Hillside Garden Center

Seeing the look on someone's face when they recieve fresh flowers will tell you immediately that it is still one of the best gifts you can give. But when the person you're sending to lives out of town what are your options? What is going on in the floral industry? You may have noticed Florist Shops have been dwindling, supermarket flower departments have been growing and you can order flowers from all kinds of places: online, 1-800 Flowers, through credit card rewards, grocery stores, huge toll free ads in the yellow pages that you have never heard of, etc. What is happening here and how do you choose?

The fall planting season brings on the masses of ‘Hardy Mums’ sold everywhere. For years I have listened to customer’s complaining about these mums not coming back the next season. We at Hillside Garden Center have come to call them Fall Mums rather than Hardy mums, as they are just not a reliably true perennial plant. I have found that the traditional fall colors are more likely to return but I also believe that planting practices can also contribute to their failure.

Each year I enjoy my favorite plants. I love to see the way the Coneflowers have spread, how big the Coral Bells and Hosta have gotten or the marvel at the big, red, new stems on my Blueberry. However, I love to try new plants out just as much as I like the old standards. Each season I try out several new plants. I add them to what I already have and enjoy their welcome addition to my collection. This is sometimes successful, and sometimes ends in a terrible experience.

To everything there is a season! Being in New York we get the privilege of four distinct seasons, each bringing their own beauty to the year. Accepting and embracing these changes is something gardeners tend to be quite good at! Each season has its own qualities that make it special and unique and noting these changes can help you to grow just as much as your plants do.

Spring is just around the corner…we hope! As the snow melts and we begin to see the ground, we think about daffodils and tulips and how soon can we start planting in our gardens.

You can plant a shrub, tree or perennial as soon as you can dig in the ground. The question arises when you consider the condition of the plant being put into the ground. Many times the plants that first arrive in your local Nurseries, even when grown locally have been over-wintered in unheated poly houses giving them a head start on growing for the season.

Hillside offers plant material that is native or zoned for our area. The vast selection of plants that we offer can suit any planting site whether it may be shady, full sun or a combination of both. The amount of moisture in the soil and chemical make up may be a factor in your plant selection as well as wild life so we offer groups of perennials that thrive in wet areas, plants that are drought and salt tolerant and those that are rarely damaged by deer and rabbit.

Some people have a stronger nurturing side than others. Many of my customers and definitely my co-workers fall into this category. Just try to toss out a plant in this place! I have 2 reasons why you shouldn’t be afraid to ditch some plants and start over with new ones periodically – experimentation and less stress.

Nearly everyone that grew tomatoes locally was affected by the disease Late Blight. Will it be a problem again in 2010? To answer, that we should look at the cause of the widespread problem of 2009. There are two issues that have to be looked at as causes. First of all, the continual cool and damp weather with southerly winds caused a quick and thorough spread of the disease spores. Secondly, infected plants were found at the box stores throughout the northeast in late May that quickly spread to infect healthy plants, even on the same shelf.

To most people, heirloom varieties are those 'old-fashioned' varieties that have been saved and passed on for years or generations. Heirloom varieties as a rule are non-hybrid open-pollinated  plants. What that means is that when planting the seed to open-pollinated plants the offspring will be for the most part the same as the parent.

'Greenwashing' according to the Oxford Dictionary, is defined as "disinformation disseminated by an organization so as to present an environmentally responsible public image. These days when buzzwords used are 'green' and 'sustainability' there can be a lot of confusion out there.

2009 by most peoples account was not a great year for vegetable gardening. If you judge your gardens success by your tomato, pepper and eggplant harvested you were dissappointed. With the Late Blight disease deccimating our tomato crop and not enough heat and sunlight to turn the peppers red it was frustrating to say the least. More on the Late Blight later. There is not a lot we can do about the weather conditions other than planting crops that are more adapted to current conditions. That is where my gardening successes came in.

I am a real fan of the White Oak tree (Quercus alba). It is very slow growing but quite stately when mature. The white oak is an alternate year bearer, meaning that it produces its acorns every other year. It may produce a light crop during the odd year. To wildlife, particularly deer, turkey and squirrels these are candy. The acorns that escape the onslaught of feeders or the weevil that often bores into it will send out their taproot in the fall shortly after dropping and sending out its first leaves the next spring.

Mulching is a task that almost all gardeners do or should do. When to mulch, how much mulch to use, what kind of mulch to use, does mulch control weeds or can I do it wrong, are all questions that are or should be asked.

A newsletter came in the mail the other day that had a tidbit on trees that said “The tallest redwood is believed to be 369 feet tall and has a circumference of 26 feet”. That certainly is a tall tree that we will never come close to around here. However, a circumference of 26’ equates to a diameter of just over 4’.