About Lawns

It's about finding great information on lawns all in one space from somebody you can trust.  Get basic information and your questions answered and you've come to the right web page.  Without further ado - let's start.

Weeds

Dandelions are bothering you. Well, here's how to get rid of them. 

Crab grass is an annual weed, germinating a new crop each year to infest our grass. If the desirable grass plants are numerous, the crab grass is less of a problem because sunlight can not reach the soil to germinate the crab grass seed.  

Creeping Charlie is another scourge.  (Would you believe they sell the variegated form of this for rock gardens?)but it tends to disappear under organic systems. Here's how to get rid of this pest. 

Will Creeping Charlie spread by mowing?

Will boron stop grass seeding and how much water to use when mixing borax?

Sumac and Trumpet Vine have invaded - what to do?

Pests

June Beetles.

Japanese Beetles.

White grubs

Chinch bugs

Voles are vegetable eaters

Moles are meat eaters.

Care Tips

Dog damage is a  curse.

I may have been reading too many old gardening books but here are a few spring care tips. 

Here are a few tips on fall lawn care

Never roll your lawn.  Here's why. 

What to do with grass clippings

Moss on your turfgrass and what to do.


Play a grass whistle.I learned how to do this as a kid (didn't every kid?) and here's the tricks of the grass whistle blowing trade.

My lawn has no top soil and is a poor.  What do I d

Read more: http://www.beginner-gardening.com/lawns.html#ixzz1JDbz3thr

Bulb Problems

To make it easy to find and deal with the pests that usually a a problem for flower bulbs, I've listed them each pest with its own control page right here.

Pests that bother our bulbs in the ground

Squirrels are a major predator of both bulbs and flower buds. Here's how to control them for both problems. I note you may not like one of the solutions.

Pests that bother flowers

Red lily beetle is a pest of lily flowers as it will eat an entire plant to the ground if left uncontrolled. Control methods that work are described in this article.

Earwigs are one of the creepy-crawly pests that thrive on decaying organic matter.

Thrips are tiny flies, hard to see but they leave leaf streaks and unopened flowers behind. Here's the control.

Rabbits are eating my crocus! A Question answered in the newsletter.

General Problems Growing Bulbs

Why aren't my bulbs blooming? is the number one problem in the spring.

Summer Bulbs

exclamation points in any garden. Who can be ignore clumps of gladiola with their rainbow colours or lilies with their amazing fragrance and garden presence? Who would want to? The summer flower bulbs listed below all bloom during the summer and you can access further information by clicking on the specific name 

General Care Tips

In general though, summer bulbs want full sunshine. The odd exception is noted. 

Summer flower bulbs also want decent soil for the most part. 

While spring flowering bulbs will thrive in poor soil, no fertility to speak of and terrible conditions of heat and cold, summer bulbs are a little more precise in their requirements. 

Good soil with compost added every spring is an excellent starting point for good summer bulbs. 

And do remember that many of these bulbs have to be dug up and stored for the winter in cold climates. 

These bulbs almost uniformly want excellent drainage. No bulb does really well in heavy clay soils or soils that hold moisture. The bulb rots. (I note that when a bulb rots, the gnashing and wailing from the gardener increases proportionally to the level of bulb death.) 

Summer Flower Bulb List

Achimenes is one of the small bulbs with lots of flowers. Not used nearly enough in container gardens or in shadier situations. 

Acidenthera 

Agapanthus 


My agapanthus won't bloom. Why?

Amaryllis belladonna is the real amaryllis, the winter flower is a Hippeastrum. Go figure. 

Anemone coronaria or windflower is a tender summer flowering bulb in reds, blues, pinks and whites. 

Babiana or Baboon Flower is a tender South African native. Here's the answer to whether you can grow it. 

Begonia are gorgeous but love the warmth (not sun) 

Bletilla striata is a member of the orchid family and a real beauty in the part shade. 

Calla lilies (Calla palustris) are superb and hardy flowering plants that will delight the bog garden grower for many years. 

Camassia are one of the most underused perennial bulbs in the garden. 

Cannas Flower Bulbs are showy tropicals you definitely want in containers or in your big beds. 

Colocasia or Elephant Ear Bulbs are spectacular tropical tubers that put on a massive foliage display and are well worth growing. Here's how to grow and overwinter them. 

Crinum or Swamp lily is a fun little bulb that is excellent for balcony gardening or bulb container gardening. 

Crocosmia are wonderful bulbs with flaming flowers. Put a few of these together in a garden bed and watch the visitors flock there in late summer. 

Dahlia are one of the four top summer blooming bulbs by the number of bulbs sold. 

Planting dahlia information here or 

Storing dahlia bulbs information here Even though they're actually a tuber and not a bulb.:-) 

Eremurus is a tuberous rooted member of the lily family that blooms in early summer but is one of the most stunning plants for the early summer garden. 

Eucomis or Pineapple Lily is a bulb that more folks should consider growing. Looks like a pineapple. Fun. 

Freesia are a gardener's dream and here's the tricks to growing them. 

Galtonia candicans has nodding, white, fragrant flowers in mid-summer. What else do you need to know? (click the link to find out) 

Gladiolus are wonderfully huge flowering and easy to grow 

Gloriosa or Flame Lily is a tender vine with a glorious flower. 
Hemerocallis or Daylilies aren't really lilies but they are easy to grow and bloom for a very long time if you follow the suggestions in this article. 

Hymenocallis or Summer Daffodil is a tender Peruvian bulb that makes an excellent mid-summer show in the garden or containers. 

Liatris or Gayfeather is a plant that should be grown much more often. There's one for every full, hot sunny garden with decent soils. 

