All posts filed under: garden prep

5 Reasons to Mulch Your Garden This Spring

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5 Reasons to Mulch Your Garden, the Next Step to Protecting Your Investment: After you finish planting this spring, be sure to mulch everything with 3 inches of shredded bark mulch.  So you ask, “Why mulch?”  Here’s why: Mulching reduces erosion. Don’t let the wind or rain blow or wash away all the lovely top soil you just spent your hard earned dollars on to make your garden grow! Mulching reduces plant disease. Mulching reduces the amount of watering you will have to do. Mulching reduces weed populations. Mulch looks a heck of a lot nicer than bare soil, and is much easier to work with if you want to rearrange plants later on. Mulch prevents soil from splattering up on your siding during a hard rain. Find out if your city has a compost facility. You can usually get great deals on mulch and compost. In Davenport, Iowa, we can get a truckload of shredded bark mulch for $30! Lots cheaper than spending $3 to $4 per bag, eh? Compost only costs us about …

Zone 4 Annuals and Perennials in a Boarder Garden

How to Design and Prepare Your Own Garden For Planting

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Creating a Garden Border: When should I start in the spring? You can start planning indoors on paper in January Outdoor work can begin as early as March in the Midwest, or as soon as the ground is thawed.  The layout work can be done as long as there’s no snow on the ground so you can see what you are doing. Planting is best to be done in the spring for Herbaceous Perennials.  Trees and shrubs can be planted in the spring, or fall for the best success rate.  You can still plant in the summer, but you have to be religious about remembering to water to protect your green investments! 10 Steps to Getting That Garden Started: Be sure to have all your utility lines flagged before you start! Lay out the flower bed with a garden hose to achieve the shape. Then spray Roundup on the grass now to kill it off. Or, if you don’t want to mess w/Roundup, lay out the bed w/garden hose…spraypaint the border, Rent a sod cutter …

How to Prepare Soil For Your Garden and Why You Should Do It

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Why Good Soil is Key in Protecting Your Investment: If you don’t have good soil, you might as well just throw your money out the window and watch it blow away. Plants living in good soil with lots of organic matter and good drainage will grow twice as big as plants planted in clay, or backfill from when the builders built your home.   3 Ways to Make Healthy Garden Soil for Healthy Plants                                                              Add Compost:  If you have poor soil that is hard, or sandy,  or clay like, and poorly drained amend the soil with about 4 inches or more of composted compost (the black compost) or topsoil, and then till it in down to 6 or 8 inches deep. Why? Compost is filled with nutrients your plants need to grow big and strong and to have lots of blooms.  Not only is it nutrient rich, …

Landscape Plant Recommendations, North Side of a House, Midwest, Zone 4

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Recently, my family and I visited some old college friends back at Iowa State University, and one of them asked for recommendations for perennials that would do well in Ames, Iowa on the north side of her home. Here’s what I came up with. I could provide a much longer list, but these were the plants at the top. I tried to provide her with some structural specimens to provide year round interest, followed by some foliage perennials which would provide interesting leaf color and texture throughout the entire growing season. The Right Plant for the Right Place: It is important to have the right plant for the right place, not only for asthetics, but to protect your investment. After all, you work hard for your money, right? Perennials and shrubs don’t come cheap, unless you have a great friend like myself who knows how to propagate them and is willing to share.   10 Perennial Plants for North Side of House, Zone 4 Climate: Hydrangea lime light and Hydrangea Annabelle are larger shrubby plants …