Are the Pests & Diseases on My Plants Serious?
We live in an time when life has become medicalized. Despite living longer and more healthy lives than any human beings who came before us, we are intensely focused on the dangers of…
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Get all the latest insight into the world of plants, from experts.
How to Transplant Established Evergreen Trees
In a perfect world, every plant we put in the ground would be in exactly the right place, and stay there forever. Hah! Back in the real word, despite our best intentions, it…
Pruning Young Trees for Future Strength and Long Life – Part 3, Getting the Job Done
This is the third part of an extended blog about the pruning of young trees. Many people just plant a new tree and expect it to develop perfectly all by itself. Sometimes that…
Pruning Young Trees for Future Strength and Long Life – Part 2, Equipment and pruning techniques
This is the second part of an extended blog about the pruning of young trees. Many people just plant a new tree and expect it to develop perfectly all by itself. Sometimes that…
Pruning Young Trees for Future Strength and Long Life – Part 1, The Basics
This is the first part of a three-part blog on tree pruning. Not the big stuff, handling mature trees, but what to do with that young tree you just planted, or maybe you…
Some Evergreen Trees of Japan – Matsu, the pines
If one image instantly says, ‘Japanese Garden’, it is the twisted pine tree. Dominating most gardens, you could make a garden with just one, and nothing else. Trained to resemble a natural tree…
Winter Care of Houseplants
The days are shortening and the clocks have gone back – what does it mean for your houseplants? They are probably at their best right now, after the brighter light of summer. But…
Why Isn’t My Garden Growing?
You are new to gardening, or recently moved into a new home. You invested money and time into setting up what you pictured as a little paradise, but it isn’t working. The plants…
Plant Trees for the Future – Here’s How to Succeed
Economists tell us that the further away a reward is, the less we will pay for it today. Our world, and modern economy, is built on having it now, as soon as possible,…
What To Do When You Can’t Water Your Garden
With drought and heat everywhere, many gardens are suffering. Towns are restricting or banning watering with hoses or irrigation, and suddenly gardeners find themselves in a new world. It is very likely that…
How To Prune Panicle Hydrangeas – Hydrangea paniculata
Hydrangeas are among the very best of shrubs for late blooming. Not only do they flower when most other shrubs have finished for the season, but they stay in bloom for weeks and…
Using Organic Material When Planting Trees & Shrubs
Back when I was a student of horticulture, the use of synthetic chemicals for gardening was widespread. Since then most home gardeners have moved away from them, and for many today they are…
Winter Protection for Rose Trees
Almost everyone loves roses, and with today’s easy-care modern varieties, it’s easy to care for the things you love. Besides the huge number of different varieties, divided into different types – landscape roses,…
Overwintering Potted Plants
The clocks have changed, the nights are shorter, and much colder, and maybe there have already been flurries in the air. As winter comes our gardens go to sleep, but if you garden…
How to Water Your Plants – Part 2, Watering Planters, Pots, Boxes and Indoor Plants
Last week we starting this topic off with some basic principles of water and plants, and some tips on watering in your garden. If you stumbled on this blog without seeing that one,…
Neem Oil will Kill Your Garden Pests
When you start growing plants – indoors or outdoors – it doesn’t take long before you see a few creepy-crawlies on them. That isn’t reason to panic, because most insects on plants are…
Chilling Hours – What They Are and Why They Matter
Gardening, love of good food, and a desire to protect our own and our family’s health have all come together in the biggest gardening trend of the moment – growing food at home….
How To Prune Your Wisteria
A Wisteria is a gorgeous plant when it is in bloom, a highlight of spring and a truly wonderful sight. But a lot of people buy one and within a few years become…
Understanding Organic Material
In the extended and detailed descriptions of our plants, which make the Tree Center unique, we provide more background information and accurate advice than any other on-line nursery. In there you will often…
Should I Remove That Tree?
Everyone loves trees, and we love even more older trees, because we know how long it takes for a tree to grow to maturity. That makes it difficult for us to take down…
How to Choose a Tree Surgeon
Over the last couple of weeks, we have been looking at tree care. Winter is a good season for this, because the lack of leaves makes it easier to see what needs doing,…
Should I Trim My Trees?
Trees are great to have on your property, bringing beauty and shade, cleaning the air and removing CO2 from the atmosphere – we should all be planting more of them. Older trees, though,…
Grow Versatile Tree Roses in Your Garden
There are many kinds of roses – Hybrid Tea, Floribunda, Landscape Rose, and many more – but the same rose can come in different ways too. Typically, they are grown to produce stems…
Insect Pests of Pine Trees
Pines – big and small – were the subject of a recent blog, and they are beautiful trees that bring a unique look to any garden, with so many to choose from. Pine…
7 Top Tips for Spring Clean Up in the Garden
Once warmer weather returns, and the days start to grow longer, the garden tempts up back into it, after a winter of rest, perhaps buried beneath snow. The early-spring garden can look sad,…
Protect Your Evergreens the Way the Pros Do
Protecting newly-planted trees – especially evergreens – in their first winter is a real issue for gardeners who live in cold parts of the country. Every fall and winter it comes up and…
5 Steps to Better Soil for Fall Planting
Now that fall is beginning, this is prime planting season for trees and shrubs. Planted now, rather than in spring, they will establish roots over winter – even in the coldest areas –…
Fall – The Ideal Planting Season
Somehow, over recent years, the gardening year got turned around. Today everyone rushes into their garden at the first sign of spring, and immediately starts planning and planting for the best garden ever….
