A Checklist of Essential Gardening Tools for the Beginner

While experienced gardeners may be able to put garden tools to best use, it?s essential that beginning gardeners with fewer established gardening skills have the correct tool for every garden task they need to perform.

Here?s a list of tools most garden center and nursery experts recommend:

Two shovels: One should be a spade with a pointed tip and the other a flat-headed model. Both should have wooden handles at least four feet long.

Pruning shears: A good pair of sharp shears is a vital member of any gardener?s tool collection to keep roses and shrubbery looking nest. Bypass the cheapest and most expensive models in favor of a mid-priced model.

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Garden Tip...

The spring is the time of the year in which to do the pruning of all kinds of plants, vines, and shrubs, that are out of doors, as they are then dormant. Some prefer to prune grape vines in the fall, just after they have ripened and shed their leaves. We think it unsafe to prune anything too severely in the fall, especially the grape vine. Much experience has taught us to select the month of March as the time of the year most suitable for performing the operation.
~ James Sheehan
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Loppers: A long-handled cutting tool that can cut through heavier rose canes and through tree branches up to about an inch in diameter.

Two Rakes: A wide bamboo rake for light raking that involves collecting relatively lightweight garden debris and a heavier straight metal model for serious soil preparation.

Hedge shears: Long-handled, flat-bladed hedge shears are designed to cut evenly across both horizontal and vertical planes.

Tank sprayer: Because it’s difficult to completely clean tank sprayers, separate sprayers should be purchased for herbicides, fertilizer and insecticides.

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Garden Tip...

It is so easy to mow the lawn with the light-running modern lawn-mower, that many fine lawns are injured by too frequent mowings. We should not follow any set time for mowing, but be governed by the growth of the grass and the weather. When hot weather approaches, the grass should be cut less often, for too close cutting will expose the roots, and if the weather be dry and hot for a considerable period, the grass as a consequence will wither prematurely.
~ James Sheehan
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Garden hose: Don?t buy one that?s too long or too short for you to comfortably use; a 200 foot long hose in a 25 foot wide garden makes no sense at all, nor does a 50 foot hose for a half acre lot. More expensive hoses withstand the temperature extremes of summer and winter much better, and spending the extra money for a kink-free hose is well worth the frustration it will save you. Buy a rack or hose reel to keep your hose in shape.

Wheelbarrow or lawn cart: A wheelbarrow is the more versatile choice, usable for moving dirt for a new plant bed to mixing concrete for a patio fix. However, if all you need to do is move leaves, carts are cheaper and are not as heavy.

Spreader: Spreading fertilizer by hand causes some areas to get too much fertilizer while other areas get too little or none at all. Spreaders help all areas get the right amount.

Push broom: For keeping walks, driveways and patios free of lawn clippings or dirt from your gardening adventures.

Other tools: A hand-held hoe, heavy cotton gloves, a string trimmer, pruning saw, mower, hand trowel, big floppy gardening hat and watering can.

Tools are important to a gardener; they allow you to tend to your garden and complete chores with ease. Keep your eye out for end of season sales! This is the best time to purchase excellent quality gardening tools at a great price.

Creating Border Gardens

Creating a border garden is a wonderful way to improve the overall look of your yard in general, and create dividing lines between specific areas or sections. If for instance, you want to divide your front yard space from the back yard, you could put a border garden in that will look pretty and define the space, without taking up a lot of room or completely blocking the view.

Border gardens look particularly nice when placed around the outside edge of a lawn or yard area though. These small garden beds will define the border of your property, make it look much more appealing, and are usually less expensive than installing a full fledged fence. Plus the border gardens usually accent the yard instead of blocking it from view inside or out.

A border garden is often made just like other types of garden beds are, but they’re designed to sit low on the ground, and they usually have small or dainty plants in them because they’re used more for accent and appeal instead of creating barriers.

Almost any kind of garden bed border material can be used too. If you have a brick house for instance, you could use matching bricks to line your border garden. Alternatively, you could by small river rocks or stones, which are larger than pebbles but not as big as boulders are, and use those for the garden bed border.

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Garden Tip...

