Opening Day 2025 Opening Day for 2025 is tentatively penciled in for Saturday, April 26th. Easter Sunday is April 20th this year. We are planning on a full weekend for opening so doing it the weekend after Easter. This is all dependent on our wonderful weather in this area. If we actually get an early…
All Seasons Plant Bench This bench was designed to be my all seasons plant bench for nursery use. Spring, Summer, Fall, and yes our cold nasty Winters of Zone 5b-6a. I don’t have the area needed to lay out all my plants in nice open rows with space in between. I need to make the…
How I Wintersow Wanna know how I wintersow? Well my techniques are about as close to naturally growing plants as it gets. No warm greenhouse, no artificial lights, just seeds, soil, and the elements of nature. People from all growing zones or regions can do wintersowing with good results. What I will show is how…
Snow Damage to Plants Snow damage to plants during a bad snow storm can seem to be devastating at first sight. Sometimes it actually is. The hope is that the plants will rebound and be all right. We had a huge snow event in this area in the days following Thanksgiving. We got over 4…
Curly Fries Hosta Curly Fries Hosta sounds like something you’d order as a side with your next burger. I don’t know how they’d be as a side dish but they are definitely one for the garden. You can see where the fries part comes from in the name, and the curly part is very obvious….
Pineapple Upsidedown Cake Hosta One of my bestest favorites. Pineapple Upsidedown Cake Hosta. It has one of the longest names. It sorta got its name from its parent plant. Pineapple Poll was where it came from. In the Hosta world, as well as many other forms in the plant world, sports can occur. A sport…
Rainbow Drooping Fetterbush Rainbow Drooping Fetterbush, Leucothoe fontanesiana ‘Rainbow’, is an evergreen bush in description only. It is anything but green in color. This is one of my newest additions to my yard. I purchased a nice-sized specimen in a 2 gallon pot back in the early fall. The colors are what drew me in….
Dark Knight Bluebeard. No, I’m not talking about some swashbuckler from years ago. No buried treasures with it either. Arr matey, we’re talking about a plant. This is brushy fragrant shrub that waits until the end of summer and early fall to bloom. This is not the time of year for great flowering shrubs. Caryopteris x clandonensis ‘Dark Knight’…
Why are there birds the nursery?? Why are there birds in the nursery? Plants draw in bugs, bad ones as well as good ones. Bugs draw in birds. Since there are many, many plants and trees in our yard, the birds often make their nests here as well. Nesting close to the food supply, pretty smart if you…
Pruning Hydrangeas Pruning Hydrangeas seems to be one of the great mysteries in the gardening world. Do I prune them in the winter? Should they be pruned after they bloom? Do they even need to be pruned? The list goes on and on. You may be surprised to know that the answer to those questions is “Yes”. Well almost. It…