Gardening And More

 Hi Follow bloggers and readers. Cheryl Ann Meola is introducing where you can purchase her photography to use for stock. Brighten up your article with her colorful plant images. Here is the link to view:   Cheryl's stock images Just one example of the many images available as stock.

January Gardening Calendar Start planning for Spring. January is the perfect month to start planning your garden for the current year. As a refresher for last year’s thoughts, ideas or plants you were thinking about purchasing, dust off your gardening journal to see what changes or additions you want to make this year. A garden is always evolving. Start looking at seed and garden catalogs. January is a good time to start planning this year’s design features and plants. Seeds and new introduction plants sell out quickly. Don’t miss out and wait, try to order your seeds or reserve your plants soon. Reserving your plant purchase guarantees the plant will ship at the proper time for planting in your USDA zone. Seed starting Kits. Growers recommend starting the seeds indoors in a bright location to get a jump start to spring. There are seed starting kits which are advertised as seed starter germination kit or seed starter greenhouse kit. The kits usually feature a tray, growing med...

  In March the weather teases gardeners into believing spring is almost around the corner, with lots of continuous sunny and warm days. During this time of year, the weather is very unpredictable for planning and the weather is like a roller coaster, one day it’s nice and sunny, then the next day it’s cold and rainy.   As gardeners we get antsy, we want to get out in our garden and play in the dirt. But we know better, the last average frost date is still a month or two months away, depending on your gardening zone. This is when we can start planning for this year’s spring garden. Spring is a good time to check out new gardening books. There are two gardening books I would like to recommend  Southeast Style Gardening and Gardening for the Butterflies   and the books are on sale on Amazon. Here are the links: Southeast Style Gardening and Gardening for the Butterflies. The books can help you plan your garden for spring. March Gardening Chores As we patiently wait...

January Gardening Calendar Basil Start planning for Spring. January is the perfect month to start planning your garden for the current year. As a refresher for last year’s thoughts, ideas or plants you were thinking about purchasing, dust off your gardening journal to see what changes or additions you wanted to make this year. A garden is always evolving. Start looking at seed and garden catalogs. January is a good time to start planning this year’s design features and plants. Seeds and new introduction plants sell out quickly. Don’t miss out and wait, try to order your seeds or reserve your plants soon. Reserving your plant purchase guarantees the plant will ship at the proper time for planting in your USDA zone. Seed starting Kits. Growers recommend starting the seeds indoors in a bright location to get a jump start to spring. There are seed starting kits which are advertised as seed starter germination kit or seed starter greenhouse kit. The kits usually feature a tray, growi...

  November Gardening Calendar Blow or rake fallen leaves from lawn areas. The leaves left on the lawn block the sunlight to your grass and will create bare spots. Don’t forget to compost the leaves. Spray each layer with water. Need a composter? There are several composters on the market today, but deciding which one to buy may be confusing to some. Composters are designed for gardeners and homeowners  with several designs to choose  from. Some are designed to be mobile and when the compost is ready the gardener can take the composter to the area where it is going to be used. Other composters are deigned to be stationary. When deciding on a composter think about what you want the composter to do for you. For my information on composting Click Here. Plant spring-flowering bulbs now and add bone meal to the planting hole. Depending on how south you garden in some spring bulbs can be planted in December. The key to planting spring flowering bulbs is the ground needs to b...

 Hello Gardeners, Recently, Cheryl decided to display her botanical images featured on this blog to a stock photography website. Do you need botanical stock images? Click here:  Stock Images   Do you know someone who needs stock images for work? Click Here:  Stock Images Please share this post with other media platforms to help me spread the word about my photography. Thank you. Snapdragon  

February Gardening Calendar Trees and Shrubs  can be planted now. This is the best time to plant Nut Trees, Fruit Trees, and Shade Trees. Applying SuperThrive instead of a root stimulator to get your newly planted trees and shrubs established much faster. In the fall and winter months water trees and shrubs twice a week, then in spring and summer water three times a week for the first year.   Prune Apple and Pear trees the first week in February, wait until mid-March for Peach trees. Remove stakes, trunk wraps, and guy wires from trees planted last fall. Prune back ¼ of the branches on Figs. Save the horizontal branches, these are the branches that produce fruit. Is your Burford Holly overgrown? Now is a good time to severely prune back. Burford Hollies can be prune back to 12 to 18 inches. Butterfly bushes can be pruned back by ½ the original height. You will be rewarded with bigger blooms this summer. Perennials  trim back all the brown, and if necessary, this mont...