Hot Gardening Posts
How To: Bonsai a mugo pine
If you're looking to pick up on a hobby that's easy to do and is relaxing, making you should take up bonsai. Bonsai is the art of growing trees or small wood plants and uses techniques such as pruning and potting. It is something that is focused entirely on an individual and how they think it looks. So check it out and see if you like it. Enjoy!
How To: Prepare & lay pavers in a multi-level adjoining area
The Gardening Guru demonstrates how to prepare and lay pavers in a multi-level adjoining area. First, get a garden stake use it to measure the evenness of the terrain and to set the height. Put the leveling tool on top of the pavers to even out the dirt. Then, lift out the rails. Once the rails are removed, you can then set the pavers directly on the dirt. If you prepare your area correctly, you will save a lot of time when you execute the actual project. This technique is useful when dealing...
How To: Harvest leafy greens
You’ve put in the work to grow wonderful greens in your garden and your ready to make a tasty salad. When you are ready to use your greens you can cut just a few of the outer leaves off at a time so the plant can continue thriving.
How To: Grow a grass lawn in summer weather
Gardener P. Allen Smith give us some tips on how to care for our lawns during the hot summer months. You need to choose the correct type of grass seed and soil to suit your area and local weather conditions. In the summer, let your grass grow a little longer so that the blades of grass can shade the roots. Watch this instructional gardening video to learn how to maintain a fresh summer lawn, without dumping unnecessary fertilizers onto it or over watering the brittle grass.
How To: Tie up your ornamental grasses for the winter
Dave explains how to tie up ornamental grasses to prepare them for winter and ensure they add interest to the winter garden. Make your ornamental grasses the focal point of your winter garden with the tips from this video.
How To: Handle spiny cactus
Cacti have spines that prick the handler's skin. So how do people in the cactus business handle spiny cactus all day long? They use nitro gloves! Watch this instructional video for a demonstration on how these special gloves prevent gardeners and cactus growers from getting pricked.
How To: Grow Plants With Compact Fluorescent Lights
I like to grow vegetables all year round, and I couldn't afford the big gas bulbs, or the power to run them. The big gas bulbs:
How To: Get rid of caterpillars in the garden
Don't let another summer go by dealing with webworms or caterpillars. In this how to video, our gardening expert P. Allen Smith teaches you how he gets rid of webworms and caterpillars in his garden. Maintain your garden's health by ridding it of harmful insects.
How To: Plant and care for Rhododendrons
Rhododendrons must have lime-free soil and that can make them tricky for some of us that garden on neutral or limey soils. Planting in the garden is a waste of time and money. If you want, you can make a raised bed and fill that with acid soil but digging a hole in your garden and filling it with acid (ericaceous) compost only works for a while. The water from the surrounding soil will drain in and spread the lime and although you can acidify soil with sulphur chips you really are making life...
How To: Prune roses and spot dead branches
In this video tutorial, viewers learn how to prune roses. Users will need a pair of garden trimmers or cutters. Observe the rose stem and check to see if there are any thorns and if it has a black color. If it does, it needs to be cut. Then remove the mulch around the canes. When cutting, go as deep as you can to allow the new cane to fully develop. Cut the cane and make sure that you see clean, green tissue. This video will benefit those viewers who enjoy gardening, and would like to learn h...
How To: Harvest Lophophora peyote pups from grafted scions
Lophophora harvest. This video is a quick demonstration on how I harvest Lophophora pups from grafted lophophora stock. When harvesting lophophora make sure of the following: Its spring or summer; You place your pups in a dry shady spot to heal; Also dust the mom and pups with sulfur to prevent rot.
How To: Care for Mexican elder tree
In this video from nmsuaces we learn how to care for the Mexican elder tree. This is a widely used tree but it is not a good windbreak tree. It could have limb breakage. It's native to northern Mexico and southern California and is found in New Mexico. The sprouts on the tree need to be broken off the sides of the tree otherwise they are taking energy away from the rest of the tree. When it goes through its dormancy, you need to keep dead wood out of it. It needs a water source near it but it...