Seeds that are exceptionally fine, like those of Lobelias, Petunias, Ferns, and other very tiny seeds, ought never to be covered deeper than the sixteenth of an inch, with very fine soil sifted on them through a fine sieve; the soil should then be lightly patted down with the back of a shovel. This will prevent the seeds from shriveling before they start to germinate.
~ James Sheehan
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There are also plenty of decorative, inexpensive pre-molded borders you can buy too, and these are usually sold in any garden center, nursery, or discount department store. Some are designed to look like small picket fences, and others look like a low rock wall. There are some which look like small wooden peirs or railroad ties too though, so the design ideas are almost limitless when you’re planning your border garden.

To plan your border garden though, you’ll need to take some initial measurements of the space your garden will go around. If for example, you’re putting a border garden around the outside boundaries of your front lawn, then you would need to measure the length of each side of the yard which will have the border garden installed.

Since border gardens tend to be built low to the ground, you normally just need to buy enough materials for each side of your garden one layer deep. If you’re using bricks for instance, you’d lay the bricks end to end when creating your garden border, but you wouldn’t need enough bricks to put a second row on top of the first unless you wanted the garden border to be a little higher.

In most cases, once you’ve purchased your border materials, all you need to do is lay them out into their designated spaces. Using our bricks example, you’d place the bricks end to end laying on their sides, at the farthest outside perimeter of your yard. Create a line of bricks all the way down one edge, then turn the corner when you get to it and butt the first brick for the next side up against the last brick from the side you just finished.

Once you have the entire outside area laid, then you simply start laying an identical line of bricks approximately one to two feet from the last line you created. This line will be inside your yard perimeter, and will make up the front of your border garden bed. Your border material will sink into the soil slightly and become more stable over time, but you can help it along by soaking the areas you’re placing them, and pushing down firmly as you lay the material around your yard.

Once the border is completed, all you have to do is put in some plants and flowers. You can simply dig small holes in the existing grass area within your new border, or you can spread a thin layer of new topsoil to plant in instead. Be sure to space your plants appropriately so they won’t crowd each other out as they mature.

Wintering for your Rose Garden: An Important Fall Routine

Getting roses to over-winter successfully is no small feat if you live in a very cold climate. However, it can be done regardless of where you live, especially if you buy and plant very hardy rose varieties such as Explorer, Parkland and Buck roses. Many of the old fashioned roses will also do quite nicely?there?s a good reason they have been around as long as they have!

The trick to keep roses alive but dormant during the winter is to protect the bud graft from freezing or being damaged. You can do this by planting the bud union deeply when you first plant your roses. Then, after the last rose of summer has fallen from your plants, cut the canes back to the ground and remove all fallen leaves that have any trace of black spot or mildew and burn them.

The second is to add protection to a bud union that is above the ground by bringing in soil from another part of the garden and making a pyramid of soil around the plant to cover the canes after cutting the canes back to 12 to 18 inches above the ground. Called ?hilling? by most rose gardeners, this system works best when you spray the clipped canes with a lime-sulphur and dormant oil combination before you hill them up to defeat problems with fungi.

Some gardeners swear that using peat moss to form the pyramid around the cut canes keeps the plants dry and warm; others prefer the insulating abilities of Styrofoam containers cut to cover the canes.

Research from Canada suggests that gardeners who use a poly foam blanket to cover their roses see more of their roses to survive even the coldest winters. A poly foam blanket makes your rose garden appear to have been visited by space aliens, especially as you must weight and seal the edges of the blanket with additional soil to keep the blanket firmly in place when winter winds rage. But if that doesn?t bother you, this is a great system to use.

Additional over-wintering techniques involves wrapping the roses with burlap and filling the enclosed space with leaves, or making small enclosures of wire or snow fencing and filling the enclosed space with leaves or other insulating material to keep roses warm.

Whichever technique and whatever materials you use, just remember that the whole point of using it is to protect the bud union from freezing and prevent it from dying on a cold winter night while you?re sleeping in your warm bed.
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Garden Tip...

It is a mistake to try to stimulate into growth, by the use of fertilizers, those plants which give every indication of being sickly or stunted; they will make such a plant sicker, if they do not kill it outright. If guano is used in potting soil, it should be in the proportion of one pound to every bushel of soil.
~ James Sheehan
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Adding Yellow & Orange to Your Flower Garden

Yellow is a beautiful, vibrant color that seems to be full of life and happiness. It’s an excellent color to add to your garden too, when you want to attract butterflies, hummingbirds, or other birds. Large batches of bright yellow in the garden are particularly attractive for hummingbirds.