Summer Tree Problems – What Counts, and What Doesn’t
There is a cycle to the growth of a garden through the seasons. After the silent wait of winter, spring arrives full of promise. The fresh, new growth of trees and shrubs is…
Diseases of Crape Myrtles
Crape Myrtles (Lagerstroemia) are very popular shrubs for warmer areas, and no wonder. They have spectacular blooms for an extended period, grow well in poor soil, and are heat and drought resistant. They…
Why We Stake Trees
Planting a tree is always a great moment – most trees have longer lives than we do, and although a newly-planted tree will be a beautiful addition to our gardens after just a…
Get the Most from Your Mulch
New gardeners quickly hear about this thing called ‘mulch’, but often all that hear is, ‘mulch regularly’, or ‘use mulch for weed control’ – without getting any real idea of what it is,…
Diseases of Pine Trees
Planting a tree is an action full of hope. We hope that our tree will grow and flourish, living out its life – which will certainly be decades, and perhaps even a hundred…
It’s Plant a Pine Tree Time
Spring is the big season in the garden, and this is when we all go out and look at our gardens, to see what we can grow that will make them more beautiful….
Grow Living Fossil Trees in Your Garden
Most of us grow plants in our gardens simply for their beauty, and that surely is the best reason of all. But many plants also have a story to tell, perhaps of how…
Useful Tips for Pruning Fruit Trees
As winter moves hesitantly into spring, and the worst weather has passed in your area, its time to turn your thoughts to preparing the garden for another season. If you are lucky enough…
Easy Winter Pruning for Great Summer Flowering
In some parts of the country the first signs of spring are already showing. In colder places there is some time to go yet, but it is not too soon to start some…
Tips on Overwintering Patio Trees
One of the pleasures of gardening is growing plants from outside your hardiness zone. There are many trees and bushes that will grow happily for most of the year, but in winter your…
Tips on Protecting Your Evergreens for Winter
In the north the snow is already beginning to swirl, and the first heavy falls are not far away. New gardeners are often surprised to see that their evergreens can look fine all…
5 Ways to Give Your Trees Their Brightest Fall Colors
As the days shorten, and the weather becomes cooler, the grim prospect of winter is softened by the glories of fall. For a short time, our trees surrounded us in the brilliance of…
Trees in Containers – Perfect for the Smaller Garden. Part 1
Trees have an almost mystical fascination for many people. Their silent lives, spread over decades or centuries, and even millennia, speak to us of survival and endurance. The almost magical experience of a…
Fall – the Ideal Season for Planting Trees
With Labor Day just around the corner, we have reached the traditional end of summer – even if, in some areas at least, hot weather will continue through September. There is nonetheless a…
Summer Care of Japanese Maple
Everyone loves Japanese maples, with their diversity of leaf color and form. Some are upright, some weeping, while some cascade elegantly over rocks and walls. Leaves may be green, or the coveted rich-reds…
Tips on Pruning Shrubs and Flowering Trees
The succession of flowering shrubs through the seasons is a large part of the beauty of a garden, bringing interest to every part of the year. Yet in many gardens the shrubs are…
What Shrubs Should be Pruned in Spring?
As the warmer weather arrives, and our plants start to show signs of waking from their winter sleep, we start to wonder how to get the best from them in the coming season….
Deer Resistant Trees and Shrubs
As winter turns to spring, many gardeners are out inspecting their gardens, and all too often they are finding plants damaged by winter. Cold and ice is one thing, but when animal damage…
The Fiddle Leaf Fig – the Latest Indoor Hit
Flip through the pages of any interior décor magazine these days, and the chances are you will see a tall plant, with large leaves, being used as an accessory to the latest furniture…
Protecting Your Hedges In Winter
If you live in colder parts of the country, where winter is a time of snow and ice, fall and early winter are good times to be thinking about protecting your hedges from…
How To Stake A Tree
To stake or not to stake, that indeed is the question. Once upon a time everyone carefully staked every tree when it was planted, but today the experts tell us that often it…
Planting Leyland Cypress Trees
Leyland cypress, or leylandii, are extremely useful trees. They’re fast growing, and can be used to quickly create an effective hedge or screen. They’re also easy to look after, needing little or no…