How To: Prune a Bramley apple tree
The Bramley is a large, heavy-cropping cooking apple popular for baking, making apple sauce and other apple dishes. In this two-part how-to series, Stephen Hayes of Fruitwise Heritage Apples demonstrates how to properly prune a Bramley apple tree and other apple trees with a similar habit of growth. Watch this instructional video to learn how to prune your own triploid and tip-bearing trees.
How To: Speed Up the Composting Process
Composting is said to be every gardener’s gold, but making compost and getting it ready could take up to a year. Professional growers have discovered that compost activators can help speed up composting quickly…sometimes to as little as 30 days!
How To: Stop Gypsy Moths from destroying your garden
Moths are usually pretty harmless, but the Gypsy Moth is an exception. They can defoliate an area with astonishing speed, and if you see them in your garden you need to take action immediately. Watch this video to find out how.
How To: Build an aeroponic fogger for your hydroponic system
In this gardening tutorial, you'll find instructions for building an aeroponic fogger, or mister, for a hydroponic growing system. Nutrified fog is accepted by the roots at a much faster rate than nutrients from spray or soak system. So I modified my Aerospray system to have both nutrifog and timed sprays. To learn more about this method for constructing an aeroponic fogger, take a look!
How To: Prune a Japanese maple tree pre bonsai
If you own a Japanese maple tree, you need to know that there are three different methods for pruning bonsai. One is creation pruning, maintenance pruning, and pruning for show. In this video tutorials, you'll find out how to perform a creation pruning that is promoting branch development and growth. So good luck and enjoy!
How To: Design your landscape using Japanese maples
If you're looking for a plant that will add color to your landscape as well as work well in smaller areas, a Japanese maple might be what you need. There are a variety of different maples that exist and each one has their own benefits for being planted in a yard.
How To: Grow Juniper bonsai from cuttings
First of all you have to take the branch of the juniper tree. You can do this activity in the early spring which is the months of February and March. Take a very sharp knife and then peel the bark until you see green color. You have to tear the bark down until you see the greenery below the bark and that greenery is called cambium which is extremely thin. You have to use your knife to remove any kind of knots from the bark. Now you have to dip it in the “RooTone” which is a rooting hormone an...
How To: Make a humidity tray
This video tells you about humidity trays and how they are good for tropical plants like orchids. The tray consists of gravel or small stones and water in the tray. You have to have enough gravel to keep the plant out of the water. This video also discusses ways on how to make sure the humidity tray doesn't scratch your furniture. After watching this video you will have gained some insight into keeping and maintaining tropical plants as well as ferns.
How To: Perform spring cleanup in a daylily bed
Spring cleanup involves removing dead foliage from your perennials as growth resumes. The cleanup process is simple, provided you know what to do. Happily, horticulturist Greg Stack is her to show you what to do. Learn how to do spring cleanup in your daylily garden with this horticultural how-to. Perform spring cleanup in a daylily bed.
How To: Tie in climbing plants
It is ideal to tie your climbing plants against a wall in order to train it to grow up. In this how to video, Martin Fish from Garden News demonstrates how to use a new product called Soft-Tie to tie his climbing plants.
How To: Use self-watering plant containers
This video from Garden Time show a few of the different types of self-watering enclosures for plants and how to use them.
How To: Keep your pansies healthy year round
How to keep your pansies healthy year round
How To: Repot a juniper bonsai tree
In this video, Charles M. Teaches us how to re-pot a Bonsai tree. But before this, he explains how to make Bonsai soil. The ingredients to Bonsai soil are as follows: Potting soil, (from your local Home store) Hummus, Decomposed Granite, and a bucket. Take a couple of scoops from each ingredient and add to the bucket. Now you have your Bonsai soil and are ready to move along. Charles next explains how to handle the Bonsai itself. First, you want to remove any extra branches. Then you take it ...
How To: Diagnose Rhododendron problems
Dave shows you how to diagnose common plant diseases, specifically the Rhododendron.
How To: Pollinate the tomatoes in your indoor garden
One of the biggest challenges inherent in indoor gardening, hydroponic or soil-based, is how to pollinate your plants without bringing a swarm of bees into your greenhouse. This video demonstrates a quick, simple way to pollinate indoor-garden-grown tomato plants yourself using only a toothpick. Who knew that the mighty bee could be replaced by a tiny piece of wood and some free time?
