Garden Plants from Online Garden Centers

The trip to your local garden center can be an incredible hassle! There's the matter of taking on the weekend garden warrior crowd, which can make for some very slow going when it comes to browsing and checkout. Then, of course, there are those not-so-bright garden center workers, many of whom have never planted or cared for garden plants -- ever!  Getting a good answer to your gardening question can be downright difficult!

And then, there's always the picked-over garden plants selection if you arrive after the crowds have already depleted the garden center's stock. You're left to choose between a partially wilted containers of hosta, a jasmine bush with a broken stem and a container of pink muhly grass that's clearly been dumped on the ground and unceremoniously stuffed back into the plastic pot.

So why not skip the garden center and turn to an online garden center, like Greenwood Nursery?

Online garden nurseries offer a wide range of benefits, including:

*       Convenience -- The Greenwood Nursery garden center is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. No crowds and you can select your plants from the comfort of your home. And, your new plants will be delivered to your door. It doesn't get much easier than that!

*       Selection -- You'll enjoy a wide selection of supplies and garden plants, from ornamental grasses to herbs, annuals, perennials, trees, shrubs and beyond. No more settling for a plant because it's one of the only healthy garden plants left in the shop!

*       Great Price -- Enjoy great prices and discounts when you shop an affordable online garden center like Greenwood Nursery, which even has an “under $10” deals section!

*       Healthy Plants – Greenwood Nursery and many other online garden centers offer premium, healthy plants from strong genetic lines.

What's more, if you're uncertain about whether a particular plant is right for you, feel free to contact the Greenwood Nursery team to ask questions! Our experienced gardeners and experts are on-hand to provide you with plant care tips, advice, and recommendations for your unique gardening needs. No more dealing with a 16-year-old garden center employee who thinks lavender is anything more than a color!

To contact the pros at Greenwood Nursery, visit our website or call 800-426-0958.

Best Spring Garden Clean up Tips

Spring has sprung and it’s time to get that garden in tip-top shape and here are your best spring garden clean up tips!

Spring is the ideal time to perform a thorough clean up and overhaul on your garden and yard to help it recover from the long winter.

The first step to spring garden clean up is removing all the debris. This includes sticks and broken branches, leaves and other miscellaneous debris.

If you’re going to use a rake to remove this debris, it’s best to do this task before those spring crocuses and other plants have started to sprout. Otherwise, you may damage the foliage. If you absolutely must use a rake, be very gentle and whenever possible, don gardening gloves and clear the area around new sprouts by hand.

Using a leaf blower is the ideal option if your spring sprouts are up; just be careful to avoid placing the leaf blower nozzle too close to fragile new greens so as to avoid breakage. The downside to using a leaf blower is that most don’t do a good job of clearing away sticks, so those will need to be cleared away by hand.

This yard pick-up is absolutely essential because once the foliage comes in and starts growing more aggressively, it becomes very difficult to clean up garden beds and other areas of your yard. The foliage and growth snags leaves and debris, making it more difficult to collect the debris and there’s greater risk that you’ll damage the various plants.

In addition, it’s important to remove dead growth, particularly on any ornamental grasses that weren’t trimmed down in late fall or early winter. Otherwise, the new growth will come in and it will be intermingled with the dead growth, which then becomes extremely difficult to eliminate.

If you use bark mulch around your garden plants, it’s important to put down a new, fresh layer of mulch so your garden will absorb and retain the spring rains, which will really jumpstart your growing season.

Many garden experts recommend waiting until mid-spring or even early summer before fertilizing your garden, as the fertilizer will not be properly absorbed by plants that are still in a semi-dormant state. The general rule is that you can begin fertilizing when you observe new growth.

Of course, spring is also a great time to add new plants to your garden and Greenwood Nursery has a wide range of annuals, perennials, ornamental grasses and many other plants that will bring your garden to life!

7 Berry Growing Tips for You!

Tip #1: All blackberry and raspberry plants are self-fertile and will have good fruit production on their own. However if a second variety is planted nearby, they will have heavier fruit production.