Lilium or lilies are delightful bulbs and so easy to grow it is sinful. One of the most historic of flower bulbs. 

Ornithogalum or Chincherinchees are white summer bloomers with a funny name. Grow in shade and damp soils. 

Oxalis is one of those wonderful small bulbs for containers or the front of the perennial border. Here are the details of growing the tender species. 

Ranunculus make excellent cut flowers for summer bouquets. 
Q&A - when can I transplant my ranuncuuls

Sparaxis corms are great for containers. 

Tigridia or Mexican Tiger Flower demands specific care and attention if you want to succeed. 

Zantedeschia is also called Calla Lily and you'll want to grow this plant for sure. 
You definitely want to get some tips on calla lily garden design 

Zephyranthes are a small flowering bulb but one you can easily start and increase from seed. 

Caring For Flower Bulbs

THEN YOU HAVE TO GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT

Bulbs want full sunshine.

While there are a few that will tolerate shade for the most part, you’re going to find that a minimum of six full hot sun hours a day is the minimum to grow a great bulb. That’s always assuming you want them to live for years; if you only want a single season’s show, you can plant them anywhere.
 

Bulbs demand superb drainage.

The fastest way to kill most bulbs is to overwater them. Many bulbs are native to areas where summer rains are almost non-existent (tulips for example) and when we keep them well-watered in our summer gardens, they tend to rot away. 

Bulbs require a period of growing their leaves after blooming.

So cutting off leaves before they go brown naturally is a surefire way to stop your bulbs from thriving. Similarly, tying up the leaves to get them out of the way is only marginally better. I’ll repeat this advice throughout the articles. You have to let those leaves produce enough energy so the bulb can develop a flower bud for the following season. Without that sunshine being stored up, there will be no flowers the next year. 


Alliums for cut flowers being harvested

Feeding Bulbs

Most bulbs do quite well with a yearly feeding of compost. They are not overly greedy feeders. 

COMMON BULB PROBLEMS AND QUESTIONS

Sometimes your bulbs just don't bloom. 

Growing organic flower bulbs here and this will expand as questions come in on this topic. For now, it has two basic tips. (that's all you really need I suspect) :-) 

Storing Flower Bulbs

Storing flower bulbs always gets questions and here's the basic guidelines. While the easiest way is to store them in the ground, sometimes winter gets in the way.

Growing Daffoldils

information about daffodils  - the planting, growing, collecting, propagation and just about anything else you can think of.  

 
To begin with their scientific name is Narcissus. And yes, they were named after Narcissus, that poor, long-suffering lover of his own image. 

Along with tulips, hyacinths and crocus, these bulbs are the mainstays of the spring-bulb color explosion. 

It is pretty easy to understand why they are so popular: they are hardy, pest free, disease free, naturalize well, live for years with no work, multiply if left alone, and come in a wide variety of flower colors, heights, sizes and flower shapes. 

You can grow them in the garden, in containers or force them indoors. 

Daffodil Pictures

This is a video of the different classes of daffodils you can grow in your garden.  

Starting, Planting and Transplanting

You can even start them yourself from seed. 

You can transplant daffodils if they get "in the wrong place". 


Planting Daffodils - the two main rules to remember about planting these bulbs are described right here. 

Doug's garden and what I'm doing with these bulbs. I'll continue to update this page as the adventure continues. 

Poisonous Bulbs

Squirrels and deer rarely, if ever, bother them and while pests will chew tulips to the ground, this bulb keeps blooming away. (they taste vile which is a good thing because they are poisonous.)

Recommended Varieties

If you're counting, you'll find the experts think there is somewhere around 26 species of wild narcissus. Now that depends of course on which expert you'ree talking to because they don't all agree on the divisions between plants. What we do know is that our garden narcissus have been hybridized for so long their specific parentage is almost impossible to determine. The divisions right now are: 

* Trumpet narcissi  including the old fashioned ‘King Alfred’ 

* Narcissus large-cupped 
* Small cupped narcissi 
* Split-corona narcissi 
* Triandrus narcissi 
* Cyclamineus narcissi 
* Narcissus jonquilla 
* Tazetta narcissi 
* Poeticus narcissi 
* Narcissus bulbocodium 
* Narcissus canaliculatus 
* Narcissus lobularis 
* Narcissus nanus 
* Narcissus odorus 
* Double narcissi 


Daffodil 'Dutch Master'

Growing Tips

And no matter what kind you want to force into early bloom, I'll assume you know how to put it into the pot (pointy end up) cover it with dirt (leave the neck uncovered) but you don't know about pre-chilling requirements. 

Here's the scoop on forcing daffodil bulbs and their requirements. 


Here's two tips on moving bulbs and reblooming care. 

This bulb comes in a wide variety of colors, ranging from the traditional yellow through white, orange-reds, oranges and salmon-pinks. You’ll also see different colors between the corona (the trumpet or cup shape) and the perianth (the petals) 

All are quite hardy, to at least minus 10C, with the exception of the Tazetta species. 


Daffodil 'Bridal Crown' 

Plant according to the size of the bulb and full instructions for planting are here 

This bulb improves every spring in the garden landscape but sometimes you do have to do some maintenance to keep them happy. 

You can plant them in containers, in natural settings, in formal settings, in rock gardens, you can use them as cut flowers if you can stand to take them out of your garden and you can easily force them for really early spring color. 

This is the easiest bulb to grow and succeed with. If you can't grow this bulb, I'd recommend you try silk. (Well, clay soils will kill them because they do need good drainage.) 

Questions and Answers