Whether you want to create an all yellow flower garden, or you’d simply like to add splashes of yellow to your existing color mix, here are several suggestions for you…

Desert or Mexican Goldpoppy - These adorable poppy flowers have a color that ranges from yellow to orange, and they bloom from February through May in the Western desert states such as Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas. These flowers open wide on bright sunny days, and close at night time or when it’s cloudy.

Yellow Evening Primrose - This is an herb which is sometimes called a sundrop, and it blooms from February to May in Arizona and California. It’s a small and delicate little yellow flower which opens around sunset, and closes again not long after the sun rises each morning. On cloudy days it may stay open longer too.

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Garden Tip...

This question is frequently asked! Do you recommend the use of artificial fertilizers for house plants, and does it benefit them? I invariably answer yes, if used judiciously. The use of good special fertilizers will help the growth of some kinds of plants, which, without such aid, would scarcely meet our expectations. The term artificial fertilizers, applies to all manurial applications, save those produced by domestic animals.
~ James Sheehan
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Yellow Jessamine - This bright yellow funnel shaped flower grows on vines which can reach up to twenty feet in length. The vines like to climb trees, and sometimes they’ll even reach from one to another as they grow. The beautiful yellow flower blooms are sweetly scented, and they tend to bloom from March through May.

Coreopsis - These cheerful little yellow flowers look a bit like a daisy. Some varieties have petals which are primarily yellow, with a touch of dark orange in the center. Coreopsis are drought resistant perennials, which look wonderful in hanging baskets, flower beds, or wild flower gardens.

Nasturtium - This is an edible annual flower which blooms in bright yellow or orange. It can be grown as a small compact bush type of plant, or as a vine, and they prefer to grow in full sunlight. They don’t do well with heat however, preferring areas which have cool dry summers instead.

This is of course just a small sampling of the various kinds of flowers you can grow which bloom in shades of bright yellow or orange. If you prefer more formal looking flowers in your garden, you’ll be happy to know there are plenty of yellow roses and yellow tulips you can grow too. Alternatively if you’d like a wildflower or natural garden, there are also many different native plants which produce yellow and orange flower blooms too.

Who does not like yellow flowers? That color is not for everyone.

Mystery solved! (and more yellow flowers on the way) | nest maker

I picked up a lysimachia pardiformus at the last plant sale over there last month, but in my haste to elbow out the other shoppers so they couldn’t get any of the good stuff, I overlooked the yellow flowers when I was buying it. …

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As opposed to the romantic meanings attached to red and pink roses, yellow roses are used as a symbol for friendship. Yellow flowers send the message of appreciation, gratitude, and platonic love without the romantic overtones of other …

An Introduction to Mulching for Beginner Gardeners

Simply put, mulch is a layer of organic or synthetic material which is laid on top of your garden soil. This top layer is designed to help the soil hold moisture longer, prevent soil from eroding, prevent the soil from fluctuating in temperature too drastically, and prevent weeds from easily being able to grow around your plants.

Mulch is usually light enough to allow plenty of water and air to get through it to the roots of your plants, but it’s also dense enough to prevent weeds from being able to grow easily. Organic mulch deteriorates over time too, and this has an additional effect of adding nutrients, minerals, and vitamins to the soil around your plants too.

Organic mulch usually comes from some type of plant material such as leaves, grass clippings, wood bark, or straw. Mineral type mulches can be used too though, and these usually come from some type of stone, gravel, or other small rocks. There are also plenty of synthetic mulches available too, and these can be made from a variety of materials such as plastic or rubber. Many synthetic mulches are made from recycled materials, and they can last for quite a long time.

Organic and mineral type mulches will often help keep the soil beneath them cooler, and synthetic mulches tend to help the soil warm up. Organic mulch will of course degrade and decompose over time, so it has to be added to regularly. Mineral mulches can last several lifetimes, and some types of synthetic mulches can too.

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Garden Tip...

If a new lawn of any extent is to be made, it should first be plowed deep, and if uneven and hilly, grade it to a level surface. The surface should have a heavy dressing of manure, which should be lightly plowed under, and then the surface should be dragged several times until fine, and then rolled with a heavy roller. The seed may now be sown, after which it should be rolled again. The spring is the best time to do this work, although if the fall be dry, it will answer nearly as well to do it at that time. The dryer the ground in preparing it for the seed, and for the sowing of the same, the better.
~ James Sheehan
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Any type of natural material which decomposes on its own can be used as a mulch material. Some of the most popular include grass clippings, hay, tree leaves, wood chips, and straw. It helps to create thick layers of mulch when you’re using organic materials, because the thicker layers help protect your plants from weeds and weather better. Thicker layers will also pack down a bit better, and not be lost or scattered with any little breeze that comes along.

