do is to check to see what pests each of your vegetables or other plants have and if aphids are on the list plant a marigold close to them.

If you find some of your plants are consistently being munched on by these harmful critters get another marigold and plant it close, problem solved and you plants will gain back their health if it’s not gone to far.

Plant Beans For Nitrogen

Add legumes to your plant garden. If you should notice that your soil is lacking in nitrogen, plant several legumes.

The roots of the legume plant are renowned for releasing nitrogen into the soil that they live in, meaning that it is no longer essential to add fertilizer or chemicals to keep your current and future crops healthy.

As I was saying at the beginning I have seen beans/legumes planted with the corn. It gives the beans a pole to climb and in return feeds the soil the nitrogen it needs.

Plant rosemary or geraniums near your cabbage plants and broccoli. Rosemary naturally repels the cabbage fly and geraniums can trap cabbage worms. The addition of these plants in proximity to your cabbage and broccoli plants will provide help to keep them more healthy, free from pests, and free from the dangerous illnesses that pests can cause too.

As you can see, companion planting involves a big range of plants and it can be beneficial to any garden. When you use this method properly, your plants will become healthier and you will really help to stop the need for mostly harmful chemicals and additives to your soil. This guide is only the beginning, so continue to research plants that are favourable to each other. Gardening will get more enjoyable when you follow this healthy practice!

Jane Clayton has been a gardener for 25 years and she regularly practices companion planting. She is the head of her local food gardening club and in addition has won various awards for her vegetable gardening for beginners books.

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• 3 Step by Step Tips On How To Grow An Organic Vegetable Garden (stepbysteptips.com)
• Companion Plants (marilynsplace.wordpress.com)
• Companion Planting – Natural Pest Control and Fertilization (groundtoground.org)
• Guest Bloggers Wanted: Topic: Flower Gardening (hbb2obm.com)

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

Last night we had winds and rain that worked on the snow all night. When I got up this morning it was still dark but I soon saw that the snow had dropped about two feet and has now revealed parts of our backyard again. Should be seeing a few ducks interested in the pond that’s been created out back.

Guest Bloggers Wanted

The topic for guest bloggers this month is Flower Gardening.

We now have our vegetable garden saving us money and I have time to spend learning how to grow the best flower garden we can. There’s a lot to learn from where I am sitting as flower gardening has never been something I wanted to do but now it is and I’m ready to learn.

We also have perennials every where in our yard and would like to move them to places we want them growing and even to create new gardens to put them in.

Requirements For Guest Blogging

It’s pretty simple, we want articles that are going to teach us about flower gardening in our backyard garden area.

1. Your topic must be relevant to flower gardening in our home garden.
2. Blog post must be 300 words or better.
3. Your post must be unique and never published elsewhere
4. Your post must be written for our readers first over writing for search engines.
5. Two relevant links to your blog are allowed.

I am not interested in having freelance writers writing for companies as companies should be able to afford to purchase space on our site.

We look forward to hear and learn from you as will our regular readers.

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

I headed over to Wikipedia but for the first time ever I came up empty. They didn’t have any information on the Highbush Cranberry.

Next I used Google to locate more info that would help me make the decision and here is what I found.

Apparently there are more than one Highbush Cranberry, checkout the article I found on Wildflowers-and-weeds.com. It helps with the confusion about the Highbush Cranberry. Personally I wasn’t planning on eating the berries anyways. We save those for the birds who visit our yard.

I learned they are native to parts of Canada which makes me happy to know. The berries have even been used for medicinal purposes in year gone by. There’s a lot of good info on their page and was well worth the read, so check it out.

You’ll find hundreds of images showing the Highbush Cranberry tree, flowers or blossoms and berries on Google Images.

The second site I found on the Highbush Cranberry tree was found through Google images. You can follow the menu on the top left of their site to move directly to each section. Maybe you would like to check some uses for these berries. I know I’ll be trying the berry recipes for jelly and sauce if we decide to go with this in our yard.

We have a number of rose bushes going around our property fence. We have two varieties, one with gorgeous red flowers and the other with white flowers with yellow centers, very pretty.

