Exciting additions at Greenhouse Garden Center & Gift Shop
A full service florist. Call Joni at 229-7040 and look for her by the door to the Gift Shop.

20 more parking spaces when you drive in by the American Flag.

Hummingbird gardens must offer not only the nectar-filled flowers but also must be a habitat that supports their lifestyle. These little birds need both sun and shade, shrubs and tree branches for perching, fresh water for not only drinking but for bathing, too. Oh yes, and they will need materials for nest-making, such as spider webs, dryer lint, or bits of leaves.

These delicate birds spend lots of energy flying, so it comes as no surprise that they feed many times each hour (3-5 times). While your flowers are blooming, there is nectar for them to sip, but once you have offered them a flower food source, you can also place hummingbird feeders in prominent locations to feed them too. Hummingbird feeders supplement the flower nectar, especially when flowers are few. Hang them from tree branches or a carefully placed shepherd's hook, high enough to keep the hummingbird safe from the neighborhood cats.

If you decide to have a few hummingbird feeders, use our prepackaged Hummingbird nectar or a mixture of 4 parts water:1 part sugar for the nectar (no food coloring please!). Clean the feeders every week, as molds can grow in the sugar water. Most feeders are red with some yellow too, just a couple of the hummer’s favorite colors!

We mentioned having a water source for the hummingbird. They love quiet moving water, such as a bubbling fountain. Like the songbirds that will frequent this fountain of water, so will the hummer come and perch for a bath or drink. This is an absolutely delightful sight to see!

Hummingbirds love tubular shaped flowers, although that shape is not absolutely required. Fragrance is not important to them, but vivid colors of red, purple, pink, orange and yellow will attract them to your garden. We have a large selection of flowering annuals and perennials that will attract hummingbirds into your gardens.

Pick a location in your landscape for the hummingbird garden. Maybe it will be a small garden or perhaps it will encompass all of your garden beds. Amend the soil with Bumper Crop Organic Soil Amendment before planting. Feed your new hummingbird favorite plants with Dr. Earth All Purpose Plant Food to keep those flowers coming!

Just a hummingbird safety note: Please be careful about your use of pesticides with the plants in your hummingbird garden. Just as care must be taken to save beneficial insects, the same is true of the hummingbirds (and other birds) that you have attracted. If they drink nectar with pesticide or eat an insect that has eaten or been sprayed with a pesticide, you will bring harm also to the hummingbird (and other birds in the garden).

We can’t wait to see you. We’ll meet you in our gardens. Below is a beginning list of flowering plants, but don’t hesitate to ask one of our salespeople for more help getting you started.

Click here for a list of Hummingbird-Friendly Garden Plants which we carry.

Many home gardeners grow tomatoes, peas and string beans vertically on trellises, but few realize you can grow other vegetables vertically. Many space-challenged gardeners opt out on growing squashes and melons because they take up so much room in the garden. That's a shame, since these are some of the most rewarding summer crops to grow.

The best part of growing squashes and melons vertically is that you will have room for more tasty varieties. The key is to make sure you have (or build) a sturdy support structure for these babies--no string trellises here. Firmly attach a wood or metal trellis to your fence or individual posts. You can even use a strong garden arbor.

Squash and melons grow fast, so a couple of plants will cover a trellis in no time. For an arbor, select four different varieties and anchor two on each side. This unique growing method will also add visual appeal to your garden. Just imagine an arbor covered with dozens of vibrant squash or fragrant melons hanging like ornaments.

This growing method will also encourage you to harvest more frequently, before your squash get too large and tough-fleshed. Besides saving space, growing vegetables vertically will also expose them to more sunlight, allowing for more even ripening. It also increases the air circulation around the foliage and fruit so your plants will be less troubled by mildew and other diseases. And, since your fruit is now off of the ground, it will be less susceptible to rotting.

We have many shapes and sizes of trellises available, as well as different styles of arbors for any garden setting. So when you plan your vegetable garden this year, go vertical!

Peppers (Capiscum frutescens) are in the same group as the potato and tomato family (Solanaceae) which is also called Nightshade. The pepper is another one of our favorite vegetables that are natives of South America. It has been a part of the human diet in the Americas for thousands of years.

A bushy annual, the plant grows to from 1-4 feet tall and likes full sun but will tolerate part shade too. Regular water is necessary, along with a long, warm growing season to produce the most fruit. If your growing season is cool or short, try techniques that will increase the warmth around your plants such as clear plastic mulch. Steve Goto of Goto Nursery (heirloom tomatoes and peppers) recommends mixing an acid plant (azalea, camellia, gardenia) planting mix with your native soil at planting time.

There are so many kinds of peppers--what is your fancy? They range from the classic bell peppers that can be green, red, yellow, orange or buff to Hot Hot Hot!

There are peppers for salads, peppers for stuffing, peppers for spices, peppers for pickling…on and on and on.

Hotness scales related to peppers reveal the amount of capsaicin, which is the source of that hotness, and truly can be scientifically measured. Bell peppers are rated at 0 SHU (SHU=measure of hotness), green chilies are 1500 SHU, jalapenos 3000-6000SHU and habaneros 300000 SHU. How could one even chew one tidbit of something that hot!! Great care must be taken when trying out a new, hot chile pepper.

FYI, the camp song above is referring to Pepper Pot Soup. There are many variations on this recipe theme. Here’s one to try with your home grown peppers!

The Caribbean
• Pepper Pot
• 2 chickens, cut up in pieces (2-1/2 pounds each)
• 1 pig's foot
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 3 pounds pork tenderloin, cut into bite-size pieces
• 1/2 cup cassareep*
• 1 lg. onion, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 chile peppers, seeded, diced
• 1 2-inch piece stick cinnamon
• 4 whole cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Place the chicken pieces and pig's foot in a large stew pot and pour water in to cover. Add salt. Bring to a boil and skim scum. Cover partially and simmer for 1 hour.

