by Gloria Ballard | May 18, 2023
Plant a garden that attracts pollinators
If not for butterflies, wasps, all types of bees and other nectar-sipping, pollen-spreading creatures, we would not have the good food and beautiful flowers we reap from our gardens. Their role is to move grains of pollen from the male part of a flower to the female part, thereby kicking off the next generation of fruits, seeds and young plants. So bring on the pollinators!
Plants that attract pollinators
To set your garden in motion with flying, fluttering and crawling pollinators, plant what they need to live. Flowers provide food in the form of nectar for the insects and hummingbirds. Other plants act as host plants for the larvae of butterflies and other pollinators. Here are a few garden favorites that will bring pollinators to your garden.
* Butterfly weed: Its bright flowers attract hummingbirds, bees, and – of course — butterflies. Grows in full sun and blooms in summer.
* Sunflowers, zinnias: Bees, wasps and butterflies are all drawn to these summer favorite annuals. They grow best in full sun but can tolerate partial sun.
* Bee balm: It’s called this because it attracts bees, of course, but butterflies also sip its sweet nectar. Bee balm grows in sun to partial shade and blooms in summer.
* Trumpet honeysuckle: This vine is favored by hummingbirds, who dip their long beaks in the red-orange, trumpet-shaped flowers in spring and summer. They grow and bloom in sunny and partially shady gardens.
* Columbine: These spring blooming perennials in a variety of shades attract bees and hummingbirds to the garden. They grow in partial shade to sun, and bloom in spring.
* Service berry: This large shrub or small tree blooms with white flowers that attract bees, flies and other pollinators early in the spring. Plant it in sun to partial shade.
* Parsley, dill, fennel: These herbs are all host plants for butterfly larvae – caterpillars – that feed on the foliage. Plant enough to use and to share with the future pollinators.
What else do pollinators need?
Aside from sources of nectar and foliage, you can invite pollinators to the garden by providing other habitat “amenities.”
* Water is essential to pollinators. Include fountains, birdbaths, sprinklers or other water features in your garden plans.
* Places to nest and to roost help pollinators feel at home. A variety of trees and understory plants provides plenty of choices for a variety of creatures. Bees and insects also nest in leaf litter and dead wood.
*A variety of plants attracts a variety of pollinating insects. Plant flowers of different colors, fragrances and blooming times to attract different species throughout the season.
* Avoid pesticides, which can be deadly and will undo efforts to attract the beneficial pollinators to the garden.
https://www.pollinator.org/
by Dan Hoy | Aug 4, 2022
Hey, my name is Dana with Gardens of Babylon and today we’re going to talk about August container planting and I’m going to give you some tips and tricks.
All right so for August containers this is a transition month, we’re moving out of summer into fall and so our containers have been really going strong all season long and this is the time to just sort of look and see what’s going on, like can we salvage anything do we need to get our pruners out and maybe tidy up a little bit and deadhead.
Tidying up and deadheading the containers
This container actually looks amazing you can see the lavender is just really flush and the Lantana. I do see this is very common so this cute these coral bells we’re just gonna do a little bit of deadheading. You don’t have to go all the way down to the base, I just want to sort of tidy up a little bit and get anything that’s kind of got its thing out. So that’s the first step for your containers.
So now that we’ve sort of tidied up a little bit we’re going to look and see if there’s any dead spots is there anything that we could sort of liven up a little bit. Some containers you will have to pull some things out because they’ve just sort of done their thing for the season.
Transition Plants: Summer to Fall
But these are some great transition pieces. This is a Snapdragon it’s a great transitional piece because it takes still our hot summer heat and it will actually transition into fall and take some frost so this is perfect. I feel like we’ve got a little bit of a bare spot so i will come in and just tuck in this color right here it’s going to be perfect.
Most people don’t realize that Lantana does take a little bit of cold as well. So another fun idea other than Snapdragons is we, I love to use vegetables in my fall containers. This is a Chard it’s a bright lights chard and you can see it’s multi the different plants they’re going to be like yellows and bright reds. So this would be another thing to pop in and this is going to grow up and give you some color as it starts to turn cold and you can eat it which is amazing.
