In Northern United States and Canada

Now is the time to check out seed catalogs and online along with placing orders. Early in the month sow seeds of Clarkia, Godedia, Larkspur, Stocks and other annuals for Spring bloom in the greenhouse. Toward the end of January sow in the greenhouse Wax Begonias, Lobelias, Vinca roses, Delphiniums and Pansies for Summer bloom outdoors…

Remove pots of bulbs, such as Hyacinths, Daffodils and Tulips, that are to be forced for early bloom, a few at a time, from the cool basement or sand bed outdoors where they have been rooting, and bring them into the greenhouse or house. Shade them for the first few days and give them lots of water at all times. Keep them cool at first; increase the temperature gradually.

As soon as dormant potted Amaryllis bulbs show signs of life, remove a little of the old surface soil, replace with rich new soil, water thoroughly and place the pots in a warm, light location in the greenhouse or house. Pot new Amaryllis bulbs in well-drained pots of fertile sandy soil.

Disperse heavy accumulations of snow on evergreens by shaking the branches. Allow snow to remain on coldframes until it melts naturally. It provides good insulation. Branches of Christmas trees may be laid over evergreen perennials (such as Dianthus, Helianthemums and Candytuft) to give protection from sun and wind. Check tools and supplies now. Winter passes all too swiftly and with its end comes the immediate need for these. Make sure that the tools and implements you have are in good working condition. Buy whatever new ones you need. Also, make a list of the fertilizers, sprays and other supplies you will require and order them in.

In the South

Make sowings of annuals for early bloom either outdoors or in coldframes as soon as weather permits. In the lower South sow Carrots, Lettuce, Onions, Peas, Spinach and other hardy vegetable crops. Set out Cabbage plants and Onion sets. Plant Asparagus, Rhubarb and Horseradish. Proceed with preparing ground for later plantings. Almost all garden soils will benefit from having rotted manure, compost or other decayed organic matter incorporated into them.

Finish pruning Grapevines and complete the pruning of other fruits before new growth begins. Also, before new growth starts, apply dormant sprays to such fruit trees and ornamentals as need this treatment. Plant bulbs of Ranunculus, Tuberoses, Gerberas and Ismenes for Summer bloom. In the lower and middle South do not delay the planting of trees, shrubs, Gerberas, evergreens and Roses.

On the West Coast

Prune leaf-losing fruits and ornamentals that need this attention and complete this work before mid-February. Rose pruning should be done now in California. Attend to dormant spraying before new growth starts but not when night temperatures are likely to go below 35 degrees. In California gardens prepare plots for vegetables and make sowings of the hardiest kinds. Fertilize lawns and dig out patches of invading Bermuda Grass. Make early plantings of such bulbs and tubers as Begonias, Calla Lilies, Gladioli, Gloxinias and Tigridias. In southern California sow annuals, set out perennials and, following rains, plant trees and shrubs.

Now is the time to let go of hazy ideas regarding gerberas. Click on the link to visit http://www.zone10.com/gerberas-from-seed.html. Don’t reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.

categories: garden,gardening,landscape,plant care,plants

This fantastic indoor bulb offer will give you beautiful colour and glorious fragrance for all the rooms in your home. This great end of season offer will guarantee you a lucky dip mixture of indoor bulbs from our current range such as Amaryllis, Hyacinth and Narcissus, that is valued at over £70. With a massive saving of £50 this collection is yours for only £22.90! For colour, fragrance and great value this offer will be very hard to beat. Too many bulbs for you? Share them with family and friends!

End of Season Lucky Dip
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60 mixed indoor fragrant bulbs- selection may vary
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Take advantage of this super offer to stop those bare patches in your lawn. Sowing in autumn is a good time to start or to repair your grass. It’s still warm enough for the seed to start growing quickly but also means the lawn seed is watered with natural rainfall. This lawn seed has been specially formulated for deep rooting grasses and to maintain that emerald green colour we strive for in our lawns! Buy 1 x 500gms and get 1 x 500gms free: order now and give that tired lawn a wake up call!

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At this time of the year there’s not too much growing in the garden and if you’re a keen vegetable grower what about giving mushrooms a try? No need to forage in the wild! With our exclusive kit you can grow your own gourmet mushrooms at home in less than 30 days and from the first picking  this kit will continue to produce up to 4kgs of superb flavour mushrooms.The wooden crate contains a highly productive natural substrate, all you have to do is open the box, follow the simple instructions supplied, and wait for your first mushroom to appear! Choose from 4 incredible varieties for a mushroom basket: White Button, a classic mushroom, Portobello, an Italian style mushroom, Black Oyster, a glossy black mushroom with subtle flavour and Golden Pearl, highly prized by gourmet chefs! The reward for your efforts will be some of the freshest, tastiest mushrooms you’ll ever eat.

