The gas-powered string trimmer, also known as a weed whacker, is a common yard and garden tool. Because they are less complicated than a lawnmower, many people do not know that string trimmers can benefit from a tune-up. The Outdoor Power Equipment Institute shares seven tips to help you tune up your string trimmer for […]
gardening
Posted inGarden
Extreme Leaf Drama
Pull on your digging boots and grab your shovel. After reading this, you are going to need more garden space. Bigger is better, right? Maybe — yet for foliage, it depends on where the plant grows. For whatever reason plants grow humongous vegetation, they are flamboyant additions to the Northwest garden. Oversize leaves create drama […]
Posted inGardeners Corner
How to Protect Your Soil while Preventing Pollution
Editor’s note: These tips were adapted with permission from the brochure “Tips for Water and Rural Management for Puget Sound Rural Living” by the Puget Sound Conservation Districts, adapted from “Tips on Land and Water Management for Small Farms and Ranches in Montana,” Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. Living in the West Sound, […]
Posted inGardeners Corner
Know Your Soil Before You Garden
Editor’s note: These tips were adapted with permission from the brochure “Tips for Water and Rural Management for Puget Sound Rural Living” by the Puget Sound Conservation Districts, adapted from “Tips on Land and Water Management for Small Farms and Ranches in Montana,” Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. If you want to have […]
Posted inGarden
Gardening Books to Read This Spring
Now that spring is officially here and all the bulbs, annuals and shrubs are planted, perhaps there is time to breathe a little between pulling weeds and watering to do some garden reading. With the Pacific Northwest being a gardener’s paradise, expertise abounds, along with regionally specific gardening and nature books. Here are three in […]
Posted inGarden
A Walk Down Primula Lane
“Down by the banks of the sweet prim-e-roses, there I beheld a most lovely fair.” ~ Author unknown What is a primrose? Shakespeare would say in Romeo and Juliet, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” Primulas are not roses, although some of the double flowers of these demure perennials are rose-like. […]
Posted inGarden
Gardening Made Easy for Boomers
You’re a baby boomer. Your green thumb, and your knees and back, seem to bend with more effort. (Was 1968 really 50 years ago?) Don’t let your interest in gardening wane — gardening is important to physical and mental wellbeing as you get older. One, gardening can help you stay fit. “You use up calories […]
Posted inAround West Sound
Friends of the Manchester Library Plant Sale Motto: “Green is Good!”
The Friends of the Manchester Library Annual Plant Sale has always tried to make good use of our resource of community-donated plants, or what we call recycling them out into the larger community. We want to be stewards for this lovely place we live in, and to encourage others to do the same. “In recent […]
Posted inGarden
The Pacific Stonecrops — A Sedum of Our Own
Between the cracks of the dark basalt rocks, sedum’s plump rosettes cascade, a cavalcade wash in waterfall gray. Many succulents in the Sedum genus grow around the world. Gardeners love them because they are fascinating plants. Sedum spathulifolium species evolved to grow in difficult places in the Northwest — their water storage capabilities help them […]