Have some fun learning about Charlie's summer hat collection with stories about where they are from and why he likes them. stay cool and protected this summer. Wear a hat! Excerpted from Connecticut Public TV's New England Gardening with Charlie Nardozzi...
Learn about the various types of herbaceous peonies that you can grow including information on diseases, ants on the peony flowers, dividing and moving peonies, supporting the heavy blossoms and the seed pods. Learn more about peonies here.
All earthworms are considered non-native in the United States. The European earthworm or night crawler came with the colonists hundreds of years ago. The newest arrival is the Asian jumping or snake worm. The Asian jumping worm has spread across the north and Southeast of the United states and can also be found in the Midwest and some states in the Northwest. The concern is the Asian jumping worm has a bigger appetite compared to the European earthworm. It devours organic materials faster and can strip the forest floor of healthy soil and...
Bio Charlie Nardozzi is a nationally recognized garden writer, speaker, radio, and television personality. He has worked for more than 20 years bringing expert gardening information to home gardeners through radio, television, talks, on-line, and the printed page. Charlie delights in making gardening information simple, easy, fun and accessible to everyone. His energy, exuberance, and love of the natural world also make him an exciting public speaker and presenter. He has spoken at national venues such as the Northwest Flower Show,...
Scotland Garden Tour, Hardy Geraniums, Storage Tomatoes and Pruning Blueberries As the calendar turns to April, the activity ramps up in our zone 5 garden. A late snowstorm last week didn't deter me from starting more seeds indoors and getting plants ready for spring. In this newsletter I'll be talking about hardy geraniums (one of my favorite, low maintenance perennials), some cool varieties of tomatoes that last months after harvest fresh and pruning blueberries. Before we jump into all the gardening how-tos, I want to let...
Raised Beds and Succession Planting, Reblooming Iris, Spring Weeding, and Witchhazel It's April and I hope I don't get fooled by it. The weather has shifted with temperatures predicted to stay in the 50Fs during the day and 30Fs at night. I won't get seduced, though, because I know things can chnage quickly in our zone 5 garden, with even snow still a possibility. For now, we're enjoying the early spring bulbs blooming along with hellebores and witchhazel. Regardless of the weather, now is a good time to start building raised...
Lovely Lavender, Unusual Beans, Classic Clethra and Squash Bugs It always surprises me how quickly things can shift in our garden. Our blueberries suddenly are almost finished, the echinacea are showing signs of moving on and the hardy hibiscus that were small plants seemingly days ago are ready to start flowering. Summer moves fast in our zone 5, Vermont garden so I appreciate watching every stage as it happens. One multifaceted plant that's in its glory is lavender. We grow the English and hybrid lavender varieties such as...
Hardy Hibiscus, Kooky Squash, Stunning Astilbe and Tomato Hornworm It's August. In our zone 5 garden it feels like we've had lots of summer already and we still have August and September to go! That's okay because those two months are famous for lots of vegetables and fruits maturing and elegant flowers blooming. One herbaceous perennial flower that stands out this month is the hardy hibiscus. Unlike it's subtropical cousin, hardy hibiscus will survive zone 5 weather. These large, "shrub-like" plant produces gigantic round flowers...
End of Year Gardening Webinar Sale! The calendar has turned to December and lots of gardeners are scurrying for the holidays. Whether it be decorating a tree, home or outdoors, planning holiday meals or thinking about holiday gifts, it's a busy time of year. Let me help with one of those items. Each year I put my gardening webinars on sale for the holidays. These 21 gardening webinars are ones I've presented in the past and recorded. I keep adding to the library each year. This year I've created 3...
Trees with Interesting Bark, Hardy Catmint, Get Started with Leeks and African Violets The calendar has turned to February. No matter the groundhog sees with his shadow, we still know in our zone 5 garden that we have months of winter to come. But that doesn't mean we can't be doing gardening activities now. One thing about winter is it lets some plants show off more than they would when the foliage is out. I'm thinking of the bark of some of our trees. Growing trees for their bark color and texture is good to remember, because in cold...
