Combine Your Favorite Edibles into Your Landscape

Spring is a great time to start planting your summer vegetables, fruits, and herbs.

A designated row garden is great and a lot of fun, and it can provide baskets of fresh foods to eat or give away to friends and family. But there is another way — adding vegetables and herbs into your landscape adds color and texture and gives a fresh new look to your outdoor space that can otherwise feel mundane.

Most summer vegetables need around 6 – 8 hours of full sun per day, so make sure they are not planted in the shade of larger shrubs or trees. They need adequate water from either irrigation or hand watering. Herbs like rosemary, thyme, basil, dill, and sage can add wonderful aromas to your garden that will keep you wanting to return to it to work and play and to relieve stress from your day-to-day life.

At our shop I plant many different varieties of edibles in the landscape for all the employees to enjoy. This has been immensely popular — the employees love unwinding at the end of a hard day by helping to maintain the landscape. They also enjoy trying out the healthy fruits and veggies. From time to time they bring in samples for everyone to enjoy — salsa made from the tomatoes and peppers we planted, or a bowl of fried okra made hot and fresh in the kitchen that we eat like popcorn. I overhear them exchanging recipes and telling stories about how delicious last night’s dinner was when they added some of the fresh vegetables they picked here.

Combining your favorite summertime foods into your existing landscape is a great way to enhance your outdoor space while enjoying fresh and tasty treats. The result is fun, healthy, and attractive!

Life on the Road with Your Dog

Expert Tip: If you want to make new friends, put a hat on your dog and take a walk through a crowded park. I guarantee that most people you encounter will talk to your dog and, in today’s world, may want to take a selfie while holding your dog. Our UDogU business grew out of our mutual love for our canine partners in life. Sherry, a talented seamstress, designed our first product — a unique hat for dogs. Of course we knew that dogs don’t need a hat, but we quickly found out that a dog wearing a hat is super cute and irresistible to almost anyone within petting range.

Preserving Legacy Trees for Future Generations

Several years ago the City of Aiken hired a contractor to perform a tree survey throughout all of the city-owned properties. This survey included the rights of way, the citywide arboretum, the 170+ parkways, and Hopelands Gardens and Rye Patch. The scope of the endeavor to assess the trees took over a year and an incredible number of hours. The job included identifying the species, measuring heights and circumferences, and evaluating overall tree health. When it was completed, all of the data was collected on a website that the city uses to prioritize tree care. The survey also ranked the trees by size and even gave them a monetary valuation.

I Never Promised You A Rose Garden

Many years ago, I worked in a large green house as a domestic rose and cut-flower grower. It was extremely hard work, hot in the summer and cold in the winter. Not to mention all the lifting, pulling, tugging, and hauling we had to do to bring a crop to maturity in time for a special holiday such as Christmas or Mother’s Day. Did you know it takes 72 “sun days” to grow a rose? If it is a cold and cloudy winter or spring, bringing a crop in on time is difficult. We would often have to “push” the crop by feeding liquid nitrogen. Pests such as aphids and

What’s the Buzzzzz?

When I think of spring I think of two buzz words — bees and hummingbirds. The buzz word this month is hummingbirds. I just love the precious little birds! Hummingbirds are native to North America. As the smallest of birds, they measure approximately 3 — 5 inches in length and get their name from the humming noise their wings make when they fly. All 350 species of hummingbirds are native to the Americas; by far most of them are tropical. The life of a hummingbird is quite solitary. The males arrive in an area and stake out their territories before the females arrive. A male lets the female hummingbirds know