Hybrid tea roses may be pruned lightly this month and weak growth removed. All roses should be given a complete fertilizer for the gorgeous autumn bloom display. Daylilies that have finished blooming and large clumps of the iris may be divided and reset this month. Two easily grown and exotically beautiful bulbous flowers may be … Read more
I became convinced of the value of planting strawberries in the fall of the mid-1990s. I have been systematically experimenting with strawberries since 1993 to grow the greatest yield from a given area. Dozens of experiments confirm this statement: you get the largest yield from the matted row system. Mother plants are set in September … Read more
Flowers have a special talent for lifting the spirits even on the gloomiest day—and if they are picked from your garden and used to decorate your home, they will give added enjoyment. You will certainly want to use them to your best advantage. Of course, you can enjoy roses or lilies for their beauty even … Read more
Now and then, something pops up in horticultural magazines about chayote, Sechium edule. Last winter, this relative of the cucumber was offered at such a reasonable price that many people who had never used it bought it. Naturally, this resulted in a crop of questions. Gardeners in temperate climates wanted to know how to grow … Read more
My mother was a gardener! Despite frail health, she was one of those people who grew plants and flowers as a matter of course. To these “born gardeners,” it is the natural way of living. Remembering her flowers, there comes the realization of the difficulties that beset her as the wife of a Methodist minister. … Read more
Heirloom beans, what are they? Heirloom beans are the ones that our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers have been growing year after year here in New England. They have selected them over a long period to suit the climate and soil and give them a quality that New England people like. They are mostly either green … Read more
The general impression is that cold-frame operation ends with June and the setting out of all early plants. Far from it! So many are the uses of the cold frame through the summer that there is always more space for all that could be done. Seeds of rock garden plants and other hardy perennials can … Read more
Vacations tend to curb the style of garden planning, both from the standpoint of care and of using — or losing — the products. Bush snap beans are an exception. They grow quickly and can be planted and harvested before or after a vacation or both. Ordinarily, the crop matures in seven or eight weeks … Read more
Cucumbers are good to grow in any garden. They have high vitamin content and are delicious. An average size cucumber contains only 25 calories and is therefore useful to people on diets. They make excellent salads and also fine pickles. I chose the ‘Bur-pee Hybrid’ variety because they bear for a long while and resist … Read more
In many states, great piles of sawdust are going begging. Some of them, aged and well-rotted, are located in country sawmills. Others, both old and fresh, stand high in local lumber yards where lumber is cut for retail trade. It may be hard to ask if you can carry much of this sawdust from the … Read more