Archives: January 2021

Stokes’ Special Collections are the quick and easy way to build beautiful themed gardens! The Folks at Stokes have put together several themed gardens filled with some of our most popular varieties. We have launched a few vegetable garden favorites brought back by popular demand, a couple which will attract garden friendly pollinators and the remaining collections have been revived...

Successful gardening with children looks…messy. Success is easy to overlook while scrubbing mud-encrusted little hands or sweeping up a trail of dirt down the hallway. But mud and dirt are a part of success, because gardening with kids is about more than plants: It’s an opportunity to eat well, play, teach balance, create, fail and succeed—and hang out together. Eat...

Spring sowing is suitable for annuals (plants which are sown, flower and die in one year) that tolerate light frosts. Buying a packet of seed for a few dollars rather than spending hundreds for plants could certainly be your incentive. Here are some tips on how to start sowing: Have a good idea where you're going to put your plants...

With a bit of patience and planning starting a perennial garden from seed can be extremely rewarding. In just a few years your garden could be the envy of your entire neighborhood as it displays magnificent perennials. Buying a packet of seed for a few dollars rather than spending hundreds for full-grown plants could certainly be your incentive. Here are...

STOP! It’s not too late - you can still plant ahead of Old Man Winter. For all of us northerners with a frost-free date of end of Sept or early Oct, we can still plant some late summer perennial sowings. Not sure when your frost-free date is? It varies every year as we have an early or late winter, but...

With a bit of patience and planning starting a perennial garden from seed can be extremely rewarding. In just a few years your garden could be the envy of your entire neighborhood as it displays magnificent perennials. Buying a packet of seed for a few dollars rather than spending hundreds for full-grown plants could certainly be your incentive. If seeding...

Garden lovers have kept busy this spring with garden design, clean up, soil prep and planting, so with it being summer let us offer some garden maintenance tips to keep your garden under control and looking good through to the fall months. General garden tips: - Different types of weeds germinate in the spring, summer, and fall so the battle...

The ‘raised’ veggie garden is any garden that has been framed – typically with wood – raising the soil line above that of the ground. You can use wood, field stone, bricks, treated 6 x 6 timbers or anything that will hold dirt in to frame and raise a garden. Ideally the framing material will be attractive to look at and will...

Water is a finite resource and should always be used wisely year round. Conservation is one means for consumers to do their part to preserve the resource for following generations. During the summer months one place to start is to substantially reduce water use in the garden. For many of us, conserving water has not been a concern unless there is a...

Fall is a good time to sharpen those old pruners and take a look at what trees and shrubs in your garden would benefit from a cut back. When plants are in their ‘dormant’ or sleeping state for winter you can easily see the shape of the branches and it is a safe time to cut off wood.  We like...