Our 2013 comprehensive planting guide will give you the “how to” on planting annuals to perennial trees and shrubs. Just Click on the image below or follow the link to our PDF, printer-friendly version. Happy planting!
2013 Planting Guide
planting guide 2013 (printer-friendly version)
It’s here! Spring is finally officially here! And with spring comes peak planting time. Time to break out your gardening tools, lawn mowers, and those garden plans you’ve been pouring over all winter, and get out in the yard! Well………maybe just as soon as it warms up a bit more, right? But before you get too busy with your spring planting, there are a few things you should do to get ready first. Follow our spring check list now and enjoy successful and smooth gardening in the months to come.
Clean Up Those Garden Beds
It’s a good idea to clean up your garden beds before too much new growth occurs with the onset of warmer weather. As the new growth emerges, prune away any dead, winter-killed leaves and shoots, and compost them or bury them in the vegetable garden.
Press back any plants that may have frost-heaved over the winter. Maintain a 2-inch layer of mulch around your plants. Keep the mulch away from the crowns and directly away from the stems to avoid rot.
Dig up, divide, and replant any established plants if they’ve become too crowded. A key sign of crowding is if flowering has been sparse. Some fast-growing perennials need to be divided between one and three years after planting.
Tune Up Those Lawn Mowers
Soon, it will be time to break out the lawn mowers, but before you do, it’s a good idea to give them a tune-up. Plan to service your lawn mower yourself or take it to a lawn repair shop. A few of the items that should be looked at include:
Pull Out Those Weeds
Handpull or spot treat any winter annual weeds that may have already sprouted in your lawn and bedding areas. These pesky little invaders are not only unsightly, they actually pull moisture and nutrients out of the soil, robbing your plants of needed benefits.
Check Those Garden Tools
Dull and broken garden tools are a side-effect of working in the yard. Of course, it’s downright difficult to, say, prune with dull shears. But shears that won’t cut will pull and tear instead, which only damages your plants, leaving them vulnerable to disease. So inspect your garden tools and repair where you can, and replace if necessary.
And that includes your gardening gloves.
Don’t forget those!
For more gardening tips, be sure to visit the garden center. Our friendly staff is on-hand seven days a week to help with all your gardening needs.
Happy Spring everyone!
March is here and spring is around the corner, and if you are anything like me, then you are longing for some flowers and dreaming of spring planting. Although it’s still a bit early for many plants, now is definitely the time to be planting cool-season vegetables in your edible gardens.
Cool-season veggies grow best at temperatures averaging 15° cooler than those needed by warm season types. Many have edible leaves or roots (lettuce, spinach, carrots, and radishes); others (artichokes, broccoli, cauliflower) are grown for their immature flowers. A few (peas, broad beans) produce edible seeds. Most can endure short periods of frost.
For best results, you need to grow them to maturity in cool weather; otherwise, they can turn bitter tasting, or bolt to seed rather than producing edible parts. Except in coldest climates, plant them in very early spring so the crop will mature before summer heat settles in, or in late summer for a crop in fall in winter.
Here’s a few tips for successful cool-season vegetable gardening this month.
Indoor Transplants
If you started transplants indoor from seed, you will need to harden these home-grown transplants before moving them into the garden. Hardening is a procedure that prepares indoor-grown plants for the rigors of the outdoors. Reduce watering and set them outdoors during the day. Bring them inside at night. Continue this for 3-4 days. If the temperature drops below 50 degrees Fahrenheit, take the plants inside. After four days, allow the plants to be outside all day and night. After about a week or two, the plants should be hardened off and ready to be transplanted with a minimum of shock.
Helpful Hint- Rotate Your Garden
Rotate your vegetables by not planting the same vegetable or related vegetable in the same location year after year. Rotate at least once every three years. If you have to, and if space permits, rotate the entire garden to a new location and allow the original garden to remain fallow for a year. By rotating vegetables from different families you can prevent the buildup of insect and disease problems. Refer to the following list of vegetable families when rotating your garden.
Potatoes
Piedmont gardeners can buy seed potatoes and cut them into egg-sized pieces containing one or two eyes. Allow the cuts to dry and callous for a day or two before planting. Plant them when the soil temperature remains above 50 degrees F.
Asparagus
Plant asparagus crowns before new growth emerges from the buds.
Fertilizing
Some vegetables have heavier demands for nitrogen than others and need extra nitrogen during the growing season. These heavy-feeders benefit from an application of primarily a nitrogen-containing fertilizer applied along one side of the row, about 4-6 inches from the plants. This is called sidedressing. Use a nitrogen fertilizer, such as calcium nitrate, bloodmeal, or cotton seed meal.
