Author: Genevieve

  • How Far Apart Do I Plant? Planting for the Future

    If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you’ve probably had the experience more than once of buying a plant that the nursery tag said would grow to the perfect size for your garden – but within a few years, it was pushing against its neighbors and becoming unruly. Why aren’t the plant tags accurate? Well,…

  • Five Often-Overlooked Shrubs for Gorgeous Winter Color

    So we’ve talked about why you want to plant in fall – you don’t have to water as much, plants get their roots well established through the winter, and there’s less transplant shock – meaning those plants you paid top dollar for will be glowing with health in the spring! But it can be rather…

  • World’s First Blue Rose is Created

    Suntory, a Japanese Whiskey Distiller, has used genetic engineering to create the impossible – the world’s first blue rose. Blue roses have a number of legends and meanings attributed to them – they are said to grant the owner youth, to show hope against unattainable love, and to signify a sense of fantasy if given…

  • Winter-Blooming Annuals to Help Your Garden Shine

    Winter can be dull if we haven’t prepared for it, with the gray skies and so many plants dormant. Much as I am a fan of shrubs and low-maintenance perennials, annuals can be a fantastic way of filling in the time between fall dormancy and spring with sparks of cheery color. You can set out…

  • Switzerland Places Ban on Humiliation of Plants

    If it means I don’t have to look at any more poodled junipers, I’m all for it: Switzerland places ban on humiliation of plants. Fans of Plant Amnesty’s horrible pruning gallery will doubtless be disappointed to find that Switzerland, at least, won’t be contributing photos anytime soon. A law’s been amended to state that vegetation…

  • ‘Tis The Season To – Wait, What? Plant?

    I know it may seem counter-intuitive to get moving in the garden just as the weather starts becoming dreary, but for the northwest, this is an ideal time to get new shrubs and trees established in the garden. You can skip the watering for the most part, and no need to worry about transplant shock…

  • Sharpen Your Pruning Shears Fast and On The Go – Speedy Sharp Review

    Now I’ve raved about my beloved Bahco hand pruners to all who will listen, there is a small secret I have to keeping them and my other tools good and sharp. No it’s not an old-skool file like Grandpa used. I have a Speedy Sharp! A client gave me this fancy little thing and my…

  • Bahco Pruning Shears; I’m a Raving Convert

    Now, I know pruning shears are a personal topic. Us gardeners have a weird loyalty thing going on with our shears. You want to make a pro mad? Tell them how much better your shear is than theirs. We got the Corona peeps in one corner, saying flatly, “I’m not paying $50 for pruning shears!”…

  • The Nite Guard – for Deer Resistant Gardens

    Tried everything to keep the deer off your supposedly deer-resistant plantings (and off that rose you snuck into your bed in a weak moment!)? If you have deer, you know that most remedies aren’t all that effective, or they require so much, well, work, that it hardly seems worth it. Yes, we could be all…

  • The Scarecrow – a Noisy Gust of Water Makes Your Garden Deer Resistant

    The Scarecrow is a clunky-looking, inconvenient, and very effective way to blast the deer away from your plants and make unsuspecting small children howl. You hook it up to a hose, set the stake in the ground with the sprinkler pointing out from your beds, turn on the water and stand back. Anything that activates…

  • Welcome to North Coast Gardening, A Site Dedicated to Gardening in the Coastal Pacific Northwest

    Welcome to North Coast Gardening! I’m a landscaper in the Redwoods of way Northern California, near Oregon – an area us locals call the North Coast. I’ve been doing Landscape Design, Garden Coaching, and Landscape Maintenance for twelve years at the start of this site, I love gardening and reading, and I am a total…