LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, December 30

Have a care for the overall shrub when clipping camellia blossoms, holly berries, witch hazel or forsythia branches to bring indoors. Crabapple's tip is to strike a balance between length of stem needed for your floral arrangement and the overall shape and structure of the plant left in the landscape.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, December 23

Keep cut Christmas trees watered in order to keep the needles hydrated and slow down needle drop. Add a little bleach to slow bacterial growth, and some corn syrup to make up for sugars lacking due to decreased photosynthesis, plus a little vinegar to buffer the solution.

  1 gallon water

  1 Cup corn syrup

  4 teaspoons chlorine bleach

  4 teaspoons lemon juice or vinegar

Adding a cartoon for dog lovers: 

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, December 16

Garden Tools make G-R-E-A-T gifts, or put tools that you have been meaning to try on your own Wish List. Choose some ratchet loppers or try a bulb-planting trowel or new snips or a turn table for floral arrangements from the garden.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, December 9

Cut red berried branches of Holly and shiny Magnolia leaves to add to Holiday wreaths and mailbox swags. Keep in mind not only the branches but the shape of the remaining plant. Prune to an outward facing bud, and try to choose branches that are crossing and rubbing other branches, thus both 1. harvesting berries for holiday trim and 2. shaping up the plant for good growth in 2014.  

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, December 2

It's not too late!
Take advantage of end-of-season markdowns on Spring-flowering bulbs. While the ground is frozen in the whole Northern U.S., metro-Atlanta soils are cooling down to the perfect temperatures for bulb planting. Be sure the bulbs you purchase are firm, solid, seem heavy for their size and have no spots or fungus lesions, then plant, with the depth corresponding to their size.

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, November 25

Let your neighbors do the work, then collect those paper recycle-bags filled with pine straw from the curb and use the FREE MULCH to protect your perennial beds. Collect paper bags full of leaves to make leaf mould -- turns into rich, dark brown woods soil and is ready in a year.

More about Leaf Mould here: http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/profile.aspx?pid=478 

LandscapExperts Tip of the Week, Nov. 18

Squirrel-proof a post-top  bird feeder by removing the top and bottom lids of an extra-large juice can, slipping it over the pole and wiring it in place. The blasted squirrels cannot get their arms around the can or get a grip on it. If the squirrel does stay on the post it ends up inside the can.