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These Composting Tips will take the mystery out of making compost for you. If you enjoy vegetable gardening or growing flowers, adding organic matter formed by composting will give you great results.  Did you know that forgetting to compost is a common vegetable garden mistake? Have you always thought that making compost is difficult? The …

Read More about Composting Tips – Tricks for Creating Nature’s Black Gold

There is something so romantic about the look of a bleeding heart plant. After all, what is more romantic that the heart shaped flowers of this amazing plant? If you love growing perennials, this plant is a must have for your shady garden spot. Lamprocapnos spectabilis (formerly known as Dicentra spectabilis)  is a clear favorite among …

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Mother Nature has the perfect answer for summer bugs- mosquito repelling plants! We can grow annuals, perennials, and herbs that will keep the bugs away naturally. With summer comes lots of outdoor living.  Sadly, that can mean lots of mosquitoes. I don’t like to use chemical products so this natural solution is great for keeping …

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Remember going to the petting zoo with your kids and touching baby lambs? This the feeling of the leaves of Stachys byzantina, also known as Lamb’s Ear. If you love growing perennials, you need to give this hardy plant a try. It is easy to grow, has a lovely texture and the prettiest flowers on …

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Transplanting monkey grass is a simple process if you keep just a few things in mind. As far as growing perennials is concerned, it is one of my favorite easy care plants. Liriope is commonly known as monkey grass or spider grass. It is a versatile and easy to grow ground cover that tolerates heat well …

Read More about Transplanting Monkey Grass – Division is Simple and Easy to Do

One of the joys of summertime is the flavor of homegrown strawberries.  Growing strawberries is very easy as long as you understand the type of plant that you are trying to grow. Of all the fruit plants, strawberries are one of the easiest to grow and so rewarding.  The taste of the berries makes for great …

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The red hot poker is a showy and dramatic plant.  If you love growing perennials that give color all summer long, this is the plant for you.  Other names for this showy plant are torch lily and poker plant. The botanical name for this plant is kniphofia uvaria and there are more than 70 known …

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These astilbe companion plants like the same moisture and light conditions and will make a beautifully coordinated garden bed. Astilbe is a gorgeous perennial that is right at home in a shady moist garden.   You can grow it alone, but a well designed garden looks better with more than just one type of plant. Keep …

Read More about Astilbe Companion Plants – What to Grow with Astilbe

Astilbe is one of my favorite perennials for a shade garden.  There are not many plants that really like the shade that also flower beautifully, but Astilbe is one of them. Astilbe colors could even be called the stars of a shady garden. Astilbe makes a wonderful border edging plant for a large garden bed. …

Read More about Astilbe Colors – The Stars of a Shade Garden

This year, we spent the summer on a garden make over. I thought it would be fun to share the tips that I learned during the process. It’s that time again. Time to transform one of my garden beds that just won’t seem to keep to a single design. I call it my “what will …

Read More about Garden Make Over – 14 Tips for a Success – Before & After

I’ve always considered strawberry begonia plants as an indoor plant, since that is the way that I have generally grown them.  But I had a surprise this year when I discovered that the plant is a hardy perennial for me here in North Carolina. Growing Requirements for Strawberry Begonia Plants I purchased several small strawberry …

Read More about Strawberry Begonia – Great as a house plant or a ground cover

My local garden center does not often have plants that are too much out of the ordinary, so I was delighted to find this Mexican Hat coneflower right here for sale in Raleigh.  This interesting variety of coneflower is also called the “Red Prairie Coneflower.” The perennial served as a dye source for Native Americans …

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My family has long loved gardening.  It all started with my great-grandmother (and I am sure her mother before this but I never knew her).   She loved vegetable gardening, particularly yellow pole beans.  The seeds from her pole beans have been passed down from generation to generation and are now growing in my garden.  Since …

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Growing herbs adds a ton of flavor to all your recipes, but keeping track of what is growing can be challenging. These wooden spoon herb plant markers are both functional and decorative. Herb Identification might seem easy but those tiny seedlings have a frustrating way of looking the same! I have a large group of herbs …

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My husband used to buy me lilies all the time because he loved the look of them so much.  I love them too, but not as cut flowers indoors (they have a stinky smell inside that I don’t like.)  I never had the inclination to tell him that they were not my favorite cut flower …

Read More about It’s Lily Time – Varieties of Lilies in my Garden