One of the best reasons to use mulch around your plants is for weather protection. If you put a nice deep layer of mulch around the base of tender plants before winter sets in for instance, that mulch will often allow the roots to stay alive even when it gets quite cold outside. And when the roots of your plants can survive through the winter, you’ll be able to enjoy the plant when it starts budding naturally the following spring.

The other major advantage to mulching is, when done correctly, you’ll find yourself fighting weeds much less often in your garden.

Additional guidance on mulching…

Mulching autumn beds

Where you have empty flowerbeds, you need to mulch them for winter, because even the best and flattest of beds can experience soil erosion in the wind and become compacted under the pressure of rainwater and snow. …

Say Goodbye to Lawn - The Joy of Sheet Mulching

I’ve found it somewhat difficult to find comprehensive and straight-forward info online about sheet mulching, so here’s my attempt at the matter. Please share your thoughts and experiences with it by commenting below. …

The Secret to a Great Garden Is to Mulch It - Home and Garden Weekly

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Mulching For Optimum Results | The Garden Central

Mulching is an organic gardener’s best friend. Appropriate for trees, flowers, shrubs, plants and foliage, mulching can produce astonishing results. It.

Saving Money By Mulching The Leaves

This article gave me some useful information, and I’ve since read additional information that helps me believe that using the mulching mower is not a bad thing. Unknown to us, there are still earthworms in the ground that will use the …

Rose Gardening

Creating a garden full of beautiful blooming rose bushes, plants or vines is the dream of many gardeners. Roses symbolize love, hope, passion, and a wide variety of other feelings which make these flowers loved by almost everyone.

Growing a rose garden is not too difficult of course, but some people find themselves a bit disappointed in the way their roses grow or bloom througout the year, so they could use a few growing and care tips. Others simply don’t know how or where to get started with creating a rose garden though, so we’ll summarize some of the first steps in that process too.

Planning a Rose Garden

When you’ve decided to create a rose garden within your yard, you’ll first need to decide which type of roses you plan to grow. There are hundreds of different varieties of roses, so it’s almost impossible to grow all of them. If there’s a certain style of rose garden you’d like to create, this will help you decide which types of roses to grow.

A formal rose garden for instance, might have just red roses in it. Or maybe red and white for a bit of extra drama. Wild rose gardens on the other hand, won’t have the plantings laid out too precisely, and there might be a large variety of colors and styles of roses growing in your garden at any given time.
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Garden Tip...

This question is frequently asked! Do you recommend the use of artificial fertilizers for house plants, and does it benefit them? I invariably answer yes, if used judiciously. The use of good special fertilizers will help the growth of some kinds of plants, which, without such aid, would scarcely meet our expectations. The term artificial fertilizers, applies to all manurial applications, save those produced by domestic animals.
~ James Sheehan
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Not only do roses come in many different shapes, sizes and colors, they also come with and without smells. Many new hybrid roses for instance, don’t seem to have much of a smell to them at all. So if you want a fragrant rose garden, you’ll have to be sure you’re selecting rose types which provide enough scent for your liking.

Also realize that roses can be grown as bushes and shrubs of varying heights, small trees, and climbing vines. So this needs to be part of your rose garden planning stages. You wouldn’t want to accidently plant a climbing rose vine in the middle of your yard without a trellis or other support for instance, unless you knew in advance that the vines would creep across the ground and that was the look you intended.

Caring for Your Rose Garden
Roses don’t really need special care, but there are certain types of plant foods, fertilizers, and soil mixes which are specifically designed for planting and growing roses. These supplements make it easy on the beginner gardener, because any soil adjustments needed have already been made, and additional vitamins and nutrients specific to growing roses is already taken care of for you too. In some parts of the country it is essential to make sure your growing environment is just right, so the roses in your garden will be able to live and thrive for years to come. If you want to learn the specifics about doing this preparations yourself in the future though, you’ll find lots of great information around the Web.

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Garden Tip...

Always water your plants in winter time with lukewarm water, if you would have a profusion of flowers, and thrifty-growing plants. The water should be of the same temperature as the room or place where the plants are. There is no theory about it, it is a practical fact.
~ James Sheehan
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Like any other plants of course, you’ll need to put your roses in locations of your yard and garden which are appropriate for their specific light and water requirements. Be sure to add a good layer of mulch after you have them planted too, because this will help prevent weeds from cropping up, and it will help your roses maintain moisture in the soil for longer periods of time.