Remove as much fat as possible from surface of water. Add pork, cassareep, onion, brown sugar, chiles, cinnamon, cloves, and thyme. Bring to a boil and simmer, partially covered, for another hour. Remove the cloves and cinnamon and discard. Stir in the vinegar.

*Used primarily in West Indian cookery, cassareep is a bittersweet condiment made by cooking the juice of bitter cassava with brown sugar and spices until it reduces to a syrup. Bottled cassareep can be found in Caribbean markets.

As homes continue to be built larger and garden space becomes smaller, fewer homeowners have the space to plant as many fruit trees. But that doesn't mean you have to go without the fresh taste of homegrown fruit. All you have to do is incorporate the principles of Backyard Orchard Culture.

The objective behind this gardening concept is to allow for a prolonged harvest of tree-ripe fruit from a small space. This can be accomplished by planting multi-grafted fruit trees, planting two or more trees with different ripening dates in the same hole, or by espaliering fruit trees along a sunny house wall or fence line.

By using multi-graft trees or planting more trees in one hole, a homeowner can now extend a 3-4 week harvest season into 10-12 weeks of different flavors. Planting or creating espaliers along a fence line can also free up valuable garden space for more fruit trees or other ornamental plants.

Close planting also offers the additional benefit of restricting a tree's vigor, because it has to compete for root space and sunlight with other nearby trees. More of the tree's energy will go towards producing fruit instead of sending out new growth. Close planting also can create an environment for better cross-pollination, which also leads to increased fruit production.

Most types of fruit trees need to be pruned each year to stimulate new fruiting wood, remove dead and diseased branches, or to allow more sunlight between the branches to help fruit ripen better and more evenly. If you start pruning consistently when your trees are young, it will be much easier to keep the tree at a manageable or desirable height.

At the heart of Backyard Orchard Culture is the concept of summer pruning. By pruning at the same time you are thinning your crops, you will be better able to distinguish the kind of wood on which the tree sets fruit. You won't accidentally prune off any fruit because you can see it, and the new growth is always above or beyond the fruit.

Reducing the size of the tree canopy will in turn reduce the photosynthesis (food manufacture) of the tree. This helps to limit the amount of food materials and energy available for the roots to store, which in turn will control the tree's capability to produce as much new growth the rest of summer or the following spring.

Pruning for size control in the summer will reduce your pruning chores in winter. Once the leaves fall off, you will have a better opportunity to prune for branch spacing and overall shaping of your trees. To create an espalier tree, simply prune off anything that doesn't grow flat. Then selectively thin and train what's left to space the fruiting wood. You can espalier most fruit trees, but apples and pears lend themselves to this type of pruning better than other varieties.

Smaller fruit trees can be much more manageable to spray, prune, and harvest than large trees. So, take a new look at your garden and you might be surprised at the possibilities you have for growing fruit trees. Then close your eyes and think about how great the fruit from those trees will taste!

Most species are hardy down to climate zone 4, and perform well in full sun to partial shade locations. They require very little attention maintenance-wise (a light trim each spring) but their beauty in the garden will gain your constant attention. Most of the varieties listed below bloom from early spring through the end of summer.

The taller varieties mix well with other perennials in a flower bed while the lower growing varieties look great in borders or in between larger plants. They prefer regular watering as long as they have good drainage, and require only an occasional feeding.

We have a great selection of Cranesbills throughout the growing season and invite you to stop by and visit us while we have the greatest selection.

"That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet"

William Shakespeare

The presence of roses in gardens transcends time. Roses have always been, are today, and will forever be, not only a plant member of our gardens, but most often the featured plant in our gardens. And this happens simply by default, because nothing has as great a floral color impact in your garden as a rose.

Humans have an ongoing love affair with roses. And to that end, we have created many different garden designs, most of which leave space for the rose. Whatever your garden style, a rose is a welcome addition.

Roses in English gardens are tucked in with lavender, foxglove, daisies, and delphinium. They appear in wildflower gardens with poppies, forget-me-not, love-in-a-mist and clarkias; they stand in rows in formal rose gardens and gather in circles in the informal rose garden, and please believe us, they are in vegetable gardens too. Roses are planted en masse as a flowering hedge, roses are planted in commercial settings, roses are in our cemeteries, and roses are growing in the wild. We think you may be getting the picture.

There are thousands of different roses, wild or species, hybrids, old roses and modern roses. There are China roses, Gallica roses, Damask roses, moss roses, Bourbon roses, hybrid perpetual roses, rugosa roses, macranth roses, ramblers, and polyanthas. And we haven't even begun to talk about the roses in our garden center!

We welcome you to join us in the garden center for a stroll through the roses. Don’t forget to leave a few spaces in your garden for your favorite ones.

How can I get my flowers to bloom more?

Answer:
Most flowers and flowering plants need three essential ingredients to bloom: sunlight, nutrients, and warm soil. Even shade plants like azaleas and camellias need some sunlight in order to bloom. If your flowers are sun lovers, make sure they get at least five hours of sunlight per day--the more sunlight the better.

Key nutrients for blooming plants are phosphorus and potash. While most plants need some nitrogen to help them grow and stay green, too much can focus the plant on growing instead of blooming. Nitrogen is also more readily available in the soil and more easily taken up by the plant.

Feed flowering plants with a high phosphorus and potash but low nitrogen flower food. If that still doesn't work, starve them of nitrogen by feeding it with a 0-10-10 fertilizer.

Finally, make sure you don't water your plants too often. Allow the soil to dry out some between waterings, thus allowing the soil to warm up. If you water too much, the plants will often produce excessive fleshy growth and no blooms.

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