Robb Rosser
Gardening columnist
Recent Stories
Garden Life: Trimming can revitalize rhododendrons
Instead of tearing out that overgrown rhododendron, this may be the year to practice your pruning techniques. Established rhododendrons can be quite lovely plants, especially when trained as a small tree. Take the time to limb branches from the bottom up. Limbing simply refers to cutting the branches off with a pruning saw where they connect to the trunk or another main branch. Thin out higher branches for an open, airy look.
Garden Life: Garden benefits from regular maintenance
Every year there comes a point in time when we find ourselves juggling an endless list of garden chores. Mine seems to have come early this year. As the growing season kicks in, there's always the need to deadhead spent flowers, fertilize perennials and roses and fill gaps in planting borders with annual bedding plants.
Garden Life: Perennials make welcome springtime return
I woke up to sunlight this morning. What a joy it is to feel the sun on your face as you step out into the garden. It's May and it's springtime and my garden is alive with activity. I could hear the bees humming as I began my garden walk this morning. They swarm the shrubby, floriferous Mediterranean heathers. They hang onto azalea blossoms and make the twiggy branches arch and sway under their weight. They rise up slowly and then buzz off to search for more May flowers.
Garden Life: Plant sales in full bloom locally in spring
May certainly seems like the busiest time of year in the garden. All of a sudden, the once-dormant lawn needs regular mowing. Letting it go another week is no longer an option. Weeds that were nonexistent two weeks ago are now ready to set seed. The rhododendron began to bloom a couple of weeks ago. Within the next couple of weeks, we need to remove its sticky, spent flower heads. At this time of year, one garden chore leads to another.
Garden Life: Prune your plants with purpose
The key to understanding how to prune is to answer the question, "What is the purpose for pruning this particular plant?" The most effective reasons for pruning are to help establish the shape of a plant along its natural lines; to improve flower or fruit production; to control the time of bloom, as in pinching back chrysanthemums, and for espalier and hedge shaping. These are all methods of seasonal pruning that enhance a plant's best qualities.
Garden Life: Study garden before spring has sprung
Everywhere I go, there is talk of spring, yet I find myself inside looking out more than outside working in the garden. If I remember correctly, I've employed this approach to the season before, reveling in the rites of spring while putting off the task of daily garden maintenance. I know what I have to do and I will ultimately do the work that needs to be done. Just give me a few more days to get started.
The Garden Life: Signs of spring's emergence begin to blossom
I can never say exactly what stirs my emotional awakening to spring each year. It seems to be something different from year to year. I do know that it's more than just a date on the calendar. It's a feeling I cannot shake, a sense that something I've been hoping for is within my grasp. I'm not the only one who feels this way. All of my gardening friends have a certain glow about them, as if they have come upon a secret windfall.
Garden Life: Planting too early can lead to disappointment
If your intention is to plant annuals or annual seeds directly in the garden, remember that those put out a few weeks later in the season often overtake the ones planted earlier. This is simply because they are less likely to receive a weather check to their growth. One of the most common causes of disappointment for novice gardeners is sowing or planting too early in spring. I know many gardeners who lost their first planting to a late frost and had to replant once temperatures warmed for the season.
Garden Life: Let the editing of your garden begin
Sometimes I look at garden chores as if I'm editing a story. My garden is a visual rendering of an idea I would like to share. If I want to hold on to a certain image or style of garden, I need to do a set of chores to keep that image intact. So I edit the garden by tweaking it back into shape. Mowing a lawn is one simple example. Pruning roses is another. Removing the earliest weeds is also a first step in preparing the garden for spring.
Garden Life: For hardy specimens, planting season has arrived
By mid-March my fingers are itching to get in the soil and so are the plants I've collected over the last month or two in preparation for spring planting. Unless your garden soil is cold, wet and muddy, this can be the perfect time to begin planting. Nurseries, home improvement centers and even the local markets are bringing in new plants every day for us to add to our early spring beds and borders. On a day when the air temperature is above freezing and the soil is workable, we can begin to plant hardy ornamentals, potted roses, vines, trees and shrubs.