As your roses bloom, you’ll want to keep an eye on them and pluck off any blossoms that have died off. If you pluck these off regularly - this is known as dead heading - the bushes and vines will usually create many more blooms for you throughout the season.

Trimming and pruning your rose bushes will also help encourage them to grow and spread out over time, and we’ll cover some of those specifics in future articles.

The Aero Garden, Indoor Garden, and Herb Garden have great interest this time of year.

Here is some web wide discussion of the aerogarden

Aero Garden By Aero Grow Automatic Indoor Fresh Garden Growing System - Black YOU CHOOSE THE SEED KIT
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AeroGarden Master Gardener Deluxe Kit
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Day 121 / Day 56 - Feeding Time

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AeroGrow AeroGarden Deluxe White & Master Gardener Kit
Buy new: $183.60
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Re-Seeding the Aerogarden

With all this rockwool sitting around, I decided to start some lettuce in my Aerogarden. Essentially, I cram a piece of rockwool in the Aerogarden hole and set the seeds on top. If it looks like it is going to fall [...]

Garden Stacker Planter + Indoor Culinary Herb Garden Kit - Makes a Great Gift Idea - Grow Cooking Herbs Indoors or Outdoors Year Round - Seeds: Parsley, Thyme, Cilantro / Coriander, Basil, Dill, Oregano, Sweet Marjoram, Chives, Savory, Garlic Chives, Mustard & Sage. Includes Seed, Starter Peat Pellets, Greenhouse Dome Tray, Instructions, And Amazing Stack-A-Pot Stackable Planter: Just Stack & Grow. Stacking Planter Comes With Hanging Chain To Stack Or Hang.
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Raised garden beds

Creating raised garden beds is a wonderful way to get a garden started easily. When you plant your flowers or vegetables in raised garden beds, you don’t have to pull weeds first, turn soil, or dig out a lot of rocks and other debris. Instead, you simply choose the location you want your garden bed to be, lay down your bed retainer walls, and fill it with dirt.

Raised garden beds are popular because they’re easy, but also because they allow you to start growing seeds and small starter plants earlier in the season. A raised garden bed will become warmer earlier in the season than a ground based garden bed, and that allows you to start your gardening earlier in the year.

The first step to creating your raised garden bed is to choose the materials you’ll use for the walls of the bed. There are a wide variety of materials that can be used to create your garden bed. Rocks for instance, can be piled together into a rock wall design. Bricks can also be used to create a more formal looking garden bed too. Wood or railroad ties are easy, attractive and sometimes even free too.

Regardless of what you choose to create your garden bed with, you’ll need to gather enough materials to make the bed as high as you’d like it. Some people like to create garden beds just a foot or two tall, while others create tiered garden beds which have multiple levels ranging from a foot or two in height, to four or five feet at the tallest level. How you design yours is completely up to you of course, and your budget.

Now that you have your materials and location chosen, it’s time to build the bed. And all you need to do is simply lay out your material in the design you want for the garden bed to create the bed frame. Once the frame for your garden bed is ready, then you just need to fill it with soil. Put enough soil into the new garden bed to bring it to at least one or two inches below the top of your garden bed frame.

All that’s left now is planting. You can plant small starter seedling plants in your bed, sow seeds directly, or put more mature plants in, whichever you prefer. After planting your plants in the new garden bed, surround them with some type of mulch material such as tree bark or dry grass clippings, so the plants and bed won’t dry out too quickly during hot spells.
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Garden Tip...

It is a mistake to try to stimulate into growth, by the use of fertilizers, those plants which give every indication of being sickly or stunted; they will make such a plant sicker, if they do not kill it outright. If guano is used in potting soil, it should be in the proportion of one pound to every bushel of soil.
~ James Sheehan
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]]> http://gardenfingers.com/gardening-topics-2/raised-garden-beds/raised-garden-beds/feed/ http://gardenfingers.com/garden-chatter/botanical-gardens-sometimes-forgotten/ http://gardenfingers.com/garden-chatter/botanical-gardens-sometimes-forgotten/#comments Sun, 09 Nov 2008 08:53:54 +0000 Greeny http://gardenfingers.com/?p=407

Botanical Gardens are pleasing to the eye and very informative. Grab the opportunity to visit these great garden displays when possible.