This white blossoms on Highbush Cranberry will fit right in and the berries will compliment the other bushes we have with red berries. And I’m sure the birds that visit our yard with love them. They should go well with the bluish/purple grapes we have on parts of the fence as well.

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Home Gardening Tips Moncton

1. Childhood Memories – I know that a lot who may read this may not have a background of gardening. I feel a bit sad for you as it was an experience that stayed with me long after leaving home. It took me more than 20 years before I was able to make it a reality. You should get to experience that joy but there is so much more to than just memories.

2. Health Reason – I have bad reactions to poisons on my food and paid the price through many year of migraines before the cause was discovered.

3. Reduced Carbon Footprint – A few years ago I was watching the hundred mile challenge which opened my eyes to the amount of money it takes to bring food to our door as well as the cost to the environment due to carbon emissions.

4. Compost NOT Landfill – Every year we were sending all our yard waste to the landfill, without really thinking about it. At that time I hadn’t even heard of composting but once we learned about composting we stopped sending bags and bags of gardening leftovers to the landfill.

5. Our Produce Tastes So Much Better – We had forgotten just how good freshly grown produce tastes compared to what we get at the grocery store. It’s easy to go through life never knowing that. The fact it hasn’t had to be prepared to travel thousands of miles and last for days before being purchased makes a huge difference in the taste.

We are having a great experience producing produce of our own but our garden is small so this year we are planning to buy local produce when we can which will still help with our footprint and help the local economy while doing it.

You never know, I may even make new friends and learn more about home gardening that will help us to grow more in less space.

Last year we wanted to do some canning but our summer was so wet we had to teach our plants how to swim. Not the best year for gardening and another great learning experience. Those that came before us didn’t have it so easy when the weather and climate didn’t cooperate. Live, learn and grow.

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

I have been trying to get a good picture of a robin since we moved here 5 years ago. I see them in my gardens all the time during the spring, summer and early fall but just can’t get close enough to snap a good picture.

I work from home and today, just after returning to my office with a fresh coffee, I saw about a hundred birds fly by my window. They sure looked like robins to me but they shouldn’t be back in this neck of the woods until about April.

There are even more Cedar Waxwings, dozens and dozens of them, all munching down on yummy red berries. The image above has both a robin and Cedar Waxwing in it. Sorry for the poor quality. I was shooting through a screened window.

I Did Try Being Stealthy

I went outside a couple of times to get a better picture but wasn’t stealthy enough and they all took off immediately. I even tried hiding behind the garage until they came back but it was too cold for me to stay out. Of course as soon as I walked back in the house they all came flying back. Pretty smart birds.

I snapped a few shot through the window in my office and even tried an upstairs window for a better shot but no luck.

The shrubs along our property fence is covered with red berries and some rose hips from the big rose bushes growing in the corner near my office.

I haven’t been able to get any work done all day. I can’t take my eyes of them. They are eating their fill and then sitting in the pine trees along our driveway. Steve’s girlfriend had to move the car as they were kind of dumping on it.

I’ve never seen robins eating snow before as there is usually water around they can drink by the time they arrive in April. Looked pretty cool. I thought about warning them against eating any yellow snow Honey our pit bull may have left in the yard.

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Home Gardening Tips Moncton

While most of us today are aware of the dangers of pesticides and artificial fertilizers, another problem with fruits and vegetables from the supermarket is that they probably only contain a fraction of the nutrients that they should and don’t taste like my home-grown veggies. Why is this happening?

Modern commercial agriculture is often more concerned with how well a vegetable can stand up to mechanical harvesting, or whether it will be able to resist herbicides than with how many vitamins and minerals it contains. If you are concerned not only about chemical residues, but also about getting the best nutrition possible for your family, the answer is to grow your own.

Size Doesn’t Always Matter

It is not necessary to have a huge garden or dozens of acres to grow a garden, even a small plot can provide a surprisingly large amount of tasty, fresh produce. Growing your garden organically means that you will be using nothing artificial or harmful – everything that goes on your garden soil or the plants in it will be completely natural and organic.

