October – Preparing for Winter

Seasonal Tips, Older Entries, Uncategorized

Winterize Your Plants!

Prepare your garden for cold weather to come by winterizing plants. Many of your prized garden stars survive winter without extra care on your part, but taking time to winterize paves the way for a healthy, productive garden next spring. For tender plants and new additions to the garden, winterizing is vital for cold weather survival.

Start the winterizing process by mulching around landscape plants. Mulch helps insulate soil and prevent frost heave, a condition that occurs when soil repeatedly freezes and thaws—and pushes plants out of soil. When frost heave occurs, plant crowns and roots are exposed to freezing air and drying winds.

When you add fall mulch, aim for a layer that’s 3 to 5 inches deep (deeper in colder regions). Use a material that won’t compact, like straw, chopped leaves or cornstalks, pine straw or clean hay. It’s especially important to mulch shallow-rooted perennials that are prone to frost heave, like blanket flower (Gaillardia), coral bells (Heuchera), pincushion flower (Scabiosa) and shasta daisy (Leucanthemum).

Courtesy HGTV Online Read More

Questions about Winterizing? Take advantage of our knowledgeable horticulturist & owner, Jason. He is here to help Visit the Heritage Hill Nursery and garden center now! We are conveniently located, close to Cedarburg, Jackson, West Bend, Slinger, WI.

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Wisconsin September Gardening Tips

Seasonal Tips, Older Entries, Perennials - Care, Planting

Fall … a Good time to Plant!

Come autumn, many of us gardeners are tired and worn out, and welcome winter’s respite from watering and weeding. But experience nags us to plan ahead for something to welcome the coming spring with perky flowers that save us from the winter blues sure to come.

It’s easy enough to push a few early-blooming bulbs into the ground or in pots on the patio. Nothing soothes cabin fever like crocus and snowdrops peeping through the snow, a cheery potful of tulips, a tucked-in clump of Scilla, or a drift of muscari and daffodils. Even a vase of fragrant paperwhites forced in gravel and water on the kitchen counter can get our juices going again.

And of course there are some great cold-weather annuals, from faithful pansies, violas and wall flowers, to the intensely colorful foliage and spring flower spikes of kale. In a pinch, these can be reliable in themselves, or used to fill gaps between newly planted perennials which may not be as full the first season.

But to get the most bang for your efforts, choose and plant hardy, long-lived spring-blooming perennials to get a head start and something to look forward to for years without the annual fuss of replanting.

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Courtesy HGTV Outdoors More

Questions about planting, feeding and watering? Take advantage of our knowledgeable horticulturist & owner, Jason. He is here to help you make good decisions on what will work best and how to properly tend to your new plantings. Visit the Heritage Hill Nursery and garden center now! We are conveniently located, close to Cedarburg, Jackson, West Bend, Slinger, WI.

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August Tips for Wisconsin Gardeners!

Older Entries, Perennials - Care, Planting, Seasonal Tips

Savor Summer Color in the Midwest
August Garden Tips

Stock your patio and garden with plants that continue to flower as the temperature soars.

Annuals: Heat-lovers include verbena, Diamond Frost Euphorbia, Portulaca, and zinnia.
Tropicals: Mandevilla, brugmansia, hibiscus, and glory bower thrive on heat. In containers, increase flower number by feeding plants liquid bloom-booster fertilizer every 10-14 days.
Perennials: Black-eyed susan, coneflower, Shasta daisy, and bee balm all stage a stunning summer show.
Test Garden Tip: Deadheading is the process of removing faded flowers. This action encourages the formation of future blooms.

Container plantings can need watering as often as twice a day in hot, windy weather.

Mulch Matters — You may need to replenish mulches, especially those that break down quickly, such as straw or grass clippings. Mulches should be 1-3 inches.

Whack Your Weeds — Time weeding for after a good rain. Weeds come out easier and with more of the root.

Deadheading 101 — Keep deadheading! For the most flowers and tidiest garden, deadhead daily. Deadheading 101

Keep an eye out for aphids and spider mites. Treat with insecticidal soap. Spider mites, which also thrive in dry weather, can be treated with pyrethrums, an extract from mums.

