Gardening Features

How To: Indentify problems with the ash & golden rain tree

In this how-to video, you will learn how to identify and control problems with Ash and Golden Rain Trees. If there are discolorations in the tree branch, there may be a few problems. If you see a severe orange color, this will damage the tree. You can paint the tree with a white paint to avoid this problem. Pruning cuts that have been executed poorly will also cause discoloration and rot. If the leaves have tip burn, this may mean that the air is dry and arid. If twigs on Junipers look dirty ...

How To: Plant a dogwood tree

Beautify your surroundings and offset global carbon emissions by planting a tree. Oregonian writers Kym Pokorny and Anne Jaeger demonstrate best practices for tree planting as they plant a dogwood in this brief tutorial.

How To: Repot Canna lilies

Learn how and why you should repot Canna lilies before the winter with this gardening tutorial. This is a quick and easy process of digging up the lily, potting it and bringing inside the home or greenhouse, and it has many benefits. Find out how to keep your Canna lilies healthy over the winter with this how to video.

How To: Thin your fruit tree

Thinning, or pruning, is the most important step in getting the best fruit from your tree. In this tutorial from Dave Wilson Trees, you'll learn how to thin your own fruit trees as they look at the plum, peach, apricot, nectarine, aprium and pluot trees in their own orchard as part of their spring maintenance routine. Watch this video and learn how to keep your fruit trees healthy and bearing uniform, healthy fruit!

How To: Harvest spinach

To get the best out of your vegetable harvest, you must pick them at the right time and in the right way for a flavorsome and bountiful crop. Tom Cole shows us how to harvest spinach. Harvest spinach.

How To: Make Hypertufa planters

Want a really easy and inexpensive way to jazz up your yard? This tutorial will show you how to make Hypertufa planters. All you need is a wheelbarrow, a hoe, latex gloves, 2 parts peat moss, 1 part sand, 1 part portland cement mix, a large pot/box/bowl and a plastic garbage bag. These planters look great and can be made to fit any size plants. Watch this how to video and you can make Hypertufa planters in no time at all.

How To: Make your own hydroponic table

Hydroponics are a method of growing plants using mineral nutrient solutions instead of soil. In this how to video, landscaping expert Max Brown shows us how to make a mobile DIY hydroponics table so you can grow fresh veggies anytime, anywhere. Make your own hydroponic table.

How To: Divide and pot Canna lilies

If you want some large, bold foliage in a border during the summer, canna lilies take some beating. They are really easy to grow either in the border or large pots and produce large paddle shaped leaves and tall flower spikes. Canna lilies aren't hardy plants so unless you live in a very sheltered area it is wise to dig them up in autumn and store the fleshy roots in a frost free place. Increasing your stock of canna plants is very easy with the tips from this how to video.

How To: Identify a spittle bug on your salvia

Great video by Southwest Yard & Garden. tutorial on how to identify garden pests on your plants & shrubs. Went into detail on the Salvia plants - always be careful spittle bugs, they produce spittle commonly on Salvia plants. Whiteflies and aphids are known to take residence in Ash trees. Aphids commonly take on the look of mildew. Ways to manage moths for apples, you can use insecticide spray but be conservative. Took a look at signs of Cochineal Scale on a Prickly Pear. Went over ways to ta...

How To: Save heirloom pepper seeds for gardening

Rita Heikenfeld, from AboutEating.com, had a bumper crop of peppers this year. In this how-to video she shows you how to save pepper seeds from one of her garden favorites, the jalapeño. Pepper seeds can easily be dried and stored over the winter to be grown in the spring. They let you save your heirloom seeds for next year.

How To: Plant train and prune passion flowers in a garden

Follow Joe Swift's video guide to planting, training and pruning passion flowers. Follow these Gardeners' World step-by-step guides to garden projects from the BBC. These lovely tutorials on gardening will grow your green thumb and make your gardens grow healthful plants. Plant train and prune passion flowers in a garden.

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: Create an indoor garden

Patti, the Garden Girl, shows you how to build your own seed starting system in this video series. This system would cost twice as much to buy already made. It is simple and very effective.

How To: Grow lavender provence in a container

We know that spring seems ions away, but if you're a gardener then it's time to begin thinking about what flowers you'll be planting to bloom during the spring. If you don't have much garden space but would love a very fragrant bloom, check out this video to learn how to grow lavendr provence in a container.

How To: Prune plants

Learn how to cut back plants in your garden effectively to encourage new growth and remove dead and diseased branches. Follow this Howcast guide to learn how to prune plants.

How To: Properly take care of blueberry bushes

If you love eating blueberries, but hate paying so much for those delicious pieces of fruit, why not plant your own. Oh, and if you're worried about killing the plant, not to worry, this tutorial will show you how to properly take care of your blueberry bush. So check it out and enjoy!

How To: Get rid of raspberry plant pests

One of the few raspberry pests is the raspberry cane borer. It is an easy pest to control organically because all you do is clip it out, no spraying and no one gets harmed. It's simple to find, look at your cane, you'll see where it is dead, then go down about 6 inches and you'll see 2 little girdle lines. The adult has girdled the cane and laid an egg in between. If you don't clip this out that egg will hatch, the worm will go down that cane and kill the whole cane. So as soon as you see the...

Grow While You Go: The Bus-Top Gardens of New York City

If you were to look on the roof of your local city bus, what would you find? A little bit of dirt, most likely, and a whole lot of space. Precisely the stuff you'd find in an empty container garden! Enter NYU graduate student Marco Castro Cosio's Bus Roots, a project which, through installing gardens on the rooftops of New York City buses, seeks to "reclaim forgotten space, increase quality of life and grow the amount of green spaces in the city."

How To: Plant cactus in containers

Cactus can do very well in containers if attention is paid to several things. One, use terracotta, it breathes well. Also, make sure there is a hole in the bottom because the soil shouldn't be sitting in water. And importantly use a Cactus soil mix, a mix that has a lot of sand, a lot of perlite. Although most plants don't thrive in mixes with a lot of sand, because it dries too fast, Cactus requires this condition. In fact, over watering is the number one way to kill a Cactus. To place the C...

How To: Build a unique terraced garden

In this episode of Southwest Yard and Garden Curtis Smith shows you how to turn a steep slope into a usable garden. By building walls along the slope using serpentine designs he shows you how to obtain a compromise of both strength and artistic design. Starting with a good concrete footer and rebar you can construct a retaining wall strong enough to hold the weight of the slope. Materials such as wood and railroad ties can be used but may not stand the test of time as the weight of the soil c...

How To: Properly care for an indoor saintpaulia flowering plant (African violet)

Taking care of houseplants is a tough job, especially if you have more than one kind, because the proper, healthy growing conditions can become muddled. If one of your houseplants is a African violet, which is a saintpaulia flowering plant, then this video will help you take care of it for a thriving plant that will surely brighten up any room. Learn about picking the right environment, watering, fertilizing and keeping pests away.

How To: Identify willow tree damage caused by a borer

Weeping willows, globe willows, corkscrew willow, cotton wood are all prone to bores than other diseases. They grow in fertile soil with lots of moisture. Never treat tree chemical. Prune as necessary, take out dead diseased limbs, water and fertilize regular. This ensures the tree lasts longer and that the tree is less attractive to insects. Where tomatoes are concerned to avoid sunburn ensure that they are slightly covered with the folding of the plant. High salt level of water or chemicals...

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.