View full sizeLearn how to refresh hardwood floors in an article on the Mother Earth News website. Lowe’s
LOWDOWN ON FLOORS: Hardwood flooring can be a cost-effective choice over carpet, especially if the wood floors only need refreshing, says Mother Earth News’ Guide to Installing Hardwood Flooring. This article covers the anatomy of a floor, laying down the boards, installation and finishing touches.

Read the complete article here.

GARDENING TIPS: “Really healthy plants start with really healthy seedlings,” explains John Kempf, founder and CEO of Advancing Eco Agriculture in Middlefield. Kempf specializes in optimizing plant health and soil biology to increase crop yield and nutrients.

Here are some of his best tips for home growers:

Go Short: “Instead of buying the largest seedlings, get the ones with the shortest, sturdiest stems,” Kempf says. Look for tomato seedlings that are 6 inches tall.

Performance-Enhancing Hugs: A biological fertilizer such as compost tea, liquid seaweed, kelp meal or alfalfa meal should be used when transplanting. This will provide minerals to the plant and improve soil.

It’s Better to Wait: Only use insecticides, herbicides and fungicide when you have a problem, not before.

ROSE LECTURE:  David Shetlar presents “Managing Insect and Mite Pests of Ohio-Grown Roses” at a meeting of the Western Reserve Rose Society at 7 p.m. Monday, April 28 at the North Royalton Library.

Shetlar will discuss the major insect and mite pests that Ohio rose growers deal with, including rose midge, rose slugs, Japanese beetle adults and spider mites. He will provide information about insecticides and miticides.

The library is located at 5071 Wallings Road, North Royalton. The event is free; register by calling the library at Lori Hilfer (440) 582-4310.

17 April 2014

Britain’s Prince of Wales’ gardening tips will be revealed in a new book.

‘Highgrove: A Garden Celebrated’ will take readers inside the gardens of Prince Charles and his wife Duchess Camilla’s country home in Gloucestershire, south west England and offer tips on how to recreate certain features, such as the Sundial and Carpet gardens, at their own homes.

The new book – which comes with photographs of the house and garden – is a joint project authored both by the Prince of Wales himself and landscape architect Bunny Guinness, who helped to build the gardens up from nothing.

The 65-year-old royal has spoken about the increasingly industrialised approach to gardening and farming and confessed he prefers more traditional methods.

He told the Daily Telegraph newspaper: “I minded terribly the more I though about things, the endless use of chemicals and in the long term felt that this was unsustainable.

“I wanted to restore lost habitats and plant lots of hedgerows and trees to heal the landscape.”

The heir-to-the-throne added that he will continue to dabble in his hobby until he is no longer able.

He said: “I have put my heart and soul into Highgrove and I will continue to do so while I can … My enduring hope is that those who visit the garden may find something to inspire, excite, fascinate or soothe them.”

As the warmth of the season beckons us outdoors, many pet and plant lovers are caught in the crossroads — is it possible to intertwine a love for nature while meeting the needs of our beloved domestics? The short answer is yes — with a little bit of ingenuity! Here are spring’s top tips for gardening pet lovers.

1) Pet owners should choose fertilizers and mulches cautiously. Shop for organic, pet-friendly fertilizers and soil amendments. Be aware that many environmentally friendly fertilizers contain fish byproducts, blood meal and ground poultry feathers. These ingredients are very appealing to many dogs and may cause digestive upset if eaten in quantity. If possible, keep your pets away from newly fertilized beds and lawns until the product has dissolved. Alternatively, consider liquid fertilizers. When buying mulch, avoid cocoa mulch. It is toxic to pets and lethal if ingested in quantity. Choose root mulch, wood bark or gravel instead. My favorite? Pine bark mulch, in any form.

2) If you have a dog, consider his essential “dogness” — dogs like to course the perimeters of their territory, aka your yard. If your plantings run up to the edges of your property, they’re likely to get trampled. To prevent this frustration, keep or create an 18- to 36-inch pathway around the boundary of your property, especially if you plan to erect fencing.

