As I was working on trimming the grass along our sidewalk this last weekend one or our neighbors came over and gave me a tip I thought I would pass along. I was using our tiller with a sod trimming blade on it to remove the extra growth of grass that insists on narrowing our sidewalk. Once you have trimmed the sod along the edge of the sidewalk you are left with that small strip of sod. In a perfect world that strip of sod pulls away without any extra work at all but since this has never really been a perfect world (at least from my experience) that little strip needs some extra persuasion. I started out using a shovel to do this work but then my neighbor suggested using a stirrup hoe, just run the edge of the hoe along the cut line and the base of the hoe along the sidewalk. This will put the strip of grass in the middle of the hoe. After doing the remaining 90% of the job in the time it took to do the first 10% I decided this was the way to go. For those of you who don’t know what a stirrup hoe is I have included a picture. Good Luck.

About four years ago I purchased a magnolia tree. Rather than going for the standard fare, I opted for the more uncommon (at the time) but hardy Butterflies variety. Since planting, it has grown quite well and I’ve never had much of any problem with it. It always leafed out, has grown more and more each year, but in the entire time I’ve owned it, it has never bloomed.The first two years I did very little aside from regular watering. Year three I realized I might have to do a bit more if this thing was ever going to show me it’s 4 to 5 inch canary yellow blooms. So, at the advice of my mother (who I’m confident knows everything about gardening) I began adding a bit of phosphate. I stuck it out for two years, realizing that it takes time to build up in the plant. With spring #5 just around the corner, I’m happy to say it has worked. The flower buds are present. They look different from the slender leaf buds as they more resemble an upside-down light bulb. I’ll keep you posted on the progress.

Thought I would share a co-workers picture with everyone. He lives in the Tri-Cities and as such things are a little ahead of the people in the Spokane area but this was such a great shot that I thought you would enjoy it.

Congratulations to the Spokane Community College PAS team (Postsecondary Agriculture Students) on their very successful trip to the National Competition in Idaho Falls.  All students that attended placed in the top 3 of at least one of their competitions, many in more than one – WooHoo!!

I hope you’re all enjoying that fabulous sunshine, but remember, don’t get too excited yet – we could still be in for some frosts.

Sorry folks, long time no blog. Although it is too early for most of us to start digging and planting, most local nurseries are well on their way to starting the new season. And since this is not only a passion, but a career choice for me, I have been elbow deep in potting soil all week [I'm so happy! ]

The biggest topic on my mind along personal routes is starting seeds. I’m choosing fairly simple plants and flowers this year, and most don’t need but a few weeks to get going. But I’ll expound on that in a few weeks, along with some common methodologies. I am waiting until the 19th or so to get mine started, mostly because I am leaving next week and don’t want to burden our housesitter with new seedlings -or miss all the excitement of the new arrivals!!!

In the meantime, don’t forget to thoroughly water your outdoor plants, esp trees and shrubs. This time of year when we have repeated freezing and thawing is when most winter damage occurs – the result of dehydration. Any water reserves that were left in the soil are surely used up by now, and just because the plant is still dormant, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still need water.

For those of you that have indoor houseplants, now is a good time to start a fertilizing regimen. A low dose of a watersoluble fertilizer once a week will help give plants a boost to get them out of the winter doldrums. Remember: Weakly weekly. Also, carefully read labels, many commonly available fertilizers are high in salts, which can damage the roots of the plant and the soil health, so I encourage you to seek out organic brands, and be wary of any products that promise “miracles.” If you need to repot houseplants, give it a few more weeks yet.

How many of you have noticed the crocus and grape hyacinths poking up? I think I’ve been seeing a few daffodils as well – spring is definitely on the way!.

Reading through a Northwest Nurseries publication I came across a link to a picture library that I thought I would pass on to our readers. This library has quite an extensive collection of pictures arranged by type of plant and scientific name as well as a search function. Just so I don’t get in trouble with Laurie I need to mention that this repository is NOT specific to our growing zone. Please pay special attention to the zone listing for each of the plants and for you own sake try not to fall into the mindset that “if I treat it really well it will grow for me”. One thing you find out very quickly in gardening is you can not make things grow regardless of how hard you try.

Anyway – the link as promised: Bailey Nurseries Image Library

Just to remind everyone as they are walking past the plants in the entryways of your favorite store – we are not yet out of the woods for the possibility of a good hard frost.  The average last frost date that I have found reviewing various websites can be as early as March 30th to as late as June 6th with the most common last frost date for this area being May 4th.  Just keep this in mind and try to resist the temptation as you walk past all of those beautiful plants. I am sure the retailers would love to sell you the same plant twice but most of us don’t want to have to go through the hassle of planting things twice let alone having to pay for them twice.

We figured that to start this blog we should hit some of the basics about the Spokane area. One of the great debates I have encountered is whether or not we are considered a zone 5 or 6? Did I lose some of you there? Since we intend this blog for both new and experienced gardeners – I’ll start from the beginning.

The U. S. Dept. of Agriculture has a map of the particular growing zones in the United States. Click here for the official site A zone is defined by the lowest average temperature that is reached in a particular area, in addition, each zone is divided into an “a” and “b” section. If you look at the map, the inland northwest is colored many shades of yellow and green denoting zones 5 and 6; which are listed with lowest average temps of -20 degrees F to -15 (5a) -15 to -10 (5b) -10 to -5 (6a) -5 to 0 (6b).

To confuse the issue, Sunset magazine and the Sunset Western Garden Manual (one of my very favorite resources) has their own climate zone map, and we are considered a zone 2. Click here for their version. So when reading the descriptions on glorious new plants for a zone 6, remember that they are referring to somewhere in the vicinity of SW Oregon.

However, the key word in these definitions is the average temp. With the recent moods of mother nature we can certainly fall into zone 6, but even though I have only lived in the area for 7 years, I know it can get a whole lot colder than that. So it is very possible that one can have their landscape based largely around zone 6 plants, but one can also expect to replace the majority of them every few years.

Now, at this point we can easily segway into many different topics such as microclimates, mulching, overwintering, etc that are all reasonable exceptions to the rule – but we will save each of those topics for another post and state our position on the debate – all postings here will regard Spokane as a USDA zone 5 - because I would much rather play it safe and buy fun new varieties each year than spending my gardening budget on replacing something that could have been considered borderline hardy to begin with.

Happy gardening!

Questions, Comments, Continued debate? We welcome your input!

The recent snowfall in our area has only increased the severity of my Spring fever, and alas, I fear that Mr Groundhog’s prediction of an early Spring has missed us once again. In the meantime I’m still pouring over my seed catalogs and trying to decide what new things I will try this year. I think it will involve my ever favorites tomatoes and squash, and sampling of blue potatoes and artichokes, and more flowers than usual – plus I’m helping a friend design her first ever herb garden. I am determined to get her interested in gardening and I’m honing in on her cooking passion to do it.

In our new adventure of blogging, we are encouraging lots of input from you, our loyal early readers. We’d love to get your comments, ideas or plant/gardening questions. We’ll respond to them in future episodes!

As we start something new in our lives there is always a first step. This is our first step into blogging world. We have lots of good ideas for developing this blog into a good source of information for the Inland Northwest gardener. Hope to see you back soon.