Garden Solutions NorthWest

07/20/2017

Perka's little tree in bloom.

02/18/2017

It's time to prune your roses if you live in the Portland metro area! For 'regular' roses, you are aiming for an open, vase-shaped arrangement of 6-8 canes. Our own Heirloom Roses explains it all here. (And my friend Tom Feller would add, 'Make sure your pruners are sharp and clean!')

Roses at Heirloom Roses. Your source for rose bushes, rose gardening, and rose plants.

02/11/2017

Slugs are coming out of their winter hiding places! With dry weather in PDX for the next few days, it's a good time to bait for slugs. Beer traps and Sluggo are my preferred methods for organic control. Hand picking slugs is great if you can handle the slime. If you've got an especially strong stomach, you can use Ann Lovejoy's fav way: at dusk, snip any you see in half with your pruners. Then come back 30 minutes later to snip the cannibals who are eating their former comrades. Eewww, but effective!

01/06/2017

One of the best ways to protect your plants when we have a deep freeze is to make sure they are adequately watered. The winds and cold can really desiccate them!

01/06/2017

It's almost impossible to do any yard work in this deep cold. Pick up any branches that have blown down, but leave any other yard debris in place. It might be frozen to something you want to keep! Only prune if there's a broken branch still attached by bark. Otherwise, just leave it alone until warmer weather arrives.

04/02/2016

It's going to be warm again for the next two days, then rain, then 80! Keep your plants happy with a splash of water, even if it's only the beginning of April.

11/26/2015

This is it, Portlanders! If you have roses and about 5 minutes for each plant, get out there and take advantage of the sunshine to prune them! For all shrub roses (not minis or climbers) prune at hip height, with angled cuts so the rain will run off them. You should also take out anything that looks dead, but the main I-gotta-think-about-this pruning will happen in February. A great escape from guests if you need one!

11/14/2015

Rose Pruning 101: Hip high at Thanksgiving, remove interior canes and winter damage/die back at Valentine's Day (leaving a vase shaped plant.) Pumpkin pie=hips, vase shape for your VDay flowers. Makes it easy to remember!

For those who like to fall prune to waist high to keep your rose bushes from whipping around in the wind, here is a good "how to" illustration.

09/03/2015

The weekend was pretty wooly, weather wise. How did your trees do? This article has some advice about trees with storm damage, and a whole bunch of links to more great information.

Here are some storm-proofing suggestions from arborists, the Friends of Trees, Oregon State University Extension Services and other sources.

08/14/2015

This smidgen of rain we are having isn't enough to satisfy our trees! Please give them a long, slow drink of water this weekend: low running hose, 2/3 of the way between the trunk and the edge of the branches, for 45 minutes or so. Emphasis on SLOW hose!