Repelling Mosquitoes

The warm weather not only brings rich beautiful color to your home and landscape, it also brings one of the most dreaded insects – mosquitoes.  You may be interested to know that there are a few types of plants that can help keep the suckers (pun intended) to a minimum.

Many plants used to repel mosquitoes are quite common and include basil, rosemary, catnip, lemongrass, marigolds, garlic, clove, tea tree, lavender, etc.  It’s important to know that, depending on the plant, just standing near it may not be enough to stop you swatting at your legs.

Other ways to keep the population of mosquitoes down in your yard is to reduce their breeding ground – standing water.  Keep your grass and weeds cuts around your home as mosquitoes enjoy hanging out in high grassy places and remember they don’t like strong wind currents, so standing near a fan can keep them away.  If all else fails and you don’t want to cover yourself in bug spray to enjoy an evening outdoors, simply purchase a few outdoor citronella candles!

Thriller, Filler, Spiller

If you take a stroll through Hyams, you’re sure to find attractive pot-ups ready for purchase!  You just can’t help but notice them!  But what happens when you want to try and make one of your own at home?  How do you go about the process and what plants do you use?  Simply, these three components: the thriller, the filler and the spiller.

As the name says, the thriller is to be the star of your pot-up.  Make sure you choose a plant that has eye-catching qualities and that stands pretty much upright.  It’s good to choose your thriller and then work around it with the next two components.

Notice the distinct thriller, fillers, and spiller!

Next, your fillers add mass to the pot-up and generally have a differing texture than the thriller.  Your filler plants should be placed around the “bare knees” of the thriller while driving attractive appeal to your overall composition.

Last, the spiller is meant to sprawl over the side of the container to soften the edges.  Often, it can give your pot-up an interesting appeal when the spillers actually touch the ground … as if they are rooted in place.  Just like with your filler, adding differing textures, shapes and colors for your spillers can add to the overall appeal of your pot-up.

To learn more about pot-ups and how you can create one at home, visit the Hyams Bedding area and speak with our talented staff!

Discovering Wild Blackberries

For a child, or even a hungry adult, finding wild blackberries can be like discovering a hidden treasure!  The common wild blackberry is tall and thorny with a 5-petal white sweet-smelling bloom.  They flower in early spring with the ever-so-tasty fruit coming in the late spring to early summer.

You may wonder how blackberries seem to pop up everywhere.  Blackberries, and other wild berries such as raspberries, dew berries, etc, can have many seeds within one fruit.  When birds eat these berries and then drop seeds and the conditions are right, out sprouts a new crop of berries.

If you decide to go hunting for blackberries, try looking along the roadside (using caution in heavy traffic areas), in thickets, bushes, crawling the ground, fields, or hills.  Blackberries can grow in many locations so take some time to have an adventure … and a free healthy snack!

If you want to plant your own blackberry bush, visit our Nursery and speak with our knowledgeable staff!

Feed Roses Banana Peels!

If you’re trying your hand at organic gardening this spring or just want a good way to recycle your banana peels, try placing them around your rose bushes.  Bananas are a natural source of potassium that can help make roses thrive!

There are a few different ways to add bananas to your roses.   You can dig down about four inches beside your rose bush and place the peels (or the entire banana if you wish, but be sure it is very ripe), bake the banana peels before digging and dropping them in to increase the speed of decomposition, make a banana smoothie by placing old bananas in the freezer and, once frozen, remove the brown tip and place the entire banana into the blender and then spoon the mash in the dug holes around the rose bush, or you can simply place the peels on the surface around the plant (keep in mind they may disappear if you have banana peel loving animals around your home).

Whichever way you decide to go, using bananas with your roses is a great way to help your plants thrive and even revitalize struggling roses!

Benefits of Drip Irrigation

Even though most of us are attached to our sprinklers for providing water to our plants (and summer entertainment for children), it may be hard to hear that using a sprinkler isn’t as efficient as we may think.

These days, the use of drip irrigation is increasing in popularity given its multiple benefits over sprinklers.  Drip irrigation uses a slow and steady water application method, which allows the water to slowly seep into the soil to precise areas.  Generally drip irrigation uses either flexible polyethylene tubing or even a simple PVC pipe with emitters.

Benefits of drip irrigation include, but are not limited to:

• Saving on water due to precise area irrigation
• Less surface water buildup because of slower application
• Fertilizers and other nutrients can be given to plants in precise amounts
• Decrease in weed germination due to less area between plants receiving water
• It is more economical in times of small rainfall amounts

To find out more about the uses & benefits of drip irrigation, talk with our knowledgeable staff!

Weed Control in Flower Beds

It can often be frustrating when you see a new family of weeds beginning to take over your soon-to-be-planted flowerbed.  There are a number of things that can be done to help rid your bed of unwanted occupants.

First, start by spraying all the weeds that are growing in the bed with a good contact weed killer like Round-up of KillsAll. Then wait for the weeds to die. These herbicides work on green plant leaves, so spraying the soil does nothing. Follow the directions on the label for rates, timing, etc..

Next, after waiting for your weeds to die, till your bed thoroughly being sure to dig deep in the soil to find potential weed seeds or roots.  Try not to leave anything behind as weeds can germinate from even a single root.

When your soil is disturbed, as in tilling, you will bring a whole new crop of weed seeds up to germinate. After planting, a good pre-emergent herbicide can be applied that will help stop weed seeds from germinating. Lastly and most importantly, a 2-3” layer of mulch should be put over the exposed soil. Most weed seeds need sunlight to germinate, so the mulch helps block out the light. There are weeds that will come up through anything. Being persistent with spot spraying with a contact herbicide will help keep weeds under control.

You can also try laying down a layer of black weed fabric under your mulch or pine strawto keep them at bay.  You can even try placing a five-sheet thick layer of newspaper on top of your topsoil and wetting it thoroughly before adding your mulch.  Mulching is also a great way to keep down the weed population in your beds as well as giving them a great finished look (check out our blog post on Mulching)!

Last, but certainly one of the most important techniques in weeding, if you see a weed popping up in your beds, remove it immediately!

For more info and ideas on helping to control the weed population in your landscape and flowerbeds, visit the Hyams Garden Store and talk with our Plant Doctor!

Gardening for Beginners

Everyone has to start somewhere when deciding to get down in the dirt with plants!  Here are a few tool basics for beginners to get the new gardener started.

The first step to proper gardening will be to acquire the essential tools.  Keep in mind that gardening tools come in many shapes and sizes and can be used for various tasks.  To keep it simple, we’ll focus on the small handheld tools useful for flower gardens.

The first on your garden belt should be a trowel – a mini shovel. A trowel is excellent for digging in the ground, moving soil around, mixing soil, wedding, planting, etc!  A garden hoe is the next tool on the list.  The hoe is a multipurpose tool that works to loosen soil, great for weeding, breaking up hard soil, and removing rocks.  The next tool needed is the garden shears. This tool is mainly used for pruning, trimming and removing dead leaves or flowers.

No gardener is complete without a pair of reliable gardening gloves and a watering can!  If you plan on working with plants that have thorns, it would be useful to purchase gloves with a thick rubber coating on the palm side to avoid those nasty pokes! Mud is an excellent brand of gloves that are durable, reliable and fit for every gardener’s need!

Check out the Hyams Garden Store for your gardening essentials and talk with our knowledgeable staff for more info on gardening for beginners!