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Posts with tag pruning

Avant Yard: 75 tricks to get your kids outdoors

Two-year-old girl wearing floral halter-neck dress crouches in a garden to examine plants
Summer vacation keeps rolling along. How long until your kids go back to school? Are they spending too much time lounging on the couch? Here are a bunch of summer projects to trick your kids away from their air-conditioned sanctuary and out into the great outdoors of, er, your backyard.

Okay, okay. So the backyard is not the great outdoors. True. But the main thing is to get the kiddos out in the fresh air, learning about nature, and learning about the noble pursuit of maintaining a garden.

Getting their hands dirty
1. Ask them to help with the weeding. Pay them a small amount of pocket money for their time.

Continue reading Avant Yard: 75 tricks to get your kids outdoors

Avant Yard: Juniper a tough-as-nails groundcover

Closeup photo of a juniper branch showing blue-green needles and blue juniper berries
My mother had a juniper plant in her garden. Other conifers, too. I thought they were awful, just awful. Dull, squat and flat, the juniper just sat there year after year, seemingly unchanging. No colorful flowers. Too small and spikey for a kid to play in. Never thought I'd say what I'm about to say: now I'm a believer! In the power of juniper, that is.

Why the change of heart? Simple: I got some hands-on experience with my own gardens. Now I know how time and labor intensive gardens are. Tough-as-nails, no-maintenance plants like juniper are now beautiful in my eyes. I particularly like juniper when it's used as a groundcover, replacing high-maintenance areas of lawn.

Why you'll love juniper

Not into juniper? I believe I can convert you. Here are a few reasons you should give junipers a try...


Gallery: My Craigslist juniper

Low-maintenance = beautifulJuniper berries...Dig cautiouslyLeverage timeSome roots may be sacrificed
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Avant Yard: Butterflies! 20 tips for a bountiful butterfly garden

Closeup shot by Diane Rixon of an orange butterfly with its wings spread
One of my greatest summer joys is watching butterflies delicately fluttering and swooping in the sun. Last spring, I finally got around to starting my very own butterfly garden. It's still very much a work in progress; however, I'd love to share it with you. Click over to my gallery to take a tour of my butterfly garden.

Want to give butterfly gardening a try yourself? Here are 20 tips to get started!

BUTTERFLIES 101

1. Learn some butterfly garden basics. The most important thing to know is that butterflies are attracted to brightly colored flowers, and to certain plants in particular. Some of the best plants for attracting butterflies are butterfly bush, lantana, pentas, milkweed, purple coneflower, willow, and fennel.

2. Know your local butterflies. Find out which butterflies are commonly found in your state. For example, the butterfly in my picture is a Gulf Fritillary which is found all over Florida. Is there a specific butterfly you want to attract? Perhaps the gorgeous Monarch? Then learn up to find out which plants are most likely to attract that species. Tip: for Monarchs, try planting milkweed.

Gallery: Tour my butterfly garden

It doesn't take muchWater is importantButterfly bush in SpringButterfly bush in early SummerButterfly bush bloom

Continue reading Avant Yard: Butterflies! 20 tips for a bountiful butterfly garden

Avant Yard: Control your weedy wisteria

closeup of lavender Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinesis) blooms hanging from a pergola
When I was a kid, my dad would routinely get out his pruning tools and ruthlessly cut back our lovely wisteria. This would always upset me greatly because the vine was so very beautiful when it bloomed in Spring. Would it ever come back and flower again? Yes, it always did. Always.

What I understand now is that wisteria is one tough and relentless vine once established. The form of wisteria I'm talking about is Chinese wisteria (Wisteria sinesis), which actually belongs to the pea family. This big, sprawling deciduous vine has fast-growing branches that twine up and around anything it can get a hold on.

Wisteria was introduced to the US from China by gardening enthusiasts back in the early 1800s. If those folks were around today to see what they had wrought they'd probably say, "oops." That's because W. sinesis has become an invasive pest, wrapping it's vine-y arms around roadsides and woods up and down the east coast. As it spreads, wisteria chokes out native shrubs and trees with ease, and is known to climb as high as 65-feet. That's one powerful vine!

Gallery: Wisteria control

Beautiful wisteria bloomsWisteria in all its gloryWisteria foliageWisteria leavesLawn invasion

Continue reading Avant Yard: Control your weedy wisteria

Avant Yard: Azalea fever -- tips to maximize spring blooms

Azaleas are remarkably easy to grow, hence their immense popularity with homeowners and landscapers everywhere. They are super-tough, for one thing. For another, they grow big enough to create privacy screens and attract wildlife, yet not so big as to be problematic. Best of all, they produce the most gorgeous Spring blooms.
Did your azaleas bloom poorly last Spring? Do they have only a meager number of buds formed for this Spring? Don't take it lying down! Let's look at some reasons why azaleas fail to bloom, and simple solutions to get those beautiful buds back:
1. Excessive pruning. My personal pet peeve: spindly-looking azaleas pruned to within an inch of their lives, usually by well-meaning folks wielding power trimmers. Constantly trimming back new growth forces the plant into a fight for survival. Such a plant cannot bloom well when Spring rolls around. Click to the next page for solutions to this and other azalea woes!

Continue reading Avant Yard: Azalea fever -- tips to maximize spring blooms

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