As someone who has grown organically for years, I can tell you that it is not hard to get away from chemicals and still get in a good harvest. Not only that, but you will not have to worry about bacterial contamination on vegetables that will be eaten raw, like lettuce. I was also astounded, after years of supermarket foods, to find out how delicious fresh organic vegetables actually are!

We Love Our Compost Bin

One of the first things most organic gardeners learn about is composting. Composting is a way to turn kitchen scraps such as parings from fruits and vegetables, tea bags, and eggshells into a nutrient rich addition for the soil. The most efficient way to produce compost is by using a compost bin.

These bins usually add a bacterial starter to get the process of breaking down the vegetative matter started. The leaves that clutter up our gardens in the autumn also can be tossed into the compost bin. Compost will not only add nutrients to the soil, it also prevents the soil from becoming compacted, making it easier for plant roots to grow.

Raised Bed Gardens

A very good space saving way to garden is to use intensive gardening. This calls for the use of raised beds which warm the soil up faster in spring, and this helps to extend your growing season.

When using intensive gardening, it is possible to control the quality of your soil more effectively than with a regular garden bed.

After making the framework, you will need to fill it in with soil. This is your chance to add manure, compost, and wood ashes to your basic soil to provide your plants with the best growing medium possible. Because the soil will be so rich, this method allows you to pack the plants in more closely, and also to grow plants on trellises above the main crop.

Pests can be a problem in any garden, but will not usually have a serious impact on your harvest. However, we have found that slugs can do an immense amount of damage – they can eat seedlings to the ground and can cause quite a loss.

There are organic solutions, that we have used, that do control slugs and other pest insects, while leaving the beneficial insects alone. Diatomaceous earth is truly the gardener’s best friend. This is made up of the skeletons of fossil diatoms and is very effective at getting rid of not only slugs, but flea beetles, potato bugs, and cabbage moth caterpillars. It is totally safe for humans and pets.

Another good product is one that relies on iron to disrupt the slug’s metabolism, and we have used this, too. Beneficial insects such as ladybugs, praying mantis, and lacewings also do a very good job at keeping your food plants safe.

Row covers are another way to keep pests off your vegetables, as well as being an excellent way to garden when early or late frosts can be a problem.

When deciding what to plant in your garden, stay with vegetables that your family enjoys most. It is also possible to get a head start on the planting season by starting some seeds indoors. Almost every vegetable that you will want to grow can be started inside. Tomatoes and eggplants, of course, will need the extra time, but we have found that summer and winter squash, lettuce, and even corn will be happy to start life in a peat pot. Not only will the strong seedlings be better able to resist pests and diseases, you will also be able to enjoy the fruits of your labour’s earlier.

Author Bio: Robert is an enthusiastic home & garden improvement writer for Bridgman where he enjoys writing about rattan garden furniture.

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

Had a reader leave a comment today asking for help with a Japanese Beetle problem. So as usually I headed over to Wikipedia to find some info about them. Check it out for yourself at Japanese Beetle on Wikipedia.

The Japanese Beetle is 10 millimeter or a half inch in length but the make up for size in numbers and hunger. They might be cute and you may want to play with them but remember this. They will strip your plant leaves until they look like skeletons.

Seen The Japanese Beetles Grub

I see these grubs when I dig up our flower beds and vegetable gardens. I don’t waste any time with them. I grab them and take them away from the gardens where I quickly put them out of my misery.

That’s guys not eating any more roots in my yard.

Here in New Brunswick, at least at our home, we have been fortunate not to have a huge problem with the Japanese Beetle. I see a few each year, which I just pick off plants and promptly destroy.

I like videos and learn so much faster by example so I went looking and found GardenFork.TV. There’s a bit of playing with dogs going on but the info is helpful and I love dogs. Hope it’s helpful to you and enjoy.

We don’t have a real problem with them and I want to keep it that way so I may put one of those Japanese Beetle traps together and see what we find.

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• Nothing Tastes Better Than Home-Grown (backyardgardeningtips.com)

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

It would be great if our annuals were like those perennials but they aren’t and they die off each year and need to be planted year after year. Our perennials on the other hand just get cut back and reappear the following spring, like clockwork.

