Nature Hills Gardening Community

All over the country, people are cultivating butterfly gardens. This is a great thing because butterflies are threatened from all sides. Habitat destruction, pollution and pesticides have all played a role in the reduction in the butterfly population. But once you have your butterfly garden, what do you do (aside from weeding)? It is great fun and a...

Lately as I've been weeding the garden, I've noticed many self-sown seedlings, especially foxgloves, larkspur, perilla and even rose of Sharon. When I was a novice gardener, I never grubbed out unwanted seedlings, because I was afraid that if I did so I would somehow jinx all my gardening efforts. After all, what are self-sown plants if not...

We just had a surprise in our landscape this August. We moved into a home that is over 100 years old. The original owners had done lots of landscaping although after they passed away and new owners took over, it was and still is quite an overgrown area. We have had lots of surprises of plants that have come up that we often wonder, how they got there...

I do have a little info on edible flowers due to what my wife told me after attending a luncheon at a friends house. She was served nasturtium flowers atop of her salad and she commented that they were tasty and they made quite an attractive presentation. Not knowing that flowers were edible, I went looking for information. I will preface my comments...

Morning glories (Convolvulus) are indispensable. There is nothing better for covering trellises, arches or tuteurs and, as long as you have some kind of tall, relatively sturdy support, you can even grow them in pots. They are also perfect for people who don't want to commit to a perennial vine like clematis. Most years I start my morning glories...

For the past two weeks I have been harvesting blueberries from the bush in my backyard. I have waited a long time for this. The blueberry bush is four years old and this is the first year that it has produced a bountiful harvest. I generally eat a few as I pick them and save the rest. I like them with vanilla yogurt, but they also occasionally find...

If maintaining a beautiful garden is about creating a series of beautiful pictures, then the most important part of the act of creation is editing. To put it in a less artistic way--cleaning up is one of the best things you can do for your garden. For example, my blackberries have finished bearing fruit for the year. For the health of the blackberry...

With America going "green", gardeners are more and more interested in using native plants in their beds, borders and pots. But what does "native" mean? Native to North America? Native to your region? Native to the ten square mile area surrounding your house or apartment? To make things just a bit more confusing, lots of plants that...