Tip #2: Avoid planting strawberries in very low-lying areas prone to spring frosts.

Tip #3: Mulch strawberry plant rows and aisles with hay or newspaper to keep weed population down.

Tip #4: Do not plant strawberry, raspberry or blackberry plants where eggplants, peppers, potatoes or tomatoes have been grown within the past 3 years.

Tip #5: Pinch off any strawberry blooms on your first year planted strawberry plants. This allows them to put efforts into growing larger for second year production.

Tip #6: Plant blackberry and raspberry plants 2 to 3 feet apart with rows that are 3 to 5 feet apart.

Tip #7: Plant strawberry plants 1 to 1 1/2 feet apart with rows approximately 2 feet apart.

What to Plant Under Black Walnut Trees

What are plants to plant under black walnut trees? This is a question that we at Greenwood Nursery hear quite often. It is a good question, because not all plants thrive begin planted near or under black walnut trees.

Juglans nigra, commonly known as black walnut, is the largest of the twenty species of Juglans native to the United States. It easily grows to a height of 100 feet; its strong, straight trunk and magnificent canopy enhance most any landscape that has an appropriate scale for the trees massive size.

It is prized by the high-end furniture market because of its uniformity, durability and the luxurious chocolate-brown color of its heartwood. Many landowners, who have a few acres to spare, are planting genetically superior black walnut trees as an investment which will mature in 25 to 30 years.

Horticulturists discovered that certain plants did not do well, while some withered and died, when planted close to or underneath the canopy of black walnut trees. Black walnut trees secrete a biochemical substance known as Juglone. These secretions sometimes drip from the leaves down onto plants and ground below and leaches out from the roots below ground as well. The process is known as allelopathy.

Though Juglone is a poison to many plant varieties, making it difficult in planting under black walnut trees. However, there is still a large number of shrubs and perennials that can be safely planted under the canopy or near black walnut trees that are resistant to the effects of Juglone.

Avoid planting the following near or under the canopy of black walnut trees: Apples, white birch, mountain laurels, blackberries, blueberries, tomato plants, azaleas, chrysanthemum, crocus, hydrangeas, lilacs and rhododendron. 

And now for a few plants that can be planted near Black Walnut trees: most grasses, aster, shasta daisy, vinca, hostas, phlox, wisteria, Morning Glory, ajuga, solomon's seal, and Virginia creeper.

Tolerant trees and shrubs include arborvitae, white ash, american beech, catalpa, black cherry, flowering dogwood, forsythia, hibiscus, red maple, japanese maple, oaks, privet, eastern redbud, sumac, sycamore, tulip tree, euonymus, rosa rugosa, viburnum (except maresii), and heucheras.

A word of caution: Many factors, other than the presence of Juglone, will affect the viability of your trees and plants. Soil, moisture, temperature, shade and sunlight all play a role so results in growth may vary.

Visit Greenwood's page on Planting under Black Walnut trees for a selection of plant varieties that will grow under the canopy of the black walnut trees.

More info on plants that will and will not grow under or near black walnut trees:
Purdue University 

For more information on growing black walnut trees as an investment, visit Greenwood Nursery GSP Black Walnut Trees.

Common Black Walnut Trees

Plants used in French Gardens

Adding a touch of France to your garden  with our best plants for fall color will bring life to your fall landscape. Take some ideas from French gardens and liven up your landscape with new plant colors, fragrance and texture to add a touch of France to your garden. The location of France is much like that of New England making it perfect for experiencing the colors of fall foliage. The most popular flowering shrubs, trees, along with some of their favorite smaller growing evergreen perennial plants,  are used in French gardens are listed here.

• Red Barberry
• Smoketree
• Tulip poplar
• Rosa rugosas
• Viburnums
• Petiolaris
• Wisteria vines
• Hydrangea bushes
• Narrow evergreens - such as juniper skyrocket and thuja north pole
• Boxwoods
• Salvia
• Veronica
• Ornamental grasses - new varieties in smaller sizes

Herbs are everywhere, planted in landscapes, huge pots in the courtyards, window boxes. Most days warm days, apartment windows are open. How wonderful it must be inside with slight breezes brushing over the thyme, rosemary and mint carrying the fragrances throughout the living spaces.