Perennials usually come back each year and keep growing so their root ball tends to increase in size as well meaning you have the opportunity to separate them and start them in other areas of our gardens.

Get Down To Your Local Nursery

We love strolling through out local nursery and find lots of perennials to start in our home garden. We usually get them in containers or boxes as bulbs we can plant directly into our gardens and then they just keep giving back year after year. Bulbs will be what you get if you get your perennials through the mail.

If you get them too early or two late to plant they store well. Just be sure you put them in a cool dry place until your garden is ready.

We get some of our perennials in containers and are growing when we get them. These we either put into bigger containers or just transplant them directly in one of our gardens where we can benefit from their beauty the first year we plant them, where as with the bulbs we don’t also see results until the following spring. They are worth waiting for.

When To Plant Perennials

If you have bulbs you should plant them in the spring or even late fall so they are ready to come to life come spring. If your perennials are already growing in pots you can plant them at any time through the growing season however the earlier the better if you want the full effect.

How To Plant Perennials

You’ll find perennial planting to be fairly simple. Like most plants you have started you would just plant them to about the same depth as they were in the pot, how easy is that. I tend to make the hole a little deeper and wider and add some 5-10-5 fertilizer.

With the hole a bit bigger than the pot your perennial will have some elbow room for the root ball to grow healthy and strong.

Take time loosening the dirt and root ball. They tend to be root bound if they are in smaller pots or containers. You do need to take care at this points to keep from damaging the roots. Next you can give them a good drink of water. Wait for it to drain and then give it a bit more being careful not to leave them standing in water too long.

We add some mulch around the perennials so they don’t allow water to evaporate. This way they need watering less often.

We had a few perennials to enjoy that had already been planted in our home gardens. It was great to see hundreds of crocus poking through the soil as soon as the snow melted enough. We also had a garden of tulips and daffodils. There are also a dozen or so columbines that we transplanted along the south side of our garden shed.

Since then we have added a few Iris and some red and white peonies. So much beauty year after year with perennials.

6 Easy Steps for Growing a Perennial Garden

1. Choose a large open location, that will provide full sun, partial sun, and full shade.
2. Sketch a plan for your garden.
3. Choose your plants that have varying heights to add excitement to your garden.
4. Dig the bed and amend the soil with a rich compost. Rake the soil out smoothly.
5. Place the plants, giving them plenty of space to grow. Plant them as deep as the pot, not any deeper.
6. Mulch your perennials, to conserve moisture, suppress weeds, and unify the look of your garden.

The six steps listed above were directly from William Moss’ video and were helpful to me.

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

The patio set we’ve had forever has chairs with arm rests, which can be great but I like having my buddies over for a couple of drinks and some guitar jammin’. The thing is we can’t use the chairs with our old patio set because of the arm rests. So the first thing our new patio set has to have is chairs without them. Jenny never liked us taking her kitchen chairs out to the patio anyways.

The fact we live in a city and don’t have a vehicle can be a pain but it isn’t so bad as we have the Internet to do our shopping for a new patio set.

The first patio set I saw that caught my attention was a cast aluminum set that looks just like cast iron. It brought back some great childhood memories but it only had two chairs and we need a set with at least four chairs.

Jenny didn’t have those same childhood memories so she has other ideas. We had no idea there is such a wide variety of patio sets. We would like to avoid buy any plastic, even if it has been recycled and haven’t found any wooden patio sets without arm rests but we have only just started looking for our new patio set.

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

I love coffee but too much caffeine and my whole body starts to shake. It makes me feel like something about to happen and I’m not sure if it’s good or bad.

Well spring gardening has been on my mind since I saw the robins and cedar waxwings return to our backyard for the berries.

Last year I wasted a lot of our seeds due to not getting enough direct sunlight for healthy and sturdy starter plants. It was a learning experience and I’ll get it right this year. I won’t be wasting any more of Mike The Gardener’s Seed of the Month Club.

