Gardening And More

Mother’s Day Sale & April Newsletter Hibiscus and More would like to honor all the gardening mother’s that have visited the web site throughout the years. We would like to thank each and every visitor with my Mother’s Day sale. This year’s Mother’s Day Sale is dedicated to my mother, June Meola, who taught me the passion and love of gardening. My mother is one of the reasons we started the web site: Hibiscus and More because I wanted to share my passion in gardening and growing plants to a larger audience, the World Wide Web. The goal of Hibiscus and More is to provide honest and up to date gardening advice, and to provide high quality plants and gardening merchandise at a reasonable price. Spring Chores For April and May: We have had an unusual hard, cold winter this year, and spring is a little late. We have had a few reports that numerous plants are about a month behind in th...

January Gardening Calendar Bare Root Roses will be arriving soon at local garden centers. Prepare planting beds by digging an area 4 feet wide by 12 inches deep for each rose. Soak bare root roses in a mixture of SuperThrive and water for 24 to 48 hours before planting. For more information on Rose Care Click Here. Poinsettias water only when the soil is dry to the touch. Start fertilizing in March. Poinsettias need bright light and cool temperatures even indoors. Deciduous Trees and Shrubs the structure of the trees can be easily seen this time of year. Prune all branches that rub or cross each other. Trees and shrubs can be planted now. Plan to plant on a warm day when the ground is not frozen. When the weather warms for a week or longer, and then the temperatures drop into the twenties, cover Camellias and Gardenias nightly until the temperatures are above freezing. The last week in January prune Pear and Apple trees, and Grape vines. Vegetable Garden till the...

August Gardening Calendar Prune Tropical Hibiscus you plan to bring indoors for the winter. Plan to place your plant in the sunniest window during the winter months. Trim back enough to fit your location indoors and bring your Hibiscus inside around December or before first frost. After pruning check your Hibiscus for insects and spray with appropriate insecticide. Now is a good time to fertilize your Hibiscus. Hibiscuses are heavy feeders and should be fertilized monthly.  Remove faded blooms and seedpods on your Crepe Myrtles. You may be rewarded with more blooms before first frost. The recommended fertilizer formulation for Crepe Myrtles is 10-15-9 or a similar combination. Don’t forget to fertilize your Crepe Myrtles. Roses prune out dead canes, and weak, bushy growth. Cut back tall, vigorous bushes by 1/3 the original plant height. Fertilize roses on a monthly basis until October. After pruning you should see new blooms coming in about 6 weeks. Azalea...

Planting Container Gardens and Color Bowls This year let’s start a new gardening project to renovate your landscape, patio, deck, or balcony with container gardens and color bowls. Container gardens and color bowls can be easily made by the gardener. The containers and bowls can be made of ceramic, clay, cedar, or wood, and come in a variety of sizes, colors, and shapes. Container gardens and color bowls are planted with a gardening theme or style such as: shade tolerant plants, sun tolerant plants, plants with bold colors, heat tolerant plants, drought tolerant plants, herb plants, vegetable plants, butterfly plants, hummingbird plants, just to name a few container garden themes; or you can have a combination gardening theme such as herbs and vegetables, butterfly and hummingbird plants. Before we start our gardening, project here are a few components to take into consideration such as location, container size, and soils to use. Location(s): To start you need ...

Pollinators For Fruit Trees and Berries Most fruit trees require pollination and chilling temperatures from November to mid-February to break dormancy in the spring. Pollination is the process of pollen from one flower being transferred to another flower, required by certain plants and trees. The process of pollination can be by insects, animals, wind, or humans.   Fruit trees need pollination for good fruit set, which occurs when a recommended fruit tree, (pollinator) is planted nearby. A pollinator can be describe as a tree or shrub that produces flowers at the same time and needs to be a different variety or cultivar, but of the same fruit. For example, apples pollinate other apple trees. For good pollination, the recommended spacing is 50 to 75 feet apart. When a fruit tree or berry plant is described as self-pollinating, the tree or berry plant is pollinated by their own flowers, but it is recommended to plant more than one for better fruit set. A plant or...

Planting and Growing Tomato Plants As the weather warms, we gardeners start thinking about gardening again. With this in mind I would like to mention the wonderful benefits of growing tomatoes. Home-grown tomatoes have a richer, fuller, and better taste than store bought since you pick them yourself. Home-grown tomatoes are easy and inexpensive to grow as well. Growing tomatoes has a lot of appeal: it can involve the entire family from the little ones to the teens. As well as being an educational tool, the time the family spends in the garden is quality time spent together and can give one a sense of pride. For gardener’s who live in a condo, apartment, or townhome tomatoes can be grown in a container. Choosing a Location: Choose an area that gets 5 - 6 hours of full sun; and if, you have an area that receives more than 6 hours of sunlight that’s all right, too. Choosing a Container(s) : Pick a container that is 14 inches or larger, and I would like to ...