3) Speaking of fencing, many dogs get quite frustrated when they can’t see out of their property to identify noises and passersby, which leads to digging and/or frustration barking. Often, dogs destroy garden beds or bark themselves into frenzy out of frustration and boredom.

If your containment system blocks your dog’s vision, consider a transparent window erected at eye level (your dog’s, that is). I use a PetPeek, which the kids love, too. A little porthole into the world outside and a non-planted path around the perimeter can keep everyone on the same page, landscape-wise.

4) Ever notice that your dog excavates your plantings days after you tucked them into the earth? Though maddening, your dog has paid you a high compliment. Ever mindful of your activities, he’s watching each handful of dirt you unearth. If he sees you gardening, he will soon mimic your technique.

As you begin to shape good canine garden habits, keep your dog inside while you tend your plants.

5) If your dog enjoys digging, he will likely always relish the feeling of the earth on his paws. If this is the case, you’ll need to provide a dog-friendly digging pit — a small area (think sandbox) filled with sand, dirt and/or pine mulch where you encourage him to “Go dig!” Do this during playtime to encourage his enthusiasm. If he stares at the digging pit and gives you the “huh?” face, try burying a bone, toy or treat and, if necessary, get down on your knees and dig with him!

It can be a little tricky to keep dogs out of garden beds. Take a few minutes to consider why your dog enters your planting area in the first place. Is he mimicking you? You’ll need to be more discrete when planting and pruning. Is it to eliminate or mark? That solution can be fairly simple, though it may take a week or two. Start by giving your dog his own area away from your tomatoes and prized tulips. Center his new elimination area around a physical structure or tree, or erect a decorative stone or even a faux fire hydrant. Take your dog to the new area on leash in the morning or when you take him out after a separation. Wait to offer your hugs and greetings until after he’s gone potty, and discourage your dog from going near your beds by calmly redirecting him on a long line should he venture near.

My last suggestion is to remember that your dog is as ecstatic about the spring thaw as you are. He is equally excited to get outside, stretch his legs and bask in the sun. As far as pets and plants go, play with your dog first to tire him out, and garden during your dog’s nap times.

Next article on gardening will cover boundary training — a creative, non-threatening technique to keep your pet out of the garden once and for all!

DO YOU KNOW HOW PLANTS GROW FROM SEEDS?

Here are some of the best gardening tips for planting seeds. This advice is vital for a new gardener!

Plant Seeds In A Pot
Planting seeds in a pot is easy. But, if you want your plant to grow well and to have best results, you need to plant the seeds not too deep into the pot. For vegetable plants, seeds need to be planted at least 2 inches deep into the pot. For fruits, one and half inch is more than enough to plant your seeds.

Plant Seeds In A Tray
Trays are flat, so it requires more soil. The more soil in the tray, the more seeds you can plant in. However, you should know which types of plants are suitable for a tray. This is the best gardening tip for planting seeds in a tray.

Plant Seeds In A Cup
Small plants are well-suited for a cup. Fill half the cup with wet soil and then place the seeds over it. Make sure that the seeds are not buried into the soil, not even half way into the cup as it can wither away from lack of oxygen. The seeds need to be planted over the soil in the cup.

Plant Seeds In A Garden
This is the easiest spot to plant seeds. All you have to do is reach into the soil about a metre in depth and place the seeds. Make sure to gently cover the seeds with a little more soil and pat it over using the palm of your hands. This indeed is one of the best gardening tips for planting seeds.

Plant Seeds In A Glass Jar
A glass jar is a little too delicate for you to grow plants in. For tiny plants like the pea plant, the glass jar is appropriate. Fill the glass jar with three-fourth soil and place the seeds in the middle of the jar.

Some good news about bumblebees: Insect hunters in Washington and Oregon have spotted and photographed several western bumblebees in locations where they had vanished.

