February 2021 – GRO Big Red

Rules 3 and 4 of Garden Catalog Shopping

The first two rules of shopping for landscape plants with garden catalogs are centered around needs, much like shopping for groceries. The next two focus on the landscape itself in terms of cold tolerance and disease susceptibility of certain plants.

One-Two Punch Rules for Garden Catalogs

The first two rules of shopping for landscape plants with garden catalogs are centered around needs, much like shopping for groceries. A “shopping list” will serve the gardener well, just like the family grocery shopper.

Thinking Ahead: Annual and Perennial Flowers

Growing a vegetable garden versus growing a flower garden can be hotly debated. Vegetable gardeners ask, “What good is it if you can’t eat it?” Flower growers think if it is not pretty, what’s the point? For me, growing both vegetables and flowers are necessary—vegetables nourish my body while flowers feed my soul. As the…

The 10 Garden Catalog Rules

Most of us hate rules, myself included…so why does the title of this article contain the word “rules”? Actually, they’re not so much “rules” per se, but guidelines to help make the most of the garden catalog perusing experience and application for better outdoor living in the landscape.

Plants & Indoor Air Quality

In the current wave of “houseplant mania”, it’s important to remember that houseplants provide numerous benefits in addition to adding amenity to the indoor landscape. Scott Evans, Horticulture Program Coordinator for Nebraska Extension in Douglas-Sarpy Counties reports that water vapor given off via transpiration is a big plus for the indoors, as well as their capacity to absorb potentially harmful gasses such as formaldehyde, ammonia, bioeffluents and volatile organic compounds.