A friend asked a question on a forum about what I’m pruning these days, and I thought I’d share the answer here. This is based on what I have in my yard: It’s good to prune any shrubs now EXCEPT those that are spring flowering shrubs. Things like forsythia, flowering cherry, or others that will…
I mentioned in my previous post about the call from Utah Valley Magazine. The article just went online and you can see it here. It’s fun to see my kids in the center of the spread — a cute photo of them after picking some apples. There’s also an article on the following two pages…
Garden Album I got a call about a month ago from a writer working for Utah Valley Magazine who saw this blog and wanted to do a story on gardening in the valley. As part of that discussion, I set up a Google photo album so she could see some of my favorite photos of…
Wow! After living here for seven winters, this one just seems to stretch on and on and on! We’ve had snow on the ground constantly since mid-December, if I’m remembering right; that’s almost a month-and-a-half of snow on the ground. In past winters, the snow has always melted within two days after a storm, except…
I’ve been waiting to harvest the Granny Smith apples, because they haven’t been ripening well this year. It could be a number of factors, including the spider mites that attacked the leaves this year, probably making it less productive of sugars, and it could be that our fall got really cold in mid-September and stayed…
In my previous post, I mentioned seeking advice from GardenWeb members about making the backyard flowerbed better next year. The design forum turned out to be the landscape design forum, and most people there are interested in major redesigns, when I was just looking for some flower and plant arranging ideas. They suggested moving the…
I posted on GardenWeb’s design forum asking for ideas on our long, narrow flowerbed that curves around our backyard lawn. We’re hoping to make this flowerbed much more of a WOW next year, with a longer bloom season and more harmonious colors. Right now, it’s too much yellow and purple, high-contrast, with a lot of…
Well, the season is getting pretty late now, but there are a few late bloomers hanging on, hoping for warm Indian summer days! Here are some of the things we’re still enjoying in our yard: The ‘Pink Simplicity’ roses have done better this year, with more regular watering and fertilizer. I finally trimmed them back…