Sidedress beets and carrots four to six weeks after planting. Broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower benefit from an application two to three weeks after planting, and again four to six weeks later. Sidedress lettuce soon after the seedlings emerge and grow. Fertilize English peas when they are 4 to 6 inches tall.
Herbs
Plant perennial herbs such as chives, oregano, and thyme as they become available. Also dill and parsley are okay to sow or set out at this time.
Warm-Season Vegetables
For those of you wishing to get a jump start on your warm-season vegetable gardens, try sowing warm-season vegetable seeds indoors for transplant outdoors later. In flats or trays, try eggplant, New Zealand spinach ( a heat-tolerant substitute for spinach), pepper, and tomato. Tender-rooted vegetables such as cucumber, muskmelon, summer squash, and watermelon should be sown in individual pots or peat pellets.
For more gardening tips, be sure to visit the garden center. Our friendly staff is on-hand seven days a week with answers to all your gardening needs.
Driving around town this past week, you may have noticed some early signs of spring starting to show. Deciduous trees and shrubs are beginning to leaf out, bud, and in some cases, even bloom. Temperatures are slowly warming, and the world is coming back to life. Even though there is still a good month left to winter, it’s time to start treatment on your lawn to be ahead of the game next month. Because as the days are slowly lengthening and warming, soil temperatures are rising, causing all those pesky weed seeds that have laid dormant all winter to sprout. So if you haven’t done so, now is the time to apply PRE-EMERGENT weed treatment to your lawn to keep it weed-free this spring.
At Garden Supply Co, we have a full line of lawn care products to keep your lawns at their peak of health. Stop by the garden center and let our friendly staff of experts help you select the best treatment plan for your lawn. If you haven’t treated your lawn at all this year, now is a good time to apply a crabgrass preventer as well as a pre-emergent week killer. And it’s about time for fertilizer, too. Our experts can help get you going on the right schedule.
Mowing
Plan to have your lawn mower serviced soon, if you haven’t already. Here’s a few items that should be looked at:
Air Filter- have it cleaned or replaced if needed
Spark Plug- clean it or replace it if it’s cracked
Oil- check to see that it’s filled to the right level. Change the oil as recommended by the manufacturer
Mower Blade- replace if chipped, cracked, or bent. Have sharpened otherwise
Check for loose screws and bolts on the handle controls and the motor
If mowing is necessary, remember to remove no more than one-third of the grass height with a sharp mower blade. A dull mower blade tears the grass, leaving your lawn susceptible to disease, weeds, and insects.
Planting
Sod can be installed whenever the soil is not frozen. Newly sodded areas should be moistened for the sod to “knit” into the soil. Water immediately after sodding to wet the soil to a depth of 3 or 4 inches. Don’t let the soil dry out until the sod has rooted into the soil.
For more tips on maintaining a beautiful and healthy lawn this season and all year long, stop by the garden center and talk to one of our experts. We’re here 7 days a week with answers to all your gardening questions.
Garden Supply Co.- Cary, NC
Now that the season has changed and cooler weather is arriving, it’s time to think about harvesting the last of your summer vegetables, and start work on your fall and winter gardens. Here’s a few of our top tips for getting the most out of your seasonal herb and vegetable gardens this month.
Planting
Extend the gardening season well into the winter by planting fall and winter vegetables now. Good candidates for winter harvest include lettuce, radish, spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, pak choi, swiss chard, collards, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts.
Plant garlic now for harvest in late summer. It likes a sunny, well-drained spot. Set bulb tips 2 inches beneath the soil surface.
For the most successful winter gardening, we suggest using cold frames when planting. Cold frames are simple bottomless boxes with a removable glass or plastic lids that protect plants inside from excessively low temperatures, wind, snow, and rain. In doing so, it creates a micro-climate that is a zone and a half warmer than your garden. The result is a harvest of fresh vegetables all winter long.
Harvesting
Listen for frost warnings and be prepared to cover tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and other tender vegetables. The weather often warms up again after the first frost, so this protection can prolong the harvest for weeks.
When there is a threat of frost, harvest your cucumbers, eggplant, okra, pepper, and summer squash before the vegetables become frost-damaged.
Bring in tomatoes for ripening when the daytime temperatures are consistently below 65 degrees F. Pick only those fruits that have begun to change color.
Harvest sweet potatoes before frost as well as gourds, pumpkins and winter squash. If you’d like to store pumpkins, be sure to pick only solid, mature pumpkins that are deep orange in color. Try not to injure the rind as decay-causing fungi attack through wounds. Dip them in a chlorine solution of 4 teaspoons bleach per gallon of water. Allow to dry, but do not rinse until ready to use. Cure them at room temperature for a week to harden the rind, then store in a cool place. They will keep for about two months.
