In depth gardening advice from an expert gardener
One of my faithful readers, Stephanie, and her husband are getting excited about Christmas. Here are three questions she had about Christmas flowers and plants.
1. Are there any pretty Christmas/winter plants for the outside?
2. Besides the Christmas tree and the poinsettia, are there any other nice indoor Christmas plants?
3. Do you happen to know which types of Christmas trees tend to have the longest lives?
Here are my answers.
The Garden Lady has received a request to speak about a different plant each week. Life is filled with such wonderful things happening, I don’t know if I can find the time to write about a different plant every week; but I will certainly try.
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The first plant I want to speak about is the Poinsettia.
 
Cindy sent me the following question about acidic soil.Â
I found your site searching for “acidic soil” because I think my soil might be too acidic and wanted to know how to find out and what to do about it. In general I’m just trying to figure out how to tell whether soil is good soil or bad soil. Are there easy tests that I can run on the soil in my backyard to know whether the soil is good or whether it needs to be supplemented in some way?
Keep on reading to see my answer.
I received two more questions from Joe, one about mowing leaves and the other about chrysanthemums.
Here are the two questions and my answers.
Continue reading “Gardening in the Fall: Two questions from Joe”
Abby sent me these questions about growing herbs indoors.Â
I’m wondering about tips for an indoor herb garden. How much light is required? Which types of herbs are easiest to grow? How often do the herbs need to be watered? And most importantly, do I need to worry about my cats eating them?
Here are some tips about growing herbs indoors.
The Garden Lady has received some more questions from different people. Below are the questions and my replies. Â
Here is another question from Stephanie.
Do you have any suggestions for rarely used plant names that would be good names for a baby, names besides Violet, Lilly, Rose, etc.?
Here are my thoughts on this question.
The following question was sent to me by David:
Are there any plants that are especially healthy to eat? The reason I ask is that I am coping with a lifelong manageable disease and have been told that one of the keys to managing the disease is my diet. I’m supposed to avoid processed foods and stick with natural foods. I eat a lot of garlic and also honey, but I was wondering if there are any other plants that are known to be especially healthy?
Here is my reply.
Today TheGardenLady.org received this question from Stephanie:
I was wondering what the latest time of year in the Mid-Atlantic region that you should plant shrubs and bushes.Â
Before I answer Stephanie’s specific question, I want to tell both Stephanie and all my readers about one of the best, if not the best, gardening resource to go to or to call with any and all questions related to gardening. This is the organization called the Master Gardeners.Â
Continue reading “The latest time of year to plant shrubs and bushes in the Mid-Atlantic”
A person by the name of Ryan emailed me today and asked the following question: “I want to grow plants in my dorm room at college and was wondering whether you recommend any type of plant and whether I need to take any special precautions.”
Below are some of my thoughts on the topic –