It is ironic that we travel to exotic destinations for new experiences and scenery, but, once there, we find certain familiarity which is probably what most of us enjoy most. Whether you are in Paris or Nashville, autumn is in full swing in the Northern Hemisphere.

Time to plant, time to enjoy!

Enjoy Strawberries from Your Home Garden

Just the thought of strawberries brings to mind summer, strawberry shortcake, strawberry jelly and chocolate covered strawberries. Bite into a big red juicy strawberry and it explodes in your mouth making your tongue tingle with delight. With the red heart shape of the strawberry, no wonder it’s the symbol for Venus, the goddess of love. Maybe that’s why strawberries go so perfectly with chocolate and champagne.

A member of the rose family, it is documented that strawberries have been enjoyed as a domesticated fruit as early as the 1400’s. Now, we know the nutritional value of strawberries. They contain amino acids and beta-carotene as well as A, C, E, K, B-complex vitamins.  An excellent source of calcium, iron, potassium, manganese, copper and zinc, strawberries are high in sugar so should be eaten in moderation.

Some of my favorite ways to enjoy the fruits of strawberry plants are serving on waffles (Yummy!), in a spinach salad with walnuts, in a cucumber & strawberry salad, or served with only a splash of balsamic vinegar. Harvest strawberries in early summer and freeze to preserve them for future use.

Tips for enjoying strawberries:

• -Do not wash strawberries until ready to eat
• -Remove caps after washing
• -Store in colander (or vented container) in refrigerator for air circulation
• -Remove from refrigerator 1 hour before serving
• -To whiten teeth – mash one strawberry and mix with baking soda, brush on teeth and leave on for 5 minutes then rinse

Links:

• Planting and Growing info for strawberry plants
• Freezing information and recipes

How You can Have a Healthy Lawn, too!

Building up your soil naturally is the key to healthy lawn care. Following these lawn care tips will provide you with the information to build a healthy lawn that is not only a maintenance free lawn, but a safe lawn for your family, pets and the environment.

Whether you refer to it as natural or organic, it really comes down to the fact that so many of us just want to participate in healthy lawn care. In order to get the desired results, it takes up front dedication, time and knowledge. Much like when someone must change their diet to become healthier, not only do they change what they eat, but there are other alterations within their lifestyle that are made and it takes dedication and time for the change to take place.

We know that we are going to make the change to healthy lawn care, so where do we start?

Improve Your Soil - Healthy soil contains everything needed to grow healthy grass and, as an added bonus, weed seeds don't germinate as well, so less weeds. A soil test can give you a starting point. This can be arranged through your local conservation district office or local agricultural extension agent's office. The results of the test should give you needed amendments to put your soil back into a neutral pH.

Select the Proper Grass for Your Area- Once your soil has been amended, you are ready to sow the seed. A visit to your local hardware store is needed here and should be educational. Visit one of the locally owned stores such as Ace Hardware or True Value Hardware or even your local Farmer's Co-op as these stores typically have staff that is knowledgeable about these things. If you have shaded areas, you need to let them know as they will need to help you select a seed blend especially for that area. After sowing the grass seed, covering the newly sown area with a light layer of straw can prove beneficial as it will help to keep birds from eating the grass seeds, protect the area from washing should there be heavy rainfall before the seed can germinate, provide light shade and keep the soil moist. All of these factors, including warm weather, will help to speed the germination of the grass and it decomposes into the soil.

Mow less with taller grass- Allow the grass to grow a bit more before mowing. Set your mower blades for 3 inches and let the grass grow to 4 or 5 inches before mowing. Cutting grass down much lower can damage the roots and dry out the soil.

There are many organic lawn care products on the market that will naturally help your plants grow, keep weeds down and assist in building up the soil. Calcium, specifically, helps to energize plants and reduce weeds. Soil Conditioners helps to percolate and aerate the soil. Some are also available that contain biological components that can help to detoxify chemical applications from fertilizers and other products as well as help to keep flying insects at bay.

