Eating great-tasting fresh greens out of the garden is one of the special pleasures one gets from growing one's own vegetables. But you don't need an acre plot of land to do it in--even a small area will work just fine. With just a little planning and ingenuity, you can grow salad greens just about anywhere.

All you need is a large planter box, or several smaller ones, if you plan on moving plants in and out. Put in some of our great potting soil and you're in business. If you don't like to bend over, add legs to the sides of the box, or place it on a table--and you can have a raised planter at just the right height. You can grow from seed or transplant seedlings, whichever you prefer.

Salad greens perform their very best during the cooler seasons. You can even make your planter look colorful by combining different varieties of lettuce, spinach and field greens in the same box. Make sure to feed your greens some organic plant food on a monthly basis to help bring out the best flavor.

Does your garden look like it's having fun? Pink-flowering perennials can add a feeling of playfulness to the home garden. The romantic pink hues can be enjoyed throughout the season and blend well with cool colors of purple, blue and white but also with warm colors of red, magenta, fuchsia and yellow.

Europe and Asia have given American gardeners thousands of pink flowering plants to choose from. For starters you can use taller shrubs or perennials such as buddleia, canna, pink breath of heaven, hibiscus, peony, roses and spirea to create a backdrop for shorter plants. You can also use a pink clematis vine, bower vine or climbing rose to hide a fence.

In front of those plants you can layer in some perennials such as cuphea, daylily, dianthus, origanum, phlox, sedum, and veronica. Finally, add some low growing spreaders such as armeria, calibrachoa, geranium, thyme or verbena to fill in between.

Do you have shaded areas? No problem. You can create the same effect with a background of abutilon, camellia or rhododendron. Then layer in some astilbe, azalea, bergenia or heuchera to give your borders some definition.

Don't just limit your planting to the ground. Many pink flowering plants look great in containers for patios and decks or even in hanging baskets. You can even create a blend of annuals, perennials, and ornamental grasses to make any pot, urn, window box or decorative planter look fantastic all season long.

Many pink flowering perennials such as achillea, chelone, echinacea, gaura, monarda, penstemon, and salvia varieties are also wonderful at attracting butterflies and birds, particularly hummingbirds. But most of all they will spice up a garden and make it come alive with color. So what are you waiting for? Come on down and pick up some pink flowering plants for your garden today.

Perhaps nothing heralds the coming of spring like the magnificent saucer-like flowers of the tulip magnolia (Magnolia x soulangeana), also known as saucer magnolia or Chinese magnolia. These small deciduous trees are one of the most popular trees in the home landscape, and for the month they bloom, they are truly extraordinary.

There are many cultivars of this hybrid species with the 4-5" blossoms ranging in color from pure white to shades of pink and purple--and now even shades of yellow. The winter floral buds are large and fuzzy, giving rise to "candles" as they expand and open. In warm climates, this can be as early as January and February, but for most of the country, the flowers reveal themselves in late March and early April, before the foliage emerges. The flowers can be damaged by late frosts, so select late-blooming varieties in cooler areas.

Most of these varieties have an upright oval growth habit in youth, becoming rounded, spreading, and mounding with age. They make great small trees, with some varieties growing up to 30' high. But most varieties can be maintained at 10-15' with yearly pruning. The 6" medium-to-dark green leaves hold their color right through the end of fall, before they drop for winter.

They perform best in full sun in humid or coastal locations, but prefer some afternoon shade in inland areas with dry summers. They like moist, acidic, deep, and porous soils but can be quite adaptable to a wide range of conditions. They do best when transplanted in spring or summer into holes that have been amended with a soil conditioner. In cold regions we recommend covering the soil around the tree with a 2-3" layer of mulch.

Fireblight is one of the worst spring diseases to attack trees and shrubs. What makes it so devastating is that it can spread fairly rapidly and potentially kill a tree or shrub if not prevented or addressed in time.

Fireblight is spread by bees and wind when infected pollen is introduced to the host plant or tree while in bloom. The blooms quickly wilt and then the stems and branches below the infected blooms start to turn black, giving the effect of someone taking a blow torch to the tree. If left neglected, the virus will eventually spread to the main trunk and roots killing the plant.

The best way to combat fireblight is through prevention. First of all most susceptible trees and shrubs belong to the apple and pear family. This includes all fruit and non-fruiting varieties of those species along with plants such as photinia, pyracantha, quince, raphiolepis, crabapples and loquats.

You can spray the trees or shrubs right at monthly intervals during the bloom cycle with a fungicide such as Agri-Fos or Alliette. If you forget to spray or still see signs of damage later, it’s easy to remove infected stems, providing you don’t wait too long. Simply take a pruning shear (sterilized with bleach or alcohol between each cut) and trim at least 6 inches below visible black (blighted) sections.

The disease can only enter a tree through pollination or infected shears. If pruned out and removed correctly correctly, there should be no chance of the disease entering your trees or shrubs until the following blooming season.

How often should I feed my lawn?

Answer:
We recommend feeding lawns every two months during the growing season. You can start off by applying a lawn food in late winter to early spring that contains a pre-emergent herbicide to help prevent crabgrass and other weeds from germinating.

After that, switch to a complete lawn food.

If summer weeds become a problem, apply a weed and feed fertilizer.

Make sure to give your lawn a final feeding in fall, before it goes dormant, to keep it green through winter. If a lawn goes into the winter looking yellow, you won't be able to green it up until temperatures warm up again.

Product Spotlight: Master Nursery Pre-Emergent Lawn Food

Now is a great time to get a jump on feeding your lawn and preventing weeds. Do it all in one easy step by applying Master Nursery Pre-Emergent Crabgrass Control Plus with Lawn Food.

The balanced lawn food will green up your tired winter lawn and get it healthy while the pre-emergent containing “TEAM” creates a barrier I the soil that kills weeds such as crabgrass, foxtail, goosegrass, poa annua and other annual grasses as they germinate.

This great product is most effective when applied one to two weeks prior to anticipated germination of the target annual weeds. So what are you waiting for? Don’t delay and get a jump on weeds today. Your lawn will thank you by turning green right before your very eyes!