The Xerces Society, an organization that helps conserve invertebrates and their habitat, has a citizen-led project to track North America’s bumblebee species. To participate, visit www.bumblebeewatch.org.

“Once you start seeing bees, you get pulled into it. You can spend hours sitting around and watching the bees on your plants,” says Matthew Shepherd of The Xerces Society in northeast Portland. Read more about spotting bees here.

National Wildlife Federation writer Laura Tangley offers these tips to gardening to help bumblebees:

• Provide pollen and nectar for food: Bumblebees prefer flowers that are purple, blue or yellow as well as perennial versus annual plants. Native plants are best, see recommendations at www.xerces.org/lbj.
• Ensure bumblebees have nesting sites: Habitats like compost piles and unoccupied birdhouses help bumblebees, as does minimizing mowing and tilling that destroy nests and potential future nest sites.
• Provide overwintering habitat: Queens seek shelter over winter in small holes just below or on the ground’s surface or sheds, rock walls and woodpiles. Leaving leaf litter, downed wood and uncut bunch grasses provides additional options. If you mow, do so with the mower blade set at the highest safe level. When spring arrives, avoid raking or mowing until April or May to protect hibernating queens.
• Avoid or minimize pesticides: The Xerces Society recommends that you “choose targeted formulations with the least-toxic ingredients, follow the manufacturer’s directions, apply the pesticide as directly and locally as possible and apply when bumblebees are not active” either after dark or during winter.

— Janet Eastman

Join the conversation at Homes Gardens of the Northwest on Facebook or in the comment section below at www.oregonlive.com/hg

Posted: Friday, April 11, 2014 11:29 am

Gardening Tips: Magic wand solutions for fairy rings in lawns

By Matthew Stevens

The Daily Herald, Roanoke Rapids, NC

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0 comments

In early to mid April each year, Bermuda grass that has laid dormant for months begins to emerge from its winter sleep. Often this can be an ideal time to notice potential problems with Bermuda lawns. One such problem that often becomes quite apparent at this time is known as fairy rings.

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Friday, April 11, 2014 11:29 am.

After a long winter, people with green thumbs are ready to put the gloves on and get to work on their gardens.
However, there are some things that you should wait a little longer to do, and some things you can get started on right away.

Co-owner of Grobe Nursery and Garden, Perry Grobe, tells 570 News some basic helpful tips for digging into your gardens this spring.

“They can certainly plant pansies right now, and as soon as the ground is diggable, they can plant almost any plant they can think of in terms of shrubs, and trees, or bushes, and so on.”

Not only is it a good idea to clean up the yard, but it is important to clean up and throw away any dead branches left from the storm that hit most in the area this past Christmas.

“The other thing that people are doing right now is planting. The season is late and the longer they put it off, the harder it may be to get things done in a timely manner. They should be considering what they’re going to do and make arrangements to get things ready for the garden. For example, they may want to get their fertilizers for the beds and fertilizers for the lawn and look at the shrubs that they’re looking to have, and so on.”

For helpful tips and useful advice on gardening, visit Grobe Nursery and Garden Centre online at www.grobenursery.com

Don’t let a lack of time or space get in the way of gardening a way to a healthy lifestyle. Plant a container of nutritious vegetables and herbs. Include a few planters on the front porch, back patio or right outside the kitchen door.

All that’s needed is potting mix, fertilizer, plants and a container with drainage holes. A 15- to 24-inch-diameter pot or 24- to 36-inch-long window box is a good starting size. Bigger containers hold more plants and hold moisture longer, so can be watered less frequently.

Fill the container with well-drained potting mix. Read the label on the container mix bag. Add a slow-release organic nitrogen fertilizer at planting, like Milorganite – visit milorganite.com –for better results with less effort. It provides small amounts of nutrients throughout most of the season, and eliminates the need to mix and water in fertilizer throughout the growing season. Sprinkle a bit more on the soil surface midseason or when changing out plantings.