Here are some featured botanical gardens ’round the web:

Brooklyn Botanical Garden Seed Start

We learn how Monika Hennemann, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, starts seeds in the BBG greenhouse. Visit our community site for more info http://gardenfork.tv Author: Gardenfork

Huntsville Botanical Gardens

Some shots from today… This isn’t really a grand shot, but it is a grand tree. Apx 125 year old Dog Wood that was moved from an old homestead from a nearby city. The rootball at the time it was moved weighed 83000lbs! …

Tourism: United States Botanic Gardens

It’s the perfect time to plan your winter escape to the United States Botanic Gardens. Open from 10 am to 5 pm daily (including holidays and weekends!) the conservatory is a large glassed-in garden-topia. You can get there a number of …

Kanapaha Botanical Gardens

I haven’t had much time to take pictures lately so I thought I would share a few I took a while back ago at the botanical gardens in Gainesville, Florida. As you can see, I had a little fun with them in Paint Shop Pro …

WEsT Coast Beauty

Jungle Green - UBC Botanical gardens. Killer beauties. Killer beauties. Ladner Lagoon. Ladner Lagoon. Reifel Bird Sanctuary - always a relaxing location, rain or shine. Reifel Bird Sanctuary - always a relaxing location, rain or shine.

BIRMINGHAM BOTANICAL GARDENS

The Birmingham Botanical Gardens are botanical gardens situated in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England. The gardens are close to the centre of Birmingham and open every day of the year, from sunrise to sunset. …

The Jerusalem Botanical Garden

After a month of being here in Israel, and working in the Jerusalem Botanical Gardens, I am beginning to get into the routine of things in the gardens. Upon arriving the temperature was still very hot during the day but has since …

The Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens - Overland Park …

The Overland Park Arboretum & Botanical Gardens - Overland Park, Kansas. What a fabulous place to take a break from the stresses that accompany everyday life! Here you can sit on a bench near the Erickson Water Garden and enjoy the …

Bellevue Botanical Garden

On Tuesday, my older daughter’s school class had field trip to Bellevue Botanical gardens. I volunteered to help, and took the opportunity to take some pictures of this quite lovely garden located on the East side of Seattle and Lake …

State Botanical Gardens of Georgia

Yesterday, I attended a regional Garden Writers meeting in Athens, Georgia. The meeting was held at the State Botanical Gardens of Georgia. I’m not sure why we don’t have something so fancy. The meeting was really interesting and I …

Fall foliage freakout at two Bronx botanical gardens

The New York Botanical Garden is currently in the throes of an amazing fall transformation. Although they currently have enormous Henry Moore sculptures scattered throughout the park, more striking art hangs on the trees in the Native …

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Adding White to Your Flower Garden

Growing white flowers in the garden creates an enchanting, almost other-worldly feel that’s particularly noticeable at night time. Even during the daylight hours though, there’s just something particularly striking about seeing gorgeous white flower blooms against the various shades of green from your foliage.

Planting white flowers throughout your garden is an excellent way to simply mix in something different to compliment all of the other colorful flowers you have growing. White flowers make excellent stand alone gardens too, so you might think about creating one flower bed which is dedicated to growing all white flowers. Another wonderful way to grow white flowers though, is as an accent to other colors.

In cut flower arrangements for instance, it’s common to see bold red roses accented with white baby’s breath. You can create a similar look in your rose garden, by planting baby’s breath in strategic locations close to your roses.

White Peacock Amaryllis is another white flower you might want to try adding to your garden. Imagine growing this one mingled in the same bed as a flaming red Amaryllis variety such as the Red Lion.

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Garden Tip...

Those who raise seed for the market take great pains to produce none but good, sound seeds, and in nine cases out of ten, where seeds fail to germinate and grow, the fault is with those who sow them, and not on account of poor quality of seed. This we know from experience.
~ James Sheehan
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The Carnation White Begonia is another spring bulb plant which produces wonderful white flowers. These look like carnation flowers, and would go beautifully with roses too. Since these flowers tend to bloom quite well in shadier areas, they add excellent splashes of brightness to flower beds under trees, or containers on a patio or porch.

There are several types of Daffodils which produce white flower blooms too, and these are quite popular to plant with Daffodils of other colors, or even with colorful varieties of tulips too. Mount Hood, also known as Narcissi trumpet, is a