Growing roses is both an art and a science: as my gardening aunt used to say, ...it's six of one and half a dozen of the other! As a rose grower myself and author of a gardening website, I get many questions about why a certain rose bush has failed or what a person might be doing wrong. Over time, these many mistakes people make, began to fall into five major categories. The five major rose growing mistakes that most people could avoid!  read more »

Trying to list the top 10 best things about summer would be impossible, but fresh basil would certainly make the list. There is no substitute for the aroma and... reBlogged to basil herbs on Aug 18, 2008, 9:01PM...Old Roseshttp://agardeningyear.blogspot.com/

This year, Unilever-owned Ben & Jerry's sponsored a student/green entrepreneur from each of eight European countries in its three-year-old mentoring program called Climate Change College.

CO2 reductions plus behavior change
The sponsorship chose the eight students for their innovative business ideas on climate change reductions - the winning solutions had to not only reduce CO2 but also change behavior. For nine months, students received mentoring on their business plans (worth about $30,000), and in addition, a scientific field trip to the Arctic and approximately $10,000 to launch their selected idea. Ben & Jerry's considers its graduat...  read more »

One plant that fails to get much 'air-time' these days is the dependable hibiscus. Maybe as gardeners we've moved on from these characteristically oversized flowers condemning them to the novices and non-gardeners because they're too easy to grow? Or, perhaps we just found other plants that stole our attention and they've been relegated to the yesteryear plants (aka "Grandma plants"). . . . reBlogged to hibiscus on Aug 18, 2008, 6:48PM...Old Roseshttp://agardeningyear.blogspot.com/

Welcome back to Reads Retreat - our diary blog about growing your / our own veg in Raised Beds. No time to sit and watch the telly here at Reads Retreat, far too much to do in the garden and home! As reported a few days ago, these Turnip seeds that were planted straight into the raised beds last weekend, germinated with just 3 days!  read more »

The ancient kings of Assyria had an interest in collecting animals and plants stretching back at least as far as Tiglath-Pileser I (reigned 1115 - 1076 BCE), who extended the Assyrian empire to the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Sea. He wrote of Cedars and Box I have carried off from the countries I conquered, trees that none of the kings my fore-fathers possessed: these trees I have taken and planted in my own country, in ... Assyria (Penelope Hobhouse, Plants in Garden History ). Four hundred years later, Sargon II (722 705 BCE) laid out parks north of Nineveh, around Khorasabad, where he grew cedars, cypresses, junipers, dates, olives, almonds, apples, pears, quinces, figs, grapes, ebony, oak, terebinth, ash, tamarisk, oriental planes, willows and poplars. A bas relief (c. 715) shows this park to have had a man-made hill planted with a grove of trees, along with a small temple. It is one of the earliest depictions anywhere of a managed landscape. Sargon IIs son Sennacherib (reigned 705 681 BCE) was built his own palace and gardens at Nineveh from around 700. The relief below is a detail from the South-West Palace showing the capture of prisoners at Lachish, a city in the rebel kingdom of Judah. The prisoners are being marched through a rocky landscape of vines, fig trees and possibly olives. Another relief from the palace shows giant reeds (up to 25 feet high) which were introduced from the marshlands of the Tigris and Euphrates to the landscaped parks of the empires northern cities where they provided cover for game as well as building material and fuel. Hobhouse quotes Sennacheribs description of the irrigation system: to dam up the flow of water I made a pond and planted reeds in it... at the command of the gods, the gardens with their vines, fruit, sirdu wood and spices waxed prodigiously. The cypresses, palms and all other trees grew magnificently and budded richly ( The History of Gardening ).  read more »

Welcome back to our plot update here at Reads Retreat - our guide to growing your own veg in Raised Beds. We're both still on cloud 9 on the back of acquiring our own allotment. There's a lot of work in preparation terms, as the site is currently overgrown, but we now have a great opportunity to expand on what we grow. As you can see in this picture, our garden plot is now in full swing, we're still planting as well as tackling the hard landscaping ( laying bricks etc. ) but we'll get to that later.  read more »

Clethra has long been one of my favorite plants. Im a sucker for fragrance and few plants pack more olfactory punch than Summer Sweet ( Clethra alnifolia ). If youre a subscriber to my blog then you know that Ive been breeding shrubs for about eight years now. The first plant introduced out of our breeding program was Summer Wine Ninebark ( Physocarpus opulifolius ).  read more »

The 2008 Summer Gardening Trends Research Report from GWA is now out. A few choice results:

~ On average, consumers are planning to spend about $771 on their yards and gardens this year, where expenditures include making improvements and doing maintenance.

~ Almost half of American households (43%) grow vegetables in their gardens. The top reasons households gave for not growing vegetables in their gardens include:
No time (29%)
No interest (21%)
No space (20%)
Lack of knowledge (8%) and
Not enough sunlight (6%).

~This year, about two out of five (39%) consumers say that they participate in container gardening. This is down from 47% last year.

I picked these three out as the most surprising. I think the $771 is very low as it includes lawn maintenance. Just paying a weekly lawn mow would account for that amount. Are people including their water bill? Mulch? Leaf bags? Heck, if you are DIY, one lawnmower blade sharpening per year and the gas/electricity will still set you back for a good chunk of that.  read more »