How To: Use a lavender twist as a foundation plant
Dave Epstein talks about adding a foundation plant to a home. He is planting a Lavender Twist, a weeping redbud also known as Cercis Canadensis 'Covey'. You will see how adding a foundation plant to your home can make a big impact. You will see a before view of a home to get an idea of what you can do with the space you have available. Also you will get a tip on carefully placing the plant on the side of your home as to not block any windows but also add depth to your home and make it seem bi...
How To: Water seedlings from the bottom up
This Survival Podcast teaches how to water seedings from the bottom up. After you have transfered your plants to new pots, preferably sterilized bins, you put holes in the bottom of the pots. If they are too high, the watering technique will not work. The plants in the pot are placed into a larger bucket. You just add water to the outter bin and allow the plants to "draw up" the moisture through the soil. You want to make sure not to add too much water or the plants will "over-draw". About on...
How To: Deal with spindly seedlings
The Survival Podcasting present how to handle leggy or spindly seedlings that have grown too fast. Potted swiss chard seedlings are used as examples. The seedlings are growing well but are a bit floppy or spindly. This happens because the warmth from being started indoors encouraged their fast growth but since there is not enough light for them, they started reaching for the light. A `head space` is developed between the root and the leaves that makes the seedling flop over. A simple trick to...
How To: Choose plants that love shade with Lowe's
If you have a shady yard, you can still have a colorful garden. You just need to pick the right plants that do well in the shade. Caladium is a leafy plant with bright colored red, pink and green leaves. They do not tolerate cold weather and should be brought in over winter. Impatiens are popular annual flowers that grow in the shade. They look nice planted around the base of a tree or in containers. The flowers come in shades of pink, coral, white and red. Fuchsia is a beautiful flowering pl...
How To: Use vinca (or periwinkle) flowers in your garden
The vinca, or periwinkle, is a hearty flower that adds a lot to any garden. It comes in a variety of colors, and grows in the sun as well as the shade. But they're so hearty that you have to watch them, or they'll start springing up where they're not supposed to. In this video, Dave Epstein from Growing Wisdom walks you through using periwinkles in your garden.
How To: Propagate cyclamen plants
Winter-flowering cyclamen are easy to propagate from self-sown seedlings under the parent plants. In this step by step gardening tutorial, Geoff Stebbings from Garden Answers shows you how to propagate cyclamen seedlings.
How To: Determine the pot size for cactus repotting
Do you have a cactus plant in your garden that needs to be re-potted? Watch this instructional video to learn how to determine the appropriate pot size when re-potting your cactus.
How To: Grow yucca and get them to bloom at any time
Yucca blossoms are quite beautiful, but it's tough figuring out which seasons you can get them to bloom, and also having to raise them in those right seasons. But if you want it to bloom all year round, watch this video to get the hidden trick to making your Yucca bloom!
How To: Plant carpet roses in a container
If you're looking for a way to add more flowers to your garden, but are out of space, then try using a container. Containers are perfect for holding one or several different types of flowers. Roses can also be grown in containers as well.
How To: Sow bluebell seeds
Chris Beardshaw sows bluebells under the shade of the deciduous trees at Berryfields, and discusses the benefits of growing bluebells from seed over planting bulbs.
How To: Grow potatoes in a bin
Monty Don shows how to get around the problem of limited space in the garden, by growing your own potatoes in a dustbin.
How To: Plant up a traditional hanging basket
Create impact with your hanging baskets by following Rachel de Thame's comprehensive guide to planting up a traditional hanging basket, with advice on choosing and lining your container and tips on selecting and positioning your plants.
How To: Rid your garden of white fly
One of the ironies of gardening is that often some of the smallest pests can create the biggest nuisance. White flies can drain the life out of your plants. You can see the evidence of white fly damage in the lack of vigor in the plant and the discoloration of the leaves. Before they were a rich green and now they've turned a sickly yellow. Learn how to get rid of these pesky white flies with this gardening tutorial.