Now that you have healthy soil and grass is growing, how often do we water? Well, that will vary, but the University of Missouri Extension will help guide you through that process and give you tips on watering your lawn:

Home Lawn Watering Guide

Natural or organic lawn care isn't completely without work, but it is certainly worth the initial effort to know that your lawn is healthy naturally and safe for humans, animals and the environment.

Planting Strawberry Plants

To plant and grow strawberry plants is an wonderful way to garden and quite easy when following just a few simple steps.

Here are a few gardening tips that will get your strawberry plants off to the best possible start. Soon you will be enjoying the strawberry fruits of  your labor.

Strawberry plants grow best in well drained soil that has been amended with lots of organic matter. Do not plant strawberry plants in or near soil where eggplants, peppers, potatoes, raspberries, or tomatoes have grown over the past 3 to 5 years, because strawberry plants are susceptible to verticillium wilt. It is also advisable to move strawberry beds whenever verticillium wilt appears. Soils with high lime content may also be unsuitable for this plant. Protect strawberry plants from freezing during the winter months. In addition to mulching, planting your strawberry plants at the top of a gentle slope helps minimize winter kill and frost damage to blossoms.

Plant strawberry plants in rows or hills in areas that receive at least 6 hours of sunlight per day. Plant the plants 15 to 18 inches apart in rows spaced about 2 feet apart. When planting bare root strawberries, be sure to trim the roots to six inches long. Dig holes deep enough to accommodate the roots. Inside the hole, mound enough dirt to be able to have the plant sit on the mound with the roots spread evenly around. The base of the crown should sit at the soil level. If the crown is set too high above the ground, the plant will dry out. Smooth and water to settle the soil. If your plants experience a drought immediately after planting, it may stunt the growth of the plants. Inspect after frost to see if any plants were lifted out of the soil. If they were, gently push them back into the soil and cover.

Once strawberry plants have begun to leaf out, fertilize can be applied. A balanced 10-10-10 blend can be added according to directions on the label. When the plant begins to form blooms until harvest is complete, is the time period that the plants will need the most water. One to two inches of supplemental watering a week may be necessary to keep the plants hydrated. Check the soil for dampness if in doubt.

Their first growing year in the ground, pinch off any strawberry blooms. This will force more growth into the plants size, creating larger plants with the potential for more blooms producing more fruit the next growing season.

Greenwood Nursery Online Garden Center

Greenwood Nursery is a certified Tennessee nursery since 1979, and online plant store since 1998, with just the right plants for your landscape ideas and gardening projects that you might have as well as providing knowledgeable customer service to help with your planting questions.

A new homeowner or refreshing your old landscape with new foundation plantings? Our article on "How to Landscape Design", will get you started on thesteps to landscaping.

Brighten up your yard from our plant selections of flowering shrubs, including some of the most popular flowering shrub varieties such as lavender plants,golden forsythia shrubs, shrub roses, and red twig dogwoods.

Check our bare root trees for many fast growing trees varieties such as willow hybrid, maples, poplars, and thuja green giant.

Looking for plants for specific purposes? Visit our Landscaping Ideas category with our many sub-departments categorizing our plants according to their varied uses like Small Yard Plant Ideas, Spring Flowering Shrubs, Deer Resistant Plants, shade plants, and Drought Tolerant Plants.

Remember, at Greenwood Nursery, we make it safe and easy to buy plants online. You will find the Greenwood staff helpful, knowledgeable, and ready to answer your planting questions. Our online plant catalog is open 24/7 for your gardening needs. We're here to make sure you're successful with your Greenwood plants.

Choose from our great selection of plants and we'll carefully pack and ship them right to your door.

Greenwood Nursery is a certified Tennessee nursery since 1979, and online plant store since 1998, with just the right plants for your landscape ideas and gardening projects that you might have as well as providing knowledgeable customer service to help with your planting questions.

A new homeowner or refreshing your old landscape with new foundation plantings? Our article on "How to Landscape Design", will get you started on thesteps to landscaping.