Mulch Matters

Check our Seasonal Tips blog for all kinds of helpful information to keep your yard and garden looking simply beautiful!

Courtesy Better Homes & Gardens Online More

Questions about planting, feeding and watering? Take advantage of our knowledgeable horticulturist & owner, Jason. He is here to help you make good decisions on what will work best and how to properly tend to your new plantings. Visit the Heritage Hill Nursery and garden center now! We are conveniently located, close to Cedarburg, Jackson, West Bend, Slinger, WI.

Don’t forget! Take advantage of our
August Special Offer.

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July Tips for Wisconsin Gardeners

Perennials - Care, Planting, Older Entries, Seasonal Tips

July – Perennial Garden Ideas

By Steven A. Frowine, The National Gardening Association

Perennials return each year to provide splashes of color and texture to garden beds and borders. Here are some basic garden layout tips and techniques used by professional garden designers that you can easily apply in your own garden.

The most common way to display perennials is together, in a large flowerbed or, space permitting, a long border of either meandering form or with firm boundaries. These methods of growing perennials are purely practical: You can prepare the soil, plant them together, and care for them.

Plan to be in scale: Some sense of proportion between your home, garage, and/or shed (whatever’s nearest to the proposed perennial garden) is key. A big house, for instance, does best with wider beds and taller plants; a smaller one is better served by a series of smaller beds and lower-growing plants.
Match garden style with structures: A casual bungalow, cottage, or one-level home likes an informal perennial garden, with wavy-edged boundaries; a larger or more imposing home, or one with strong architectural elements and lines, needs a more formal, straighter-edged approach.

June Gardening Tips

Uncategorized, Older Entries, Seasonal Tips, Trees - Planting & Care

All About Serviceberries

Planting and growing the Serviceberry is relatively easy, as the most that it will demand is regular watering and a good supply of mulch. The tree lasts for many years, and encourages insects into the garden, helping pollinate fruits and difficult flowers. During the summer, it is an attractive addition to any garden.

Planting Serviceberry Trees

Serviceberries prefer the full sun, although they can adapt to living in areas with a partial shade; choose an area that is protected from winds and other severe climates. Choose a soil that is moist and well-drained.

Serviceberry trees can be bought from local garden centers; they will either be potted in containers or wrapped in polyester bags. If the tree is potted, lay it on the soil and roll from side to side to loosen it. Once the pot is loose, the serviceberry tree can be gently eased from the pot. If they are wrapped in a bag, use scissors or shears to remove wire or twine from around the plant, and cut away the plastic-use secateurs to trim away dead or over-large roots.

Courtesy of Do it Yourself Website

Read More Planting & Growing the Serviceberry Tree

Small Space Gardening

You can still be a gardener even if you have a tiny yard, or no yard at all. Use plants to make small spaces come alive. Even if you have no outdoor space for gardening, it’s possible to grow beautiful plants. Use all your indoor and outdoor spaces. You may think you don’t have room to spare, but you do.

Utilizing Limited Outdoor Space

When you have a limited amount of space, you might be afraid to do much gardening. You don’t want to clutter up your space or eliminate much-needed room. With a few DIY tricks, make your outdoor garden functional as well as beautiful so it will work in those limited areas.

Courtesy of Do it Yourself Website

For more information on small space gardening Read More Here

May Gardening Tips for Wisconsin Gardeners

Seasonal Tips, Older Entries, Perennials - Care, Planting

Keep Perennials Healthy by Dividing

May brings May flowers and everything else green and growing.

However, no matter how warm gets now, early May is still too soon to plant most annual flowers such as impatiens, begonias, coleus, marigolds and so on. Most perennials, on the other hand, can be planted immediately. And it may be a good time to divide your perennials too.

Early spring is an ideal time to divide summer- and fall-flowering perennials. Try to tackle the task before plants reach 6 inches tall. Don’t forget to water newly transplanted divisions.

Not sure if you need to divide? Ask yourself these questions:

1) Are clumps too big and crowding other plants?

2) Has flowering been reduced during the last growing season(s)?

3) Does new growth ring a dead spot in the middle?

4) Do you want more starts of that perennial?

Above information courtesy Better Homes & Gardens