Gardening | 08/12/2009 11:00 pm
Gardening Bloggers on wOw!
Renowned gardening bloggers answer wowOwow’s most digging questions.
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wowOwow asked the most respected gardening bloggers on the Internet seven questions that are on the minds of all green thumbs. From their No. 1 gardening tip to organic growing, click on each question to see what our green experts said …
1. What’s your No. 1 gardening tip?
2. What is the biggest mistake gardeners make (that they don’t know they’re making)?
3. What are recession-friendly ways to enhance your home’s curb appeal?
4. What are your seasonal tips for summer, fall, winter and spring?
5. What is the best way to have a healthy "green" garden?
6. What are some fool-proof flora you can grow — even without a green thumb or time?
7. Does organic gardening have to be expensive?
Meet our green-thumb bloggers:
Susan Harris is a gardening coach, GardenRant blogger, Master Gardener, garden writer and activist for urban and suburban greening. She gardens in Takoma Park, MD, a suburb of Washington, DC. Read Susan’s latest wOw piece Coming Soon: The Death of the American Lawn
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Pamela Penick is an Austin landscape designer and gardening coach, a
gardener starting over this year with a brand-new garden, a writer
who’s been blogging for three years about gardening in central Texas and an amateur photographer. Visit her websites at Digging and Penick Landscape Design.
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Patricia Blais is a lifelong gardener, who lives in Birmingham, AL. She is the founder of Gardensablaze.com, dedicated to all aspects of gardening. Pat is also the creator and author of Mysticalblaze.com, a site dedicated to providing thoughtful research on a variety of "paranormal" topics.
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Shirley Bovshow is a Garden Television host, designer, blogger and new media broadcaster. Her sites include ShirleysGarden.com, EdenMakers.com and GardenCenterTV.com.
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Cynthia Thompson has been passionate about organic gardening and environmentalism
for over 15 years. She recently relocated to the beautiful Pacific
Northwest where she writes about gardening and all that comes with it
on her website Brambleberries in the Rain.
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Jennifer L. Scott is executive assistant for Fusion-io. She is an avid gardener with a recently launched blog, Gardening With Miss Daisy. She and her husband currently reside in Utah and are the proud parents of five children and one grandchild.
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Jessica Harwood is a professor of biology at Spartanburg Methodist College. She writes and gardens in upstate South Carolina. For more of Harwood’s eco-knowledge visit thegardenblog/blogspot.
Want more gardening tips? Visit wowOwow’s Home & Gardening forum to give and receive more useful advice from our community
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71 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment
Joan, try any of these: human hair ( barber shop) , coyote urine,( pet stores) moth balls, bone tar oil,rancid grease,feathermeal (dried chicken feathers),or blood meal. These can be put alone or in combination in a nylon stocking, mesh bag, or plastic bag with holes about 3 feet off the ground. Fabric softener cloths can be hung every 3 feet. Also ammonia-soaked rags can be used.
Try mixing hot pepper sauce with a small amount of dish detergent and water *( shake well) and spray your plants.
We call my vegetable garden Alcatraz; I have secured it well . Still the raccoons help themselves. I think deer took lessons at a seminar held by raccoons.
I’m in Texas. Around Austin, people have been dealing with deer for years and years. My cousin even put up an electric fence. It did help, but a few still braved the shock to get to the garden.
Yellow roses! One of my all time favorites!
Maggie … to be honest, I am torn. I love wild animals … and, for some reason, I actually think they are attracted to me. If I stand still in a forest, deer, deer bringing fawn, will walk closer until we are almost face to face. I don’t understand that connection, but it happens with bears also - truly - which is a bit more scary. But I want deer close by, I want that connection to the wild so close to the big city, and so perhaps my own thank you is the tulip heads. It is a toss-up. On wet days, you can see their prints in the dirt — and the prints are hearts. Even though I had not see the deer that day, I like to think it was seeking me out. A fantasy —- somehow I don’t think so.
And my own room is the color of sunshine, my life is filled with light … and yellow roses, yellow tulips fill my flower beds.
Your post makes me smile. I know how you feel. Those raccoons were driving me crazy. So, I called Animal Control. They said they would come out with traps. But I couldn’t stand the thought of a caged animal, so I told them to " never mind". I do believe certain people transpose a sense of safety and love to animals. I can’t even begin to count how many stray dogs followed my brother home when he was just a small fry. As an adult, wounded animals are attracted to his yard. Last spring he found a injured bird on his porch. A small twig was embedded in its beak. How it had been eating is a mystery. How it knew my brother would know what to do is the bigger mystery.
You and he both have lovely gifts in a world that is not always so kind to our animal friends.
Deer heart prints. I like that and will remember it.
Me, too - Maggie, and in Austin my friends often ‘plant’ plastic posies (especially around Lake Austin) having given up on the deer. They become used to the things we put out to keep them at bay, but what you mention does help - for a while.
Joan, check out "no till gardening," as a search, and you’ll find great tips. It helps too to take the Master Gardener courses in each locale. Best thing I’ve done in the past 15 years for myself, and it augmented my determined xeric, and organic gardening hobby to boot. Your local recycling center has considerable no cost items for the garden, and yard too - I made my front serpentine walk out of the recycled glass (tumbled glass), and people stop by to look at it. It’s lovely when it rains, too.
Check out High Country Gardens iproducts, n Sante Fe - their catalogs alone are lovely, but have a website, too. http://www.highcountrygardens.com/ and, for deer - http://plants.highcountrygardens.com/search?w=repellant+for+deer
(Incidentally, I make my water features, and it isn’t costly to make several to place around your gardens, for sound, and creating a habitat, too - I made one of indoors, too.)
Here’s my cherished instructions - if one understands the pump’s operations, it’s a smooth road from there - however, it is critically important to buy a good quality pump, and small enough for the minute water features.
Materials:- Appropriate size pump (estimate # of gallons of water will be in reservoir)
- Rocks—flat, pointed, round.
- Shells—optional
- Plants: Papyrus, potted ferns, Mediterranean succulents in pots; water lettuce, water Hyacinth, Koi Fish, Duckweed, depending on size of water feature.
- Landscape cloth
- Tubing from pump—should be laminated or rubber, not vinyl
- Bamboo—diameter depends on the size of the water feature’s basin reservoir
Directions:Note: this does not need to be elevated, but at ground level for the sound and appearance – merely dig a hole large enough to hold your “basin,” and leave the added rocks, and shells (or other home trinkets) showing on top. Placing several around your garden makes for a lovely garden tapestry. Also, using a small solar powered light near the water feature will do a great deal to illuminate your evenings, and those of passersby.
Also, this can be done using a large, tall, or short, indoor vase! I have one in a 30” imported vase that bubbles in the corner of my living room. The ‘neck’ is narrow, so it easily held a large rock that I surrounded with pebbles and marbles. All I wanted was the texture and water sounds.
TIP: 1 cent pennies are the easiest way to keep water clean – same for floral bouquets. Save them!