This photo was taken after just 7 days!
1 Kit only £14.95
2 kits only £26.90 – Save 10%
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1 Kit contains stackable wooden crate to grow your mushroom in (30x40x24cm) & highly productive natural substrate

I just heard the Raw Garden are offering some nice discounts at the moment. You can take advantage using these codes:

Raw Garden Voucher Codes

Code – AFFPARK1800
Promotion – 10% off Park Picnic Table 1800mm
Expires – 16th October 2009

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Planting an edging for your driveway or sidewalks is easy and can be very pretty. Most edgings are designed with short flowering plants so as not to obstruct the pathway. You can choose from plants that attract birds and butterflies or ground covers that spread fast and look beautiful Here are a few a few ideas to help you get started on your edging.

Scented Flowers

Scented flowers are excellent edging for walkways. As visitors brush against them, they release their scent into the air. This creates a fragrance for your walkway that visitors will not want to leave. They should also be at least twelve inches high but less than two feet tall. This leaves the blooms below the level women carry their purses and above the ankles where seeds can drop in cuffs of pants. Many of the scented flowers attract birds and butterflies. Humming birds are one of the favorite birds to attract and sweetly scented flowers are excellent attractors for them. Roses are not a good pathway flower unless they are planted away from the path area and have a short edging of their own.

Annuals

Annual plants are plants that must be replanted every spring. They are easy to grow and make a beautiful fit for walkways. For instance marigolds will fill in a space with only a few plants. They are stemmed plants but they bush out after planted and flowering begins. You can find marigolds in yellow, orange, red and off white. They range in height from ten inches to three feet. Other easily grown annuals include lobelia, alyssum and nicotiana. You can purchase annuals in flats that make it easy to plant and space around walkways or driveways. Just make sure you have some form of edging to separate the flowers from the actual path. This keeps guests off of your flowers and your flowers off of the path.

Brightening Flowers

Brightening a pathway for visitors requires one of two things; lighting or White flowers. White flowers help brighten the pathway in the evening. Dianthus is an annual flower that mixes well with other flowers. You can choose a colored plant for a color fill and use alyssum for the edging itself. The brighter the flowers, the more butterflies and birds are attracted to them. You may even find you want to sit a bistro set in the middle of a larger garden on a platform.

Rock Gardens with Succulent Leaf Plants

If you live in a rather hot region, rock gardens are an excellent choice for sidewalk edging. Plants with succulent leaves are ideal for hot temperatures and sun. Flowering plants with vining habits work well for ground cover. They spread quickly and cover the ground easily, plus they offer color to your walkway. Ferns or feathery leaf plants and bold flowers should be considered for less hot and sunny regions. A vertical leaf or spiky leaf plant should be considered for rock gardens. Ornamental Millet attracts birds that eat seeds. Blue fescue has short bluish grass that makes a beautiful walkway.

John Smith is an avid garden and lawn care enthusiast. John is also an avid blogger. You can read more of his articles at Toro Equipment.

I’ve just heard about a Spring Sale at Blooming Direct. They have some great offers on Spring Plants.

The offer ends on 11 May.

Find out more at the Blooming Direct site.

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Promotion – 10% off all Gazebos
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Promotion – 10% Off Pine 1400mm Picnic Table
Expires – 30th April 2009

Code – AFFPIC1800
Promotion – 10% Off Pine 1800mm Picnic Table
Expires – 30th April 2009

Code – AFFPICH1500
Promotion – 10% Off Hardwood 1500mm Picnic Table
Expires – 30th April 2009

Code – AFFPICH1800
Promotion – 10% Off Hardwood 1800mm Picnic Table
Expires – 30th April 2009

Visit the Raw Garden website for more information.

I’ve just heard about some discount codes for Rolawn Direct:

10% discount on Rolawn Minster Pro® Turf using the promotion code MINTURF11. Valid until 5/5/09. Rolawn Minster Pro® Turf is a fine bladed fescue turf for a lawn with an outstanding appearance.

5% discount on Rolawn Vegetable & Fruit Topsoil using the promotion code Vegtopsoil12. Valid until 5/5/09. Rolawn Vegetable & Fruit Topsoil is a fertile, organic rich, light and friable topsoil. It is a consistent blend of topsoil derived from prime arable land and a consistent organic matter, which ensures consistent results.

If your current planting goals involve plants that require good water drainage, I am sure you know how frustrating it is to have a yard that just won’t cooperate. Some herb plants can handle the excess water that comes about from being in an area that doesn’t drain properly.