The 2012 Plastic Bottle Garden

I heard a bit about using plastic bottles for a container garden so last year I began keeping plastic bottles so I could give this a try. I will use some to start flowers and vegetable from seed. I may even take a few clippings from around the property and see if I can grow some other plants we don’t have seeds for.

Using them will keep them from the landfill.

Most of the bottles I’ve collected are plastic coffee bottles, mostly decaf and they are all mine. It’s a bit scary to see just how much java I take in through the year. Your welcome Maxwell House.

I have a Youtube gardening tips channel so as I find good videos I add them there. I love Youtube videos and find them helpful for all my hobbies and interests. I have been watching acoustic guitar videos for song I am learning on guitar and have learned so much. Go Youtube.

How to Use Your Plastic Bottles To Start Seeds

I used “how to grow plants in plastic bottles” as my search text and found a few videos that I liked and have added them to my home garden channel on Youtube. The one I like the most, meaning it was the most instructional I have added here.

I did find a couple of videos that were alright but would have been so much better with some instructional audio. I don’t like having to read videos so I didn’t add them here. I did add them to my garden channel so you can see them there.

I liked the video above and it’s giving a great place to start with my plastic bottle seed garden. It looks pretty straightforward so I should be able to do it. I’ll give it a try today or tomorrow to see how it works for me.

My next step is to setup an area in our basement as a starter station and get a grow light.

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

I’ve also learned that many of the natural fertilizers we used in the past have now become less suitable. For example, it’s a good idea to avoid blood meal and bone meal now. And the seed meals like alfalfa meal, canola meal, corn gluten meal, cotton meal and soy meal are to be skipped as well. Here’s why:

Blood And Bone Meal

I know, I know. These are great. Blood meal has the nitrogen and trace minerals and bone meal has the phosphorus and some calcium. But now there is the risk of spreading mad cow disease. Many scientists don’t think this is an issue, but the research is solid enough that they’re no longer allowed under many organic farming standards. There is also potential for heavy metal contamination in bone meal. Personally, I’m not really concerned about contracting the disease, but I do like to follow the precautionary principle.

Seed Meals Are a Little More Serious

They are mostly genetically modified now. Corn gluten meal is a good pre-emergent weed killer for certain weeds, but most corn is genetically modified. Canola, cotton, and soy are all genetically modified. Alfalfa meal is loaded with nutrients, although the USDA has recently approved it for genetic modification, too. There is a lot of debate about the pros and cons of genetically-modified crops, but if you ever spend some time looking at the research, you’ll see they have serious effects on the soil and plants, and the health of animals, including us. That’s why they can’t be used in organic farming anymore unless they are from proven non-GMO sources, which is good because putting GMOs out into the environment before we know a lot more about them is a bad idea.

So what can you use instead?

Sea Minerals

It sounds crazy, but there has been a lot of research on the use of ocean water as a fertilizer. It has over 80 nutrients in it. If you live by an unpolluted part of the ocean, you can use it at 1 cup per square foot of soil. Otherwise, you can buy very concentrated liquid products that are very effective.

Kelp

You may be more familiar with this one. Again, if you live by the ocean, fresh kelp is a great mulch. But you can also get kelp meal or liquid kelp. They are loaded with nutrients and natural plant growth hormones.

Fish

Our third fertilizer from the ocean, fish meal and liquid fish fertilizers are loaded with nutrients and are an especially good source of nitrogen. I don’t use this one much anymore because we’ve lost 90% of the big fish in the ocean due to overfishing, but if we can ever find a way to fish sustainably, this is a great fertilizer.

Sugar

The beneficial microorganisms in the soil need carbohydrates to do what they do. Even a can of coke per 1000 square feet is helpful. This from a guy who likes being healthy and would never drink the stuff, but it is actually great for the soil. Still, I prefer molasses with it’s vitamins and minerals.

So these are the main broad-spectrum fertilizers I use to grow big yields of healthy, pest-free plants. I hope this has been helpful to you.

Phil Nauta is author of ‘Building Soils Naturally’, to be released by Acres U.S.A. this spring. He teaches organic gardening over at SmilingGardener.com.