Brighten up your yard from our plant selections of flowering shrubs, including some of the most popular flowering shrub varieties such as lavender plants,golden forsythia shrubs, shrub roses, and red twig dogwoods.

Check our bare root trees for many fast growing trees varieties such as willow hybrid, maples, poplars, and thuja green giant.

Looking for plants for specific purposes? Visit our Landscaping Ideas category with our many sub-departments categorizing our plants according to their varied uses like Small Yard Plant Ideas, Spring Flowering Shrubs, Deer Resistant Plants, shade plants, and Drought Tolerant Plants.

Choose from our great selection of plants and we'll carefully pack and ship them right to your door.

Attracting Butterflies to Your Garden with Flowering Plants

What could be more enjoyable than sitting in your garden with lots of beautiful butterflies fluttering about? Gardeners are planting butterfly gardens, which not only have become a popular hobby, but, also, make for very beautiful gardens. While many gardeners plant amazing flower gardens with hopes of attracting butterflies, however, the butterflies don’t come because the wrong shrubs and perennial plants have been planted.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes butterflies will not come to a garden because of pesticide use. The first thing you should do in planning for your butterfly garden is to rid the area of unwanted pests without using chemicals.

There are a few other things you can do to ensure that butterflies will come to your garden. Choose an area in your garden that is sunny with about 5 to 6 hours of sunlight per day, as adult butterflies only feed in the sun. The area needs to, also, be sheltered from heavy winds. As much as butterfly need to eat, they also do not want to fight harsh winds while trying to feed.

Another important aspect to a good butterfly garden is water. Like humans, butterflies need water. A couple of shallow bird baths where you can keep clean water will not only allow butterflies a drink, it will give them a place to rest.

There are two types of plants that butterfly use, those that provide food for the offspring and those that provide nectar for the adults. In a quote from the National Wildlife Federation, "Attracting butterflies involves incorporating plants that serve the needs of all life stages of the butterfly.” They go on to say, "The insects need places to lay eggs, food plants for their larvae (caterpillars), places to form chrysalides and nectar sources for adults."

Most butterflies, including the Monarch butterfly, feed on buddleia, commonly called butterfly bushes, for nectar and milkweed to feed the caterpillars. Other ways to make the area more butterfly friendly are using flat stones or other large flat surfaces where butterflies can rest and spread their wings. Because butterflies are such delicate creatures, they will also need shelter and a little shade.

Plants that attract butterflies are buddleia or butterfly bushes, lavender, monarda or bee balm, veronica, salvia, rosemary, thyme, sage, roses, yarrow, lamb’s ear, hydrangea, weigela, rudbeckia, echinacea, Shasta daisy and yucca are excellent selections for a beginners butterfly garden.

Recap of How to Attract Butterflies to Your Garden:

• Limit pesticide use
• Place your garden in a sunny area protected from heavy winds
• Plant fragrant, summer flowering butterfly plants
• Use flat surfaces for the butterflies to rest
• Have a shallow water source

By adding some of these suggestions into your garden, you can attract butterflies all summer long.

Greenwood Nursery Your Online Garden Center

How Home Landscape Design Affects the Real Estate Value

Home landscaping is simply, transforming, rearranging, and improving the curb appeal features of the grounds around your home into a more pleasant piece of property from the aesthetic standpoint and for practical use. For example, the garden should have plants or grasses; or the big tree in your backyard needs to be trimmed; or planting complementary foundation plants along the foundation of the house. These decisions can provide a big boost on the value of your real estate. This is especially useful if you plan to list your home for sale.

A neat, attractive home landscape design can increase the value of the home by as much as 15%. So if you have a $300,000 piece of real estate, you've just earned another $45,000 by just adding well designed landscaping. The increased value of your home will not be seen until you decide to place it on the market. The viability of your home does not only lie on the home itself but on the taste of the potential buyers. In other words, an overly personalized home landscape can be expensive but not really viable compared to simple yet attractive design.  The more detailed the landscape, the more work involved in maintaining it.

It is, therefore, important to make sure that you know what type of home landscaping design is more appealing to homebuyers in a span of years so that you keep the value of your home up and at the same time, you attract homebuyers whenever you do decide to sell it.  