Succulents are also a an idea to add because this is still drought hot and you want to have things that are going to take that drought in that heat that’s not going to require so much watering.
August is a fertilizing month
August is a time to fertilize, fertilize and fertilize because your pods have been going strong all season long and so it’s time to sort of give them a little bit of a rejuvenation. I either love to use like a good organic fertilizer liquid organic fertilizers are amazing and actually just spill it onto the foliage because right away that fertilizer if it’s liquid will go straight into the plant and work straight away.
Another thing we’re going to talk about is how to sort of amend the soil on top let’s talk about that next. All right so in August we don’t necessarily have to go in and take out soil and add new soil what i like to do is called top dressing.
So i just love to use a natural soil conditioner it’s a cross between a really fine mulch and almost could be soil and it decomposes very very quickly because it’s very fine. I love to use soil conditioner and i like to just put it on the top of the soil in and around all of my containers this time of year.
All right so this is it for august container planting tips the main thing is just have fun if you need to add some new things find things that spark joy for you it’s the little things in life.
by Matt Kerske | Aug 5, 2020
How to Grow Blueberries Successfully
Be sure to grow the right type of variety! Rabbiteye blueberries are native to the southeast United State! So they do well with the heat and humidity. They tend to grow a little bit larger as well! Most varieties grow to be four to ten-feet tall. Make sure that you have enough space for these guys to grow nice and large.
Blueberries Come in Different Sizes and Varieties
There are some smaller varieties of blueberries. One of them that we love is called Sunshine blue. Sunshine blue maxes out around three feet tall by three feet wide – great for a large container! Or they can be used as foundation shrubs around the landscape. They are great in place of things like hydrangeas. They can even be used in the landscape as a plant if you don’t want to grow them off to the side or in a garden! Blueberries love full sun. They do not like the shade, so make sure that you have them in a really nice full sunny area and you’ll be just fine.
You also want to consider growing at least two varieties next to each other for cross pollination. This is how you get maximum berry yield. You’ll get a decent crop if you just have one but you’re really going to want to at least plant two varieties. Two different types growing near each other will help to make sure that you really get a maximum yield of blueberries.
Best Soil for Blueberries
Blueberries love acidic soil somewhere in the 4.5 to 6 range. Most of our natural soils are around the 7 range so you need to add soil-acidifying amendments to the soil. Organic elemental sulfur or cottonseed meal are both amendments that you use to lower the ph of your soil. They take one to two years to really take full effect so get started early. But you can also just plant them in the areas around the blueberry when you plant your shrub. They’ll take about one to two years to really lower the soil ph. Getting your soil very acidic is a key ingredient to being successful at growing blueberries.
You want to make sure that you are growing in a well-drained, evenly mixed composted soil. Like a lot of plants around here, they do really well if they’re not waterlogged and growing in heavy clay. Backfilling with some really great compost and maybe a little bit of sand for drainage mixed in will help to get them off to a really great start. Maybe even consider topping them off with a little pine straw or pine mulch around the base and then you’re going to be really successful.
Don’t Lose Your Blueberries to the Birds
Birds are attracted to blueberries. Here are some ideas to keep the birds mostly off of your blueberries:
- Bird netting is really the kind of the go-to for a lot of gardeners. It’s a fine filament type netting that you can just kind of lay over your blueberry. You can get a little bit more elaborate with it and build frames around your blueberries in larger cages that kind of thing. But if you’re a little bit lazier you can just drape it over the blueberry bush. The birds might get the top blueberries but they’ll really miss a lot of the stuff that’s on the inside.
- Hanging strips of what’s called flash tape or pie pans or CDs on string can keep birds at bay. This type of movement and shiny effect from the sun can kind of deter them away from getting onto your blueberry bushes!
- Some people even put up bird feeding stations and feed them to avoid having them eating the crop. But, just make sure that you keep your bird feed well stocked because when that runs out they might be looking for other food sources.
We hope this video will help you learn how to grow blueberries in your own yard. For other great tips and DIY tutorials, subscribe to our Garden and Landscape Blog.