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

Image via Wikipedia

Growing roses really be a rewarding endevour with some good looking flowers in your home garden as a result. The thing is roses are not a flower known to be easy to maintain. What this means to you is that you might need some quality tools and the time to properly maintain your rose bushes. Get it right and you stand to enjoy fresh and beautiful roses in your home garden.

The first step required is gong to be a quality pair of hand shears. Get quality shears that you can keep sharp for best results. Your shears will need to cut through a rose stem with one slick but. We have has shears that just crushed the stems and they went right into the trash. Roses can pick up diseases and a poor cut leaves them open to problems.

I like having protection against the thorns rose have so I like gloves that can keep my hands safe. They have even kept me from snipping my fingers a couple of times over the years.

At one time it would have been the best advice to head off to your local nursery but it’s not always as easy and looking online. We do go to the local nursery a few times during the year, just not during the winter. That’s the time I spend planning and finding new info online.

When I am at the local nursery I like to pick their brain for local climate or info about our growing zone so I pick the right roses for our area.

Once You Have Your Rose Bush

Roses, once they are planted, will require regular watering if you don’t get enough rain to feed them about an inche of water per week. This means you may have to water them by hand or install an irrigation system to take care of the roses.

Water is of course vital to your the continued health of your roses but the ground you put them in is important as well. Any how to grow roses guide would include info about adding compost to the soild to keep it healthy.

I’m not done yet, I also put mulch around the roses to help maintain moisture levels and save on water. I put about two inches of organic mulch. It also cuts right down on weeds giving me time for other things.

Pruning Your Roses

Pruning your roses is critical to having more blossoms and helps to get rid of any non producing growth. Always get rid of any dead or damaged branches. Pruning is also good to keep your rose bush under control and not over grown.

As the weather gets chillier, you need to now know not only how to grow roses but to protect them, too. Cover them as the weather gets cold, specifically when the temperatures drop below 30 degrees to preclude being frost bitten. You may purchase burlap bags to go over all of the elevated parts.
Beautiful roses can be enjoyed anywhere in the country as long as you have the right materials and time to dedicate to their expansion.

Jennifer Ferguson is an avid gardener and rose admirer. If you’d like to get more great and essential tips on roses and growing roses then feel free to visit her webiste and get her free instant email course on growing roses.

Related articles

• Tips For Rose Bush Care (whitecranes.wordpress.com)

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

Image via Wikipedia

Growing roses really be a rewarding endevour with some good looking flowers in your home garden as a result. The thing is roses are not a flower known to be easy to maintain. What this means to you is that you might need some quality tools and the time to properly maintain your rose bushes. Get it right and you stand to enjoy fresh and beautiful roses in your home garden.

The first step required is gong to be a quality pair of hand shears. Get quality shears that you can keep sharp for best results. Your shears will need to cut through a rose stem with one slick but. We have has shears that just crushed the stems and they went right into the trash. Roses can pick up diseases and a poor cut leaves them open to problems.

I like having protection against the thorns rose have so I like gloves that can keep my hands safe. They have even kept me from snipping my fingers a couple of times over the years.

At one time it would have been the best advice to head off to your local nursery but it’s not always as easy and looking online. We do go to the local nursery a few times during the year, just not during the winter. That’s the time I spend planning and finding new info online.

When I am at the local nursery I like to pick their brain for local climate or info about our growing zone so I pick the right roses for our area.

Once You Have Your Rose Bush

Roses, once they are planted, will require regular watering if you don’t get enough rain to feed them about an inche of water per week. This means you may have to water them by hand or install an irrigation system to take care of the roses.

Water is of course vital to your the continued health of your roses but the ground you put them in is important as well. Any how to grow roses guide would include info about adding compost to the soild to keep it healthy.

I’m not done yet, I also put mulch around the roses to help maintain moisture levels and save on water. I put about two inches of organic mulch. It also cuts right down on weeds giving me time for other things.

Pruning Your Roses

Pruning your roses is critical to having more blossoms and helps to get rid of any non producing growth. Always get rid of any dead or damaged branches. Pruning is also good to keep your rose bush under control and not over grown.