Mix colorful flowers with nutritious vegetables for attractive, healthy results. Bright Lights Swiss Chard, pansies – their flowers are edible, colorful leaf lettuce, spinach, radishes and trailing ivy make a great cool-season combination. Fresh-from-the-container garden vegetables make the best-tasting salads, and the greens provide Vitamins A and C as well as calcium. Use pansy flowers to dress up a salad or frozen in ice cubes for an added gourmet touch to beverages.

For summer, use tomato, pepper, eggplant or peas, beans and cucumbers trained on a trellis. All are packed full of nutrients and make a great vertical accent. Surround the towering vegetables with purple basil, tri-color sage, carrots, beets and a colorful trailing annual like verbena, lantana or bidens.

Check containers daily and water thoroughly as needed. Self-watering pots need less frequent watering, allowing busy gardeners and travelers the opportunity to grow plants in pots with minimal care.

Don’t forget to squeeze in a few onions or garlic. The fragrant foliage can be decorative and these vegetables help lower blood sugar and cholesterol, while aiding in digestion.

Be creative and add a few small-scale, attractive vegetables high in nutritional value to a variety of containers this season.

TORRINGTON Seasons of Growth owner Jenn Plasky was the guest speaker at the Torrington-Winsted Rotary meeting Tuesday.

Plasky spoke about the areas one should focus on in getting their yard or garden ready for spring.

Plasky said the four areas to focus on are pruning, dividing, fertilizing, and mulching.

“There are four reasons to prune – to remove damaged areas, improve air flow, prevent crossing branches and create a fuller hedge,” said Plasky.

One of the most common mistakes seen in pruning is shaping the bush so it’s wider on the top and smaller on the bottom. Plasky said that the bush should be narrower on the top and taper out towards the bottom, as this shape gives more sunlight to the bottom of the bush. She cited a house on Route 202 coming from Litchfield as having “perfectly shaped bushes.”

Plasky talked about the importance of picking a bush that’s going to fit the space you want. One of the reasons you should not prune is to radically change the natural shape of the plant, for example to keep a larger bush smaller to make it fit in the space you want.

“When pruning a bush remove the branches at the base, which opens the bush and promotes good air flow,” said Plasky.

Good air flow allows the leaves to dry out more thereby preventing fungal disease from developing.

Plasky went over proper pruning methods for flowering bushes so one doesn’t inadvertently cut off the buds of the bush. “Spring is the best time to prune because you can see the buds,” Plasky said.

According to Plasky, Spring is also the best time to relocate plants. She said the best way to do this is to take as many roots as possible, use transplant fertilizer and water and mulch well.

Plasky explained the importance of mulch and it’s not just for weed control. Mulch holds in water, regulates the soil temperature, and certain kinds of mulch, like Sweet Peet, can fertilize the plant. She recommends first removing the old mulch, using a 3 to 4 inch layer and to keep the mulch a half inch away from stems of plants. For bushes and trees the mulch should extend to where the leaf canopy ends. What’s not recommended is black landscape fabric under the mulch.

“It’s not recommended because it just creates an extra layer for the rainwater to get through,” said Plasky.

The presentation concluded with landscaping questions from Rotary members.

One question involved how to kill off pesky weeds, the solution for which is tilling or using landscaping fabric to choke them out before planting. Another question comes from Rotary member Kevin Purcell – what do you when deer have eaten all the leaves off your holly bushes? Plasky suggests liquid fertilizer, which is more readily used. Waiting for regrowth and then pruning away the dead areas.

To find out more about Seasons of Growth visit www.seasonsofgrowthllc.com. The company does horticultural design and wedding flowers. The company also has a radio show in partnership with Region 6 Gardens on WAPJ 89.9 and 105.1 Fridays at 4:30 p.m. throughout April and May.