When you can no longer protect your plants, pull them and add them to the compost heap.
Herbs
By now, most herbs have lost their best flavor. Discontinue drying for winter use at this time. Exceptions, however, are chives and parsley, which thrive now and taste better than ever in cool weather.
Chives, coriander (cilantro), dill, and parsley can be direct-sown in the fall in the milder areas of the Piedmont for harvest in the fall and winter months.
For more gardening tips, stop by the garden center and speak with one of our friendly experts. We’re open 7 days a week to help with all your gardening needs!
Garden Supply Co. – Cary, NC
Seems to happen at my house every year without fail. Just as soon as my garden is at its peak in early summer, the deer find their way into my yard and being nibbling at all those lovely blossoms. Short of building a fence, the next best defense against these pesky creatures is adding deer-resistant varieties of plants to your beds and borders. You can still have beautiful blooms and interest in the garden while keeping pests at bay. Here’s a few of our favorite deer resistant choices.
Gardenias
Best known for their fragrant white flowers, gardenias are heat-loving evergreen shrubs that are happily unattractive to deer. Most gardenias grow into a round shape with dark green, glossy leaves and white, fragrant flowers that bloom from mid-spring into summer. Although once a mostly shade loving plant, there are varieties now that thrive in full sun, making these a wonderful plant option for foundation plantings.
Gaura
A North American wildflower, Gaura is now widely grown across the continent. Plants bloom for many weeks, with loose sprays of small flowers. In the breeze these move constantly, looking like a cloud of small butterflies. Although Gaura may not always winter reliably, plants flower for the entire summer and fall, so consider using it even as an annual in colder winter regions. New plants will often appear from self sown seedlings. Superb in containers, the subtle color blends easily in borders. Drought tolerant once established.
Lantana
Lantana’s aromatic flower clusters are a mix of red and orange florets. Other colors exist as new varieties are being selected. Many cultivars display multiple colors within each two inch wide disc shaped flower head. The flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Use lantana as annuals or perennials in flowerbeds or containers. Spreading cultivars are attractive as groundcovers or trailing over containers and walls.
Sedum
Creeping sedums, also commonly known as stonecrops, are among the most versatile, drought-tolerant, and easy-to-grow perennials. Renowned for their ability to spread quickly, these low growers keep weeds from taking hold and perform well in rock gardens, borders, and containers.
Coleus
Coleus are prized for their colorful foliage which may combine shades of green, yellow, pink, red and maroon. New introductions of this popular annual have been selected for increased sun and heat tolerance. The brilliant and widely varied colors of coleus foliage make it a natural for use in summer bedding and as a color accent. Coleus also grows beautifully in containers, which can be used to highlight patios, porches and garden terraces.
Agastache
Agastache, also known as Hummingbird Mint, are a showy, fragrant group of perennial herbs. The tubular flowers are borne in whorls all summer
long, and are very attractive to many species of insects and hummingbirds. All agastache species and cultivars have strong, square stems that hold up great in harsh weather conditions and laugh at heavy rain and extreme heat.
Salvia
Salvia boasts tall wispy wands of lavender or blue flowers that produce a very showy display. This perennial earns its keep with fast-growing ways, beautiful blooms, and a flavor deer find distasteful. Once established, plants shrug off drought, although it’s wise to keep plants well-hydrated through the hottest parts of summer if you want a steady supply of supple foliage.
Lamb’s Ears
Lamb’s Ears is a low growing spreader with very fuzzy, pale, silvery gray-green foliage. They are grown primarily for the color and texture of their foliage, although the species does have flower spikes early in the season. Lamb’s Ears are often recommended for children’s gardens because of their soft feel.
Lavender
Many people appreciate lavender for its fragrance, used in soaps, shampoos, and sachets for scenting clothes. The blossoms are also useful as a remedy for a range of ailments from insomnia and anxiety to depression and fatigue. Research has confirmed that lavender produces slight calming, soothing, and sedative effects when its scent is inhaled. The lavender plants themselves make a lovely small bushy shrub useful in beds, borders, and container plantings alike. Lavender plants will tolerate many growing conditions, but it thrives in warm, well-drained soil and full sun. Lavender is a tough plant and is extremely drought resistant, once established.
For more tips on growing deer-resistant plants in your area, stop by the garden center and speak with one of our friendly experts. We’re on hand seven days a week with answers for all your gardening questions. Hope to see you soon!