English: Part of a landscape and design project by M. D. Vaden of Oregon, in Beaverton, Oregon, with a tree, shrubs, ground covers and ornamental grasses (including blue fescue, Japanese snowbell tree and Nandina domestica 'Gulf Stream'. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Take note of the following tips to learn the best home landscaping designs for the market:

•  Internet, books, magazines, and television shows provide great information about the kinds of landscaping designs that are currently selling.
• Observe home landscapes of other homes in similar neighborhoods. Don’t over landscape for your neighborhood.
• Seek professional help from people in the landscape design business. Hiring a landscape architect for a do-it-yourself landscape design can be well worth the hourly fee.
• If you don’t want to hire professionals, then research and read articles on the basics of landscape design.
• Ask your real estate agent what is normal landscape for your pricing range and what are the latest gardening trends on home design.

You may have followed these tips but you cannot fully guarantee that your landscape design will help your home sell. Take note that your potential buyers seek other factors other than design:

• Special elements, such as waterfalls, fountains, and artificial ponds are some of the most sought after landscape elements that buyers look for. It is surely an attention grabber.
• Low maintenance home landscape design. Different buyers will have different tastes when it comes to the design, but they will surely look for one thing: a low maintenance home landscape design.
• Year-round visual interests. Shrubs, evergreens and other plants that grow all year round are great addition to your garden since buyers usually look for homes that grow plants that never fade during the winter.

Selling your home must start from the outside with curb appeal. That is why it is very important that you have a good landscape design to increase not only the value of your home, but also the viability of it. 

How Home Landscape Design Affects the Real Estate Value by Greenwood Nursery.

Gardening Tips for Beginning Gardeners

If you are a beginning gardener, don't be afraid to delve right in, as it isn’t meant to be difficult. Once you feel the connection, you’ll be hooked on gardening. If you don't know how to start, there is always an avenue of knowledge for you: gardening neighbors or friends, gardening books and gardening magazines to read, watch for new gardening trends, and the Internet to browse for more information. 

English: old books in Château de Breteuil, France (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

At one time, it seemed gardening only appealed to the older folks. But nowadays, people of all ages, children, young adults, adults, and older folks alike enjoy gardening. They see gardening as a refreshing and rewarding hobby. With all the benefits that you get, being a busy, working person should never be used as a hindrance to start growing your own plants indoors or outdoors. You will see the big difference when you get to reap your own fruits of labor.

Would you enjoy a bed of beautiful, colorful flowers, a country garden full of wild flowers and shrubs, manicured lawn strategically placed with shrubs and trees, or just a simple backyard with lots of pots and containers filled with amazing plants? It’s all within your reach to have.  Learn the basics of landscape design.

For a starter, you will need these basic tools: trowel, spade, lawnmower, rake, and plants of your choice to grow. It would help a lot if you have a garden plan based on the space that is available. It will not be difficult to place flowerbeds, lawns, or paths. 

The kinds of garden plants that you will grow will depend on what you want, the availability, and the climate of your location. There are plants that grow only for the season, called annuals, and there are others that can be cultivated to grow year after year, often referred to as perennial. If you consider yourself a hobby gardener, then you would want to have plants that do not grow more than a few seasons. These are perennial plants that allow you to tend to things other than gardening.

If you don't know what plants to start growing, you can always ask assistance from your online plant nursery. The expert staff will know what plants will thrive specifically considering the climate in your area. Also, you can use the Greenwood Nursery Plant Finder online to narrow down your plant search.

The small young plants are great choice if you want to have an automatic decorative display on your garden. 

Smaller, younger plants are easier to plant and require less watering and care to get growing than larger container plants do.

Gardening should be this fun and exciting, and, of course, rewarding, even if you are a beginner. Ready for more? 

Here is a free online gardening course courtesy of BBC Gardener's World. Learn at your own pace.

Learn the basics of landscape design to understand placement of plants and how they are used. 

Gardening Tips for Beginning Gardeners by Greenwood Nursery.