Jenny Golfin can be reached at 860-489-3121, ext. 357.

(Lander, Wyo.) – Q: When is the best time to plant a tree? A: 20 years ago!

Unless you can time travel, the second best time to plant a tree is now. Trees can be planted throughout much of the year, and spring is a perfect time to plant a tree. Before trees set leaf buds is an optimal time as the tree isn’t under stress. It also satiates the need that at least a few readers have to be puttering outside when most plants can’t yet be out.

Now that the ground has defrosted, adequate holes can be dug without too much character building. Ha! Maybe not, if you’ve got lots of rocks. The depth will depend on the size of the root ball being planted. Dig deep enough so that the soil surface of the root ball is level with new soil surface. Make sure the base of the hole is solid, so that the tree mass will be supported firmly.

If roots are tight and curled from being cooped up in a container, take a few minutes to gently loosen them. This will encourage them to grow out and away from the trunk. Trees that have spent time in hard plastic containers often have curled roots, while balled and burlap packaged trees are usually not as curled.

If you want to amend the soil, planting is the time to do so. Don’t overdo it, though. If you create too rich of a soil mix immediately around the tree, the roots won’t be encourage to grow out and create an extended network. As Griff jokingly says, “It’s just like a kid- you don’t want to make the home so nice that they never want to leave!” A good rule of thumb is to mix 2/3^rds original soil with 1/3^rd amendments to back fill. Use Soil Pep© if you are planting in clay soil, and compost for sandier soil.

Keep in mind that once the tree is nestled into the ground, your work really begins! You’ll need to water the tree regularly. Aim for a twice-a-week schedule that alternately wets and then dries the roots. The wet/dry cycle forces the roots to grow deeper. Not watering deeply enough entices the roots to remain shallow. You’ve watered enough if soil is moist 10-12” deep. A spade or long screwdriver is a handy tool to use to check.

Root feeders are an easy way to deliver water several inches below the soil surface, rather than waiting for water to percolate. An alternate method is burying vertical-oriented PVC pipes with holes drilled into the lower part to deliver water below the soil surface.

Tie out trees that are planted in windy areas for the first year. After that, the roots should have established themselves enough to support the tree. Then there is the task of trying to protect the tree from being browsed by deer. It’s a daunting task! A small, low profile cage to protect the truck is a good idea. It’s OK if a few branches are nibbled, but the trunk needs to be protected.

Remember that planting a tree is a commitment to a long-term relationship of care and nurturing. It’s going to be a few years before you don’t have to pamper your trees. In a Master Gardener class, the three-year tree growth cycle in Wyoming was described as; “Sleep, Creep, Leap.” My own experience was much slower: 3 years as a toothpick, then a Qtip, then Dumdum, then a TootsiePop, and then finally a small tree on it’s 7^th year. My advice is to plant as large a tree as you can afford. (Yes, I said that even before starting to work at Sprouts!

If you’re after shade as soon as possible, consider one of the faster growing species: cottonwood, willow, aspen and silver maple. The trade off for fast growth is less sturdy limbs. You’ll need to routinely evaluate the tree and prune it regularly to create as strong a structure as possible. Hardier trees, and hence a bit slower growing, include: ash, linden, honey locust, oaks, evergreens and especially spruce.

Regardless of what you’re looking for, we’ve got a wide variety of trees available for you. Take a look here for catalogs of shade trees, flowering trees, and evergreens. While you’re at it, browse around our newly designed web page! Trees are a great gift for future generations. We in Lander are fortunate that others before us planted so many lovely trees- let’s pay it forward!

We at Sprouts love growing plants, and want to share our love of gardening with you. We hope that these tips help you learn, solve problems, and grow. Our intention is to address basic issues, and provide references for additional information.

You can expect a new tip from us each week on Buckrail.com! We don’t intend for the tips to be the end-all, be-all of the gardening world.

8591 Wyoming 789, Lander, WY 82520

(307) 332-3572.