As the weather gets chillier, you need to now know not only how to grow roses but to protect them, too. Cover them as the weather gets cold, specifically when the temperatures drop below 30 degrees to preclude being frost bitten. You may purchase burlap bags to go over all of the elevated parts.
Beautiful roses can be enjoyed anywhere in the country as long as you have the right materials and time to dedicate to their expansion.

Jennifer Ferguson is an avid gardener and rose admirer. If you’d like to get more great and essential tips on roses and growing roses then feel free to visit her webiste and get her free instant email course on growing roses.

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• Tips For Rose Bush Care (whitecranes.wordpress.com)

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

I really like the little roses that grow on it and didn’t want to take away from that so we left it but I can’t put it off any longer. We actually thought it would be nice to have that same rose bush growing all along the sidewalk but didn’t want to go out and buy a couple dozen of them.

Well, just this morning I read an article which included a video I watched a video that explained exactly what I need to do. It’s called plant propagating and air layering and will give us the extra plants we need to make that rose hedge.

Plant Propagation Using Air Layering

Propagating our rose bush using air layering will allow us to make new plants for the hedge we want while at the same time trimming back the rose bush so that it’s once again under our control. And I won’t need to make a trip to our local nursery to buy more.

I would also like to start a few rose bushes along our property fence to give us more privacy and now we have the means to do that right here at home.

Air layering is when you use existing stalks or branches to start another plant while still on the original plant. The video explains it and shows how to propagate plants using this technique. It’s actually pretty cool.

Home Gardening Tips Moncton

With no snow on the ground, you can access the Winter Landscape for projects and services that you did not get done either because of the rush of the Holidays or the clean-up from the October snowstorm created quite a bit more work than usual during Fall Clean-up.  Cut back any perennials and ornamental grasses that were neglected and are not being used for winter interest in the garden.  Pruning is a task that can be done, with no leaves on some of your plants, it is easier to see the branching structure and determine what can be eliminated.  Extermely heavy renovation of shrubs like Taxus Yews might be better done in early Spring, when plants will be closer to the new growth leafing out.

I was able to cut back several Hydrangeas this Fall.  Some of our customers had plants that were getting quite wide and needed to have the bottom branches removed.  As the plants get bigger, you can sometimes remove the roots and all and create another plant.  I will let you know how successful I was with that technique.  I have been trying to figure out how to prune Hydranges and it seems to me June and July is the time to be cutting them back.  However, since they are often beautifully in bloom then, it has been difficult to convince customers to have us do this maintenance service during the summer.  The best advice I found was to plant Hydrangeas where they will not have to be pruned.  Although the way they spreadout with new shoots they just keep getting wider.  But perhaps hacking off a protion and transplanting it is not considered pruning.

Check back as I get more adventerous with learning more about pruning Hydrangeas this season.

News from Sunshine Landscaping

Plant Nourishment:

All plants, even Cactus, require water to some degree or another to survive.  A properly designed irrigation system that is installed by a qualified and licensed irrigator will deliver just the right amount of water needed for the plant to survive and thrive, yet help prevent over watering which so commonly happens with hand watering.

Controls:

Most modern irrigation systems are controlled by a system timer or clock, which automatically activates the sprinkler system at a pre-determined time.  Dependant on the type of irrigation a particular zone is, the controller can allow the system to run from 1 minute to several hours.   Systems incorporating “Drip Irrigation” techniques will require extended run time as there particular watering method is to allow only small amounts of water, or drips to escape from the emitter.  This slow watering technique allows for deep root penetration of the moisture as well as cuts down on water loss due to evaporation.

Normal spray heads and rotors operate by flowing large amounts of water over an area of the landscape, thus these type of sprinklers have much shorter run times per zone then  do their relatives the “Drip Irrigation”.  With interchangeable spray nozzles, it is easy to offer just the right amount of water to a particular plant species.

Evergreen Lawns

Here at Laconic Landscape, we take pride in our work. Whether you are looking for a new patio, driveway, deck, or outdoor kitchen, we make sure that we do it right the first time. We are proud of our new location here in Raleigh and Cary, and we hope to work with you soon!

If you are a current or previous customer, please let us know how we did!