Garden Gate January/February 2021

Every year starts with such good intentions. This is the year I’ll tame my borders: Get rid of the spindly perennials, those that are elbowing others out of place and those that just don’t seem to fit. I’ll stop acquiring single plants and tucking them into bare spots, come up with a coherent plan, and exercise more restraint with my color palette. Then spring happens. Garden centers start filling their tables with new plants (see page 22 to peruse some of 2021’s new introductions). Friends start passing out seedlings. And perfectly healthy and seemingly well-behaved plants start emerging in the garden. It seems so cold-hearted to ruthlessly dig them out and I often decide that I should watch them for another year. Unfortunately, plant collecting doesn’t always lend itself to a well-designed…

Keep Gardening All Winter Bulb-forcing how-to. Houseplant projects. Bird-feeding ideas. Check out our Garden Projects Playlist on YouTube! YouTube.com/gardengatemagazine Already Dreaming of Spring? Learn the secret to elegant mass plantings and other smart design tips to incorporate into your garden. GardenGateMagazine.com/articles/design-ideas/ Seed-Starting Outdoors in Winter? Yep! You read that right. Check out our tips for starting perennial seeds in empty milk jugs outdoors. GardenGateMagazine.com/articles/how-to/…

To help decide which plants go where when designing a garden bed, Margaret draws out the shape of the bed to scale on graph paper. She marks the spaces of preexisting plants, then covers the paper with self-sealing laminating sheets. Then she can use a dry erase marker and eraser to help her draw and rearrange where she wants to plant new additions. Margaret Lovett, TN Capture the perfect shot Shelley Haefner, NY Quick-flitting butterfly wings are difficult to capture on camera. Shelly found that using the “live” function on her iPhone helped her get a photo of the butterfly with its wings perfectly spread (it almost doesn’t look real in the photo above, does it?). The “live” function is actually a still shot from a short video that the camera films. You can…

Pocket gopher Thomomys spp. These critters dig complex underground tunnels and feast on plant roots. They primarily stay underground; have four protruding yellow front teeth, white whiskers and a hairless tail, and are smaller than a rat. Various species of pocket gophers range throughout North America, including Botta’s pocket gopher, pictured here. Damage Pocket gophers prefer loose, sandy soil. Their burrow systems can span the size of a standard city lot, and they can dig them rapidly. The entrances protrude above ground and are surrounded by a crescent-shaped mound and a hole that’s often backfilled with loose soil. Pocket gophers eat anything in their path, such as roots, tubers and even utility and irrigation lines. Control The most effective control is to live trap and release pocket gophers at least 10 miles away. Hardware…

Edible and ornamental plants don’t need to be segregated. In fact, many edible crops have striking, architectural foliage that can look great in ornamental plantings. The concept of foodscaping—incorporating vegetables in with showier plants to create an edible landscape—has gained popularity for good reason. Growing your own food is more than just the satisfaction of growing something tasty to eat: It allows you to grow plants that aren’t readily available at your garden center and to control the chemicals applied to your food, if you opt to use any at all. And anyone can start with a packet of seeds. THINK OUTSIDE THE GARDEN If you mix vegetables in with perennial plants and shrubs, you can grow them the same way you would grow any annual. The ornamental plants will camouflage…

The simple joy of planting a patch of flowers to cut and fashion into a posy is undeniable. For Jennifer and Adam O’Neal, growing cut flowers is a way of life. They grow all of their botanical ingredients themselves, from early blooming anemones to late-season dahlias, on six acres in Winterset, Iowa (including a half-acre of lavender and another half-acre of sunflowers). Their tips can help you convert just a few square feet of neglected garden space into a bouquet factory. NATURAL INSPIRATION “We want to inspire people to use what they have growing around them to create beauty,” says Jennifer, a lifelong gardener who as a girl helped her grandmother create arrangements to compete in the county fair. “We grow hundreds of flower species each season. But you don’t have…