Starting a fun new succulent project? Take a tip from Garden Answer and kick things off with Espoma Organic Cactus Mix, which is made specifically for cactuses and succulents.
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A rainy week calls for an awesome indoor activity like this one! Remember: Anything that contains something is a potential planter. Watch as Laura from Garden Answer makes the most of her old tea tins using Espoma Organic Cactus Mix!
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Fall crops already? That’s right! Join Garden Answer and get some great ideas for food crops in the upcoming season.
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When planting new trees, don’t forget to add a healthy combination of Espoma Organic Bio-tone and Iron-tone to help them establish fast. Watch the full video with Garden Answer!
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Are your tomato plants growing out of control? Time to tie them up with Bloom and Grow Radio‘s Tying and Fertilizing Tomatoes video featuring Tomato-tone!
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A little vitamin boost from Bio-tone Plus before amending your soil is key when planting up a fresh tomato path. More great tips from Bloom and Grow Radio in the full video!
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In this fall episode of Garden Answer, Laura is making leaf mulch from her fallen leaves. It’s a free resource that will help build healthy soil. Instead of going to all the trouble of bagging leaves, recycle them.
She begins by blowing all of her leaves onto an open grassy area and mulch mowing them. Laura has a large riding lawn mower but you can get the same results with a regular walk-behind model. Just go back and forth until the foliage is fairly small and then attach the bag to suck them up.
Laura wants to enrich the empty raised beds in her vegetable garden. She pours about two inches of shredded leaves on the top of each one. Followed by a sprinkling of Espoma’s organic Blood Meal. She’s creating a mini compost pile. In summer, grass clippings would provide the nitrogen to help break down the leaves. Since she isn’t cutting grass anymore, she uses the blood meal as an organic nitrogen supplement.
Blood meal may keep plant-eating pests away but it can attract meat-eaters like dogs, raccoons, and possums. If that would be a potential problem, put the two inches of shredded leaves down and wait until spring to add Espoma’s organic Garden-tone.
More leaves? Try making leaf mold. It might sound terrible but it’s a fantastic soil conditioner. It improves soil structure, helps the soil retain moisture and creates the perfect habitat for beneficial microbes. Simply take shredded leaves and pile them up in a wire bin or a quiet corner of the yard. The following spring you will have the most beautiful, natural-looking mulch for garden beds. It’s gardeners’ gold.
Here are a few more videos from Garden Answer we hope you will enjoy:
Best Plants to Produce Fall Fruits
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Bone Meal
Garden-tone
In this video from Garden Answer, Laura plants a new garden for her sister–in-law. She has already outlined the new beds and removed the sod. The next steps are installing a drip irrigation system by tapping into an old one and marking the spots for the trees she will be planting.
Drip irrigation emits water at the base of the plants, which is better for plants than overhead watering. Hard water can leave damaging build up on foliage and wet leaves can invite diseases. With drip irrigation, all of the water soaks into the ground and doesn’t evaporate. It’s the most efficient method of watering.
Irrigation systems take the work out of watering, but it’s not – set it and forget it. Water needs vary at different times of the year. Laura is using emitters that deliver one gallon of water per hour, a standard-setting. She still waters each newly planted tree with the garden hose to make sure the soil has settled and that there are no air pockets.
Planting in mid-summer isn’t ideal because of the heat, but it can be done with a tiny bit of extra care and water. Laura always recommends using Espoma’s Bio-tone Starter Plus whenever she plants. And, as she points out, it’s even more important when the plants are stressed, in this case by heat. The mycorrhizae in Bio-tone helps stimulate root growth to ensure new plants get maximum water and nutrients from the soil to minimize transplant shock and loss.
These trees will become the “bones” of her design. She has taken into account the mature height of the trees so they do not interfere with the power lines above them or the fire hydrant between them. She has also chosen narrow varieties of evergreens that will not outgrow their allotted space in the garden.
Slim Trees for Small Spaces
Weeping White Spruce
An elegant, straight trunked tree with weeping branches. The needles are green with a bluish tint. A perfect choice for narrow spaces. Hardy in zones 2-7.
Merlot Redbud
Bright lavender-pink flowers bloom in spring before the leaves unfurl. Dark purple, glossy foliage stands up to summer heat. Perfect for smaller landscapes. Hardy in zones 6-9.
‘Baby Blue’ Blue Spruce
Attractive silvery-blue needles make this spruce standout, plus it maintains its color throughout the year. The habit is smaller and narrower than other blue spruce. Hardy in zones 2-8.
‘Hillside’ Upright Norway Spruce
A narrow, upright form growing to just 10 feet tall in the first 10 years. Perfect for smaller urban gardens. Dark green needles are backed by attractive, burnt orange stems. Hardy in zones 3-7.
Columnar Dwarf Mugo Pine
A narrow, upright form of mugo pine, makes a strong architectural statement. Will grow to just 8 feet tall. Produces small, yet ornamental cones. Hardy to zones 2-8.
Here are a few of our other blogs and videos that we think you’ll enjoy:
Top Trees for Fantastic Fall Color
Top Five Trees to Plant for Bees
Terrariums are beautiful, fun to make and easy to care for. Our favorite Brooklyn plant expert, Summer Rayne Oakes, guides us through the process step-by-step in this episode of Plant One on Me.
Summer covers which plants, tools, containers and soil mix you’ll need. Plus, how to water, the number one reason people kill plants.
If this terrarium seems too large to start with, go with a smaller version.
You don’t need a green thumb for this DIY project, promise.
Getting Started
First of all, choose a glass container. It’s easiest if the container is big enough to fit your hand inside. Next, choose plants that have the same kinds of light and water requirements. Check the plant tags to make sure they’ll be compatible. Generally speaking, terrariums are best in bright, indirect light. Full sun can be magnified by the glass and burn foliage. Base the container size on the number of plants you’d like to include.
Tools
Summer uses a set of aquarium tools for her terrariums. It’s a clever idea because they are extra-long. Having said that, it isn’t really necessary to buy this type of set when starting out. A long pair of chopsticks does a great job. She also uses a spoon and a narrow garden trowel. A watering can with a thin spout is handy to direct the water.
Soil Mix
The soil for terrariums needs to be a light, free draining mixture. Espoma’s organic Cactus Mix combined with perlite makes the perfect blend. If plants are small you can start with a drainage layer of an inch or so consisting of small rock and or charcoal. In this case, she didn’t use a drainage layer because the plants were relatively large and would have rooted into the drainage layer too quickly.
Planting
Add an inch or two of the soil mixture to your glass container. Play around with the plants until you have an idea of how you’d like them to look. Every plant won’t be blooming all of the time so choose ones with different textures and foliage to create the terrariums subtle beauty. Plant around the edge first, adding soil around the plants as you go. Plant the centerpiece last.
Watering
Terrariums create their own humidity which means they’ll need to be watered less frequently than houseplants in pots. Water sparingly and keep an eye on them. If plants seem to be wilting, water them. As time goes by, you’ll find the right watering schedule for your terrarium. Once every two weeks is about average.
Plant List
Here is a list of the plants Summer used in this video:
More Information
Here are links to other videos and blog posts we think you may find interesting: