One of my favorite winter rituals is a visit to an indoor plant show. In our area, we are blessed with plentiful attractions that make perfect day trips. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s courtyard in Boston’s Fenway is a welcome haven on a winter day. Greenhouses provide tender orchids, ferns, blooming jade plants, and the first…
Stuck indoors a lot in winter? Let’s plant something interesting to view from your windows! Most broadleaf evergreens like rhododendrons curl their leaves tightly in the cold for self-preservation. This isn’t that attractive over time. Why not try something different? Textured bark might be one solution. One of my favorite native woodland plants…
Snow is a great insulator, and for the short term will provide the needed protection of David Austin and hybrid tea roses. We plan to get out to make cones of compost around the root zones of these plants as usual, once we can determine that the ground is frozen, even if there is a…
My friends Brent and Becky Heath, owners of Brent and Becky’s Bulbs in Virginia, shared this technique with me during a bulb seminar I attended at their headquarters back in March 2012. It will work for the bulbs that you didn’t get to plant in the ground this fall. Gather a bunch of 2-gallon pots.…
Any broadleaf evergreen planted in 2017 or 2018 needs special help to get through the coming winter. That means boxwood, holly, rhododendron and pieris. These plants are beautiful in the winter landscape! But if they are not yet well rooted, they are vulnerable to winter burn. That’s the awful browned out look you’ll see when…
Leaf Cleanup Season is Here – How Can We Help? Here at Pumpkin Brook we have a different approach to fallen leaves than most landscape companies. We advocate leaving a thin layer over garden beds as winter protection. This can easily be removed in spring. But what about the 18″ deep drop from maple trees? …
It probably makes sense that trees and shrubs go dormant about now, especially the ones that shed their leaves. This makes the period starting November 1 ideal for pruning. We can clearly see the structure of the plant, especially any crossing branches or water sprout type growth that may have emerged this season. Densely twiggy…
Priscilla’s To-Do List for October into early November! Begin to cut back spent perennials in stages on dry days to prevent spread of fungal leaf diseases and consider leaving some standing through winter as refugia for pollinators Rake or use an electric blower to remove heavy layers of leaves from lawns to prevent smothering the…
Priscilla’s Guide for September To-Do’s in Your Garden! Begin to divide and transplant perennials that are not fall bloomers Add new plants and carefully mulch to prevent winter heaving Complete order for fall planted bulbs Clean up summer annuals like petunias as they fade and use an organic liquid foliar feed weekly to encourage strong…
August is the Time for… Keeping up with weeding, touching up mulch as necessary Deadheading flowers to promote new bloom Picking ripening vegetables to hasten more flower buds that lead to more crops Cleaning up spent foliage in vegetable gardens and removing from the site Watering by hand as needed Staking tall annuals and perennials…