With a short growing season, Northern Arizona is often tricky for garden edibles. But, with a little planning, the right selection, and an eye on protecting your crop, there’s no reason why you can’t grow juicy, delicious tomatoes straight from your backyard or patio. Step one is taking care to select a seed or tomato that either grows quickly or does well even in cool climates. Some of our favorites live up to their names, like Early Girl, which produces meaty tomatoes early in the … [Read more...] about Tips and Tools for a Bumper Tomato Harvest
Misti Warner
Why You Should Plant Trees in the Fall
As we start to wrap up summer and head into fall, it’s tempting to think that that the gardening season is over, but nothing could be further from the truth. There are still flowers to enjoy (mums in particular), last harvests to be gathered from your vegetable plots, and bulbs to get into the ground that will bloom next spring. Often during this time, planting trees is an activity that gets overlooked. It’s only natural that many people associate tree planting with spring. After a long … [Read more...] about Why You Should Plant Trees in the Fall
Attracting Wildlife You Want to Your Garden
One of the rewards of creating your garden is being able to sit back and enjoy the nature it attracts. There’s nothing like seeing butterflies float around your plants, bees grabbing pollen from flowers and birds filling up your space with song. In addition, when you bring these insects and birds into your space, you are helping the ecosystem. But you can also draw animals that will wind up making your garden their feeding patch, destroying it in the process. Mammals like deer, rabbits and … [Read more...] about Attracting Wildlife You Want to Your Garden
Extending Your Garden’s Life Throughout the Fall
Even in Northern Arizona, where frosts come as late as mid-June and as early as September, gardening does not have to be a summer-only activity. There’s a lot of life left in your garden at this time of year and plenty to do, including enjoying what you’ve already planted, getting some new flowers and vegetables in the ground for fall abundance, and planning for next year. First, take a look at what you’ve already got in your garden. You’ll probably have flowers and veggies that are still … [Read more...] about Extending Your Garden’s Life Throughout the Fall
Achieving Wabi-Sabi: The Art of Imperfection in Your Garden
When envisioning a garden, many people think the ideal is formal planting beds with perfect blooms orchestrated into an uncompromisingly symmetrical design – a mini-Versailles in their own backyards. But for several years, the trend has been to embrace a more casual feel, often described in the term “bed-head” gardening (as if your garden looked like your hair first thing in the morning before your styling ritual – a little ruffled, a bit messy, not shaped and … [Read more...] about Achieving Wabi-Sabi: The Art of Imperfection in Your Garden
Making the Most of Monsoon Season
Last month, we talked about ways of being “water-wise” in our dry climate, such as using drip irrigation systems and selecting drought-resistant plants for your garden. Now, as the monsoon season starts, we thought we should examine how you can take advantage of these naturally wetter months by practicing rainwater harvesting. When you read “rainwater harvesting” just now, I bet the first thing you thought of was rainwater barrels. And, yes, they are an important part of this story and we … [Read more...] about Making the Most of Monsoon Season
Seeding the Future
At Warner’s Nursery, we love this time of year. It’s not quite spring and our home gardens are mostly just plans in our heads. We’ll put the vegetable patch here, we think. Maybe we’ll grow some wildflowers in that section by the front walk. And this is the year we are finally going to get some nice strawberries going. All these horticultural ambitions start with the humble yet utterly amazing seed, that tiny packet of potential that can turn bare earth into flowering bounty. With a little … [Read more...] about Seeding the Future
The Three Bs of Garden Success
You can help your garden – and the ecosystem in general – by becoming a welcoming host to some of the hardest working horticulturists around. These gardeners are very different from each other, but have three things in common – they love flowers, have names that start with “B,” and are winged. Birds, Bees and Butterflies are essential to the process of pollination, and a few strategic choices in your garden will help them thrive and improve your space as well. Let’s start with bees, which … [Read more...] about The Three Bs of Garden Success
Enjoying Garden-Tainment
During the winter, the heart of a family can often be found in the kitchen, where the homey good smells of food cooking, plenty of seating and an atmosphere of warmth and comfort serve as a magnet to draw people together. But in the summer, that heart can venture outside, letting your backyard become the center of the family’s universe. It’s the perfect place to relax and connect with your loved ones – and with a barbeque, you can still cook there, too! In gardening trend terms, this is … [Read more...] about Enjoying Garden-Tainment
How to Container Garden with Trees
Do you long for the leafy, serene pleasure of a tree in your outdoor space but can’t see quite how to make it work? Maybe you live in an apartment and your “outdoor space” is a small patio, or maybe your soil isn’t the best for trees. We have a solution for you: Think a little smaller and consider containers. Any type of “dwarf” tree can be grown in a pot, adding a little bit of arboreal splendor to your backyard, patio or garden. And it is not difficult to do: it basically requires the … [Read more...] about How to Container Garden with Trees