In fact, it might just cause them to bloom more lushly. However, other plants don’t cope as well, and it will cause them to die a gruesome, bloated death. You should always find out about the drainage required for every plant you buy, and make sure that it won’t conflict with any of the areas you are considering planting it in.

In order to test how much water your designated patch of soil will retain, dig a hole approximately ten inches deep. Fill it with water, and come back in a day when all the water had disappeared.

Fill it back up again. If the 2nd hole full of water isn’t gone in 10 hours, your soil has a low saturation point. This means that when water soaks into it, it will stick around for a long time before dissipating. This is unacceptable for almost any plant, and you are going to have to do something to remedy it if you want your plants to survive.

The usual method for improving drainage in your herb garden is to create a raised bed. This involves creating a border for a small bed, and adding enough soil and compost to it to raise it above the rest of the yard by at least 5 inches.

You’ll be amazed at how much your water drainage will be improved by this small modification. If you’re planning to build a raised bed, your prospective area is either on grass or on dirt. For each of these situations, you should build it slightly differently.
If you want to start a raised herb garden in a non grassy area, you won’t have much trouble.

Just find some sort of border to retain the dirt you will be adding. I’ve found that there is nothing that works quite as well as a few two by fours. After you’ve created the wall, you must put in the proper amount soil and steer manure. Depending on how long you plan to wait before planting, you will want to adjust the ratio to allow for any deteriorating that may occur.

If you’re trying to install a raised bed where sod already exists, you will have a slightly more difficult time. You will need to cut the sod around the perimeter of the garden, and flip it over. This may sound simple, but you will need something with a very sharp edge to slice the edges of the sod and get under it.

Once you have turned it all upside down, it is best to add a layer of straw to discourage the grass from growing back up. After the layer of straw, simply add all the soil and steer manure that a normal garden would need.

Planting your herb plants in your new area shouldn’t pose much difficulty. It is essentially the same process as your usual planting session. Just be sure that the roots don’t extent too far into the original ground level.

The whole point of creating the raised bed is to keep the roots out of the soil which saturates easily. Having long roots that extend that far completely destroys the point.

Once you have plants in your new bed, you’ll notice an almost immediate improvement. The added soil facilitates better root development. At the same time, evaporation is prevented and decomposition is discouraged.

All of these things added together makes for an ideal environment for almost any plant to grow in. So don’t be intimidated by the thought of adjusting the very topography of your yard. It is a simple process as I’m sure you’ve realized, and the long term results are worth every bit of work.

You can learn how to grow herbsand how to plant herbs. Starting your own herb garden is easy.

A well maintained, attractive garden is well known to add value to a property so it goes without saying that landscaping your garden will have a similar effect.

Although there are some very skilled gardeners out there, usually landscaping would be the area where specialist contractors step in. Hopefully bringing there years of experience to your garden project but all the expensive equipment and machinery that is required to do the job, along with their inevitable discounts at gardening retailers.

There are many different features you might like to include in your new garden.

Water features or water landscaping is probably one of the most obvious and popular choices, whether it be fountains or ponds or even artificial streams. It is clear for these features that a certain amount of excavation will be required, something that in most cases is best left to professionals.

Gates, trellises and arches are also amongst some of the more popular features in a well landscaped garden. Even fencing may be found under this category. Design is important to make your garden look balanced and beautiful. Why not discuss your own design ideas with a landscaping professional to see just what is possible and perhaps discover what unseen potential your garden may have.

Gardens around the world may share some common features, but due to the massive variability in weather and climate they are often very different also. Here in the British Isles the climate is temperate which results in gardens having green as their alpha male colour. Lawns, trees and shrubs makes up vast swathes of British gardens, so the landscaping experts are also skilled in the arranging and planting of these.

Some like to have patio areas or some block paving, perhaps pathways leading through the garden to a pond or water feature.

We have already seen how advice from your landscape gardener or expert can prove to be the making or breaking of the success of your garden. Another such area of importance is ground suitability. You may have grand ideas about certain trees, plants and shrubs you would like to see flourish in your garden but if the soil isnt compatible then you may end up disappointed.

Before hiring your landscaping professional, of course it is fair and reasonable for you to be able to see their portfolio of work and any respectable landscaper should be able to provide this for you. If you want to share your own ideas with your gardener, magazines and books are useful for pointing out the things you like.

It is only when you have your ideas and plans in place and have discussed them with your chosen landscaping company that you can assess the cost and most efficient ways of achieving your gardening goals.

James Johnson, answers some of the questions about landscape gardening.
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I’ve just heard that Unwins are offering a free packet of herb seeds with every seed order. Now is a great time to stock up on seeds as it’s just coming into planting season, particularly if you have a greenhouse. You can also start them off indoors on a windowsill.

Unwins have a great selection of seeds to choose from. Hurry over and grab your free herbs!