Of all the mineral nutrients needed by plants, nitrogen is unique. The others all come from the mineral fragments that make up soil, formed over millennia from the rock of the Earth’s crust….

The world is full of trees and many people are happy to leave it at that – loving them all or seeing them as a green background to life. But natural human curiosity…

Magnolia trees are the most ancient of flowering plants, so ancient that they appeared even before bees did, so their flowers developed to attract beetles to pollinate them instead, and they developed a…

One of the biggest problems in a garden happens after a tree is removed. A large tree may be taken down to let in light, because it is crowding the house, or because…

Symbols of strength, endurance and longevity, oak trees appear in literature and art as well as in our gardens. The oak is the national tree of numerous countries, including the United States, England,…

Bamboo plants have a special and unique appearance that adds a special touch to the garden. They are also fast-growing plants that can be used for screening, especially in narrow spaces, since some…

Bamboo plants are popular for screening and as beautiful specimens in gardens, especially if you are creating an ‘oriental’ theme. However they also have a reputation for turning into problem plants, growing too…

Gardeners who live in colder areas and travel to the south are always impressed with the various citrus trees they see growing. Maybe it’s the heady perfume when they are in bloom, or…

There was a time when the more exotic and rarer the plants in your garden were, the better your garden was. But with a growing awareness of the natural environment, that isn’t true…

Only some very strange people actually want to kill a tree, but sometimes a situation occurs where a particular tree just has to go. Maybe it wasn’t your fault – some previous owner…

How to Lay Sod It is not difficult to grow a lawn from seed, but it takes time and a little work, so most gardeners opt for sod when they want to put…

Trees of course have roots to collect water and nutrients for the tree to grow. In the garden, tree roots can become a problem if proper consideration is not given to them when…

Bamboo is well-known for its beauty in the garden, making an exotic and interesting screening plant, a garden specimen or a potted plant that adds lots of height to limited spaces. What exactly…

The scent of Gardenias in the still air of a summer evening is a wonderful thing. Not only is it a beautiful experience in its own right, but it evokes the Old South,…

“It would puzzle a monkey to climb that”, said the Englishman who saw this tree for the first time in a friend’s garden in Cornwall around the middle of the 19th century. The…

It is pretty common these days to come across everything from toothpaste to dietary supplements that contain chlorophyll. So what is these weird stuff, and should we care? Chlorophyll is a large molecule…

Urea is a form of nitrogen that is made in the kidneys to excrete excess nitrogen, mostly from eating protein, which cannot be stored in the body. It is also manufactured on a…