It’s summertime and that means vacations. You’re a good plant parent and you want to make sure your plants are well taken care of but you don’t need to stay home all summer. I talked to the people who have years and years of knowledge gleaned from experience: the Swansons’ team! They offered their best tips for keeping your outdoor and indoor plants happy and healthy while you’re away.
While hoses, sprinklers, and watering bags are all excellent ways to water, many gardeners are turning to drip irrigation systems for their manifold benefits: once set up properly, a drip irrigation system is efficient, precise, and a relatively low-effort method for keeping our plants well-watered throughout the year. This post is an introduction to the key components and setup of a drip irrigation system.
One of the more common questions that newer gardeners might ask is, “when is the best time of year to prune __________?” This pruning calendar can help guide you to the best times to prune your garden plants. You’ll also find links to other posts with more in-depth information on how to prune, pruning specific plants and categories of plants, and pruning in individual seasons.
You and your rose soul-mates have found each other. Now what? How do you keep them happy and thriving in our maritime Pacific Northwest climate? Roses are not completely carefree, but with a few basic care guidelines, you can grow them successfully and enjoy their beauty for years to come.
Pollinators come in all shapes and sizes: bees, moths, butterflies, beetles, flies, and even bats, just to name a few. Knowing which plants serve our pollinators the best helps create a healthy and vibrant ecosystem where flora and fauna thrive. It also creates a diverse and beautiful garden for us to enjoy. Here are a few of our favorite flowers to attract bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds to your garden year after year.
Many shrubs bloom in spring and there are lots of choices for gorgeous fall foliage but it can be harder to find the right stand-out shrub to highlight your garden in the summer months, especially if you are trying to complement colorful summer perennial or annual flowers. Here are a few of our favorites for summer flowers or interesting summer and fall foliage.
The most recognizable “spring” flowers - tulips, lilacs, azaleas - have finished blooming or are beginning to fade and a host of new flowering plants are ready to take the baton for the race into summer. Here are some of our favorite late-spring flowers; some even keep blooming all summer long. Best of all, these flowers attract pollinators such as bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds!
After my garden goes to sleep in the fall I look forward to the approach of winter. Tucked among the ferns are some of my favorite winter blooming perennials: hellebores. I love seeing the evergreen leaves throughout the year and excitedly wait for flowers to emerge during a season when there is little else in bloom.
In November, you may feel like staying cozy indoors but that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate a beautiful garden through the window! And you may even venture outside for a little late-fall gardening on milder days. These plants thrive in cooler weather, offering beautiful color and structure in garden beds and containers. We even threw a holiday-worthy houseplant into the mix!
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