As we ease into winter, another season of gardening draws to a close. Before you store your gardening gloves and forget what dirt under your fingernails looks like, take a few minutes this month to wrap up some simple garden tasks to finish the year strong. Last month I wrote about steps you can take this fall for a healthy lawn through winter and into next spring. If you didn’t [...]
As we get into autumn, leaves begin to fall, temperatures drop and all things green begin to go dormant.While you may be tired of lawn care—believe me, even the most enthusiastic gardeners do!—this season is an important time to take several key steps to ensure a beautiful lawn next spring. The first step is to prevent night crawler damage. While useful in aerating your soil and a part of the [...]
Example of the architecture to expect with our new garden center!For the last three years, we've been hard at work behind the scenes researching new greenhouse structuresto better serve our customers. After countless hours of preparation, we're excited to announce a complete rebuild of our greenhouses and sales office at Vander Giessen Nursery!If you've driven past the nursery in the last week, you may have noticed some changes starting to [...]
Nothing says "fall" like mums!Annuals are great for providing color all summer long—they’re really the workhorses of the plant world. But as with anything, annuals have their season, and if the flowers on your patio or deck are looking worn and you’re ready for something new, consider a few great options that will give your pots color for the rest of autumn—and even all winter long.The quintessential fall flower has [...]
Just because it's late summer doesn't mean you can't have fresh plants. We continue to receive regular deliveries of fresh perennials and shrubs for late summer and fall--check out some of the great color available now!
I hate to even have to report this, but it appears that an ugly disease that has spent the last couple of years spreading westward across the country has reached the Pacific Northwest. It's called impatiens downy mildew, and it's quickly becoming the worst enemy of gardeners who love to grow impatiens. If you've struggled with growing impatiens this summer--or just want to be aware of what to watch for--here's [...]
Macrophylla hydrangea -- the most common type It's late summer, and despite all the other fun activities you’re trying to squeeze in before fall, now is the time to prune many varieties of hydrangeas around your yard. If you’ve ever struggled with getting your hydrangeas to bloom right—or even if you want to change the color of your blooms—here are some basic tips that can make your [...]
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we're blessed to live in a mild climate--our winters are anything but harsh and our summers are rarely what most of the rest of the country would call "hot." Because of our mild weather, we can grow just about anything our green thumbs would desire; in the glut of plants we have at our disposal, however, we often forget about one of the most forgiving, [...]
Heuchera 'Marmalade' There’s something I call “The Perfect Plant.” It has colorful evergreen leaves—maybe variegated—blooms for an extended period of time, needs very little maintenance, only grows to be knee-high and does equally well in sun or shade. Unfortunately, “The Perfect Plant” isn’t quite a reality. Helping gardeners choose plants for their yards, I’m often approached with those criteria, and while there isn’t an exact match to fit the [...]
