Andrea’s Garden Blog

Lilies are one of the most striking and beautiful plants in the garden, and most gardeners will work with these beautiful plants at least once or twice in their lives.  Lilies can add beauty and drama to any garden, and they are very popular flowers for indoor display as well.  Lilies are popular in many contexts, from giving a beautiful contrast to a winter rock garden, to providing a beautiful accent to surrounding shrubs and trees.

No matter how the lily is displayed, and whether it is enjoyed indoors or out, there are some important things to know about these wonderful plants.  This article focuses on some of the most frequently asked questions about choosing, planting, caring for and enjoying lilies.

When should I plant my lilies?
The best time to plant lilies… Continue reading the rest of this article...

Tags: Easter lilies, gardening, lilies, planting, tips

The first of the season’s flowers – Early tulips of yellow and red are of the large group of bulbs I planted in the fall 2008. Grape hyacinths show their repeat blooms year after year, and in greater numbers without fail. What a joy.

Fortunately, there are more tulips that will be blooming in the weeks to come. I’m so glad I planted these early blooming tulips to extend the color show for spring.

April 09 Tulips – early

Tags: april, denver, garden, grape hyacinth, muscari, tulips

Perennials are favored by many gardeners, not only for their ability to bloom for several seasons, but for the wide variety of colors, shapes and sizes they come in as well.  Whereas annuals must be planted anew every season, perennials can be left in the ground to bloom for several seasons.  This makes gardening with perennials less costly and means that the perennial garden can be easier to maintain.

In addition, most perennials are very easy to work with, and the demands they place on their gardeners are usually quite low.  Sufficient water, good soil and abundant sunshine are all most perennials need to provide beautiful blooms all season long.

There are several important considerations with perennials, however, given the nature of their growth.  Since perennials remain in the ground year after… Continue reading the rest of this article...

Tags: gardening, healthy plants, perennials, pruning, year-round

While Denver gets a late season snow, I look fondly to my collection of growing seedlings to give me the hope of spring days yet to come.

Many of the seedlings are fast outgrowing the small incubator-looking window boxes I originally planted the seeds in nearly 7 weeks ago. Some seedlings aren’t doing as well as others. Some never did sprout at all. Such is life.

I think I’ll need to replant many of them into more soil soon, giving them an additional growing boost before it’s time to plant them outside. There’s still about 3-4 weeks before I can even THINK about outdoor plantings for these little dudes.

I thought I would give you a look at what everything looks like today.

Tags: basil, coleus, denver, seedlings, snow, spring

Every gardener wants to grow the most perfect, most beautiful flowers in town, but that goal is to be elusive.  Whether your goal is to win the best bloom award at the big flower show or just to enjoy a garden full of beautiful flowers, there are some steps you can take to make sure your garden is the best it can be.

Pay attention to chemistry
The chemistry of the soil is one of the most critical factors to the success, or lack of success, in the home garden.  If the soil in your area is poor, chances are you will be unable to grow those beautiful blooms until the soil has been amended to provide the nutrition the plants need.

One mistake many gardeners make is to assume that the soil… Continue reading the rest of this article...

Tags: best flowers, care, gardening, nutrition, planting

It’s exciting to see some of the bulbs come up that I planted last fall. It’s still early and I wouldn’t normally take pictures with so few displays, but we’re supposed to get a lot of snow the next day or so and I wanted to capture what I had on film…you know, just in case. There are a ton of them that are up and I can see the flower buds, but they haven’t started opening yet. I just hope the late snow won’t do too much damage.

Also, I’m a little bummed because many of my tulips in the backyard are not flowering as usual. Perhaps it’s because of a few cold weeks recently right when buds were forming, I don’t really know. There’s always next year, right?… Continue reading the rest of this article...

Tags: april flowers, denver, snow, spring, tulips

Having a low maintenance front yard is the goal of many people. You can get easy to manage front yard landscaping done by any of the professional landscapers in your area or you can do it yourself. Either way you can have front yard landscaping done that will take minimal work to keep looking fantastic all year round. If you are going to get a professional in to do your front yard landscaping though, be sure to tell him that this is your over all goal, that you want to have a yard that will not take a lot of work to keep up.

If you have less grass in your front yard landscaping then you will cut out a lot of maintenance time right there. Mowing the lawn can take… Continue reading the rest of this article...

Tags: front yard, gardening, landscaping, tips