Tips

*** Gardening Tips From Eddie ***

Read Eddie’s latest article about garden tools at “Garden Widgets – Just Tooling Around” in the Writings section!

Learn the Following:

• Your climate zone __________________
• Annual rainfall ____________________
• Your altitude ______________________
• Which way is East and West in your garden
• Average last and first frost dates ________________ ________________

Tips and Suggestions

• Neatness counts – At the end of the day or whenever you finish a project clean up the mess.
• Put everything back where it goes and it will look so much better.
• Define gardening – what does it mean to you? This will help solidify a vision of your garden.
• Narrow your focus – Don’t try to have one of everything or your garden will soon be a botanical nightmare.
• Learn what you like and specialize.
• Beware of invasive plants – Be advised that good Nurseries sometimes sell bad plants. Get a list of the plants to avoid from the GA Native Plant Society: http://www.gnps.org.
• Learn the difference between pruning and shearing. Do large cuts first, detail work last.
• Visit public gardens – And better neighborhoods. Take notes, pictures, and borrow ideas that you see.
• Don’t skimp – Buy nice plants and accessories for your garden.
• Name your garden – Put up a sign that says ‘Bigger Chigger Ranch’ or ‘Rainbow Glen’ anything.
• Have at least one unusual specimen plant.
• Mix vegetables with your flowers, they will look great and be practical.
• Plant Edibles that don’t have to be sprayed – Seedless American persimmons, pawpaw, pineapple guava, kiwi, fig, blueberries and English walnuts.
• Prepare individual bags of soil amendments in advance and stockpile for use on single plantings.
• Place your buglight over the goldfish pond.
• Source For Water Polymers: www.watersorb.com

Pete Moss says:

“Hello, fellow gardeners! The secret to a successful garden lies in amending the soil and Sphagnum Peat is a top rated product for lightening clay soil and adding organic matter to sandy soil. It is a replenishable product much the same as pine trees grown for paper. Go to http://www.peatmoss.com for more information on Peat Moss.