Make your landscape lovelier with these eight great gardening tips from Ginna Phillips of Quailcrest Farm:
1. Everybody should have a little herb garden close to the kitchen door. The easier it is to get to your herbs, the more you’ll use them.
2. Mulching is key to less maintenance. Eliminate a lot of weeding by using a good hardwood mulch around plants.
3. Deadheading and pinching keep plants looking good. When herbs and flowers seem past their prime, cut them back so they’ll send out new foliage.
4. Fill in with annuals. Planting annuals between and around perennials will keep your landscape colorful all summer.
5. For continuous color throughout the growing season, pick perennials that bloom in spring, in summer, and in fall. Peonies and iris look showy in spring; daylilies and delphiniums in summer; and asters and sedums in autumn.
6. Don’t plant perennials too close together. Plants need enough room to grow properly.
7. Start small. Beginning gardeners who plant a huge area will be overwhelmed. Learn to love and care for a few plants, then let your garden grow as you go along.
8. Experiment. There are always new varieties of favorite plants to try in your garden. “We love baptisia,” says Phillips. “It’s commonly called ‘false indigo’ and has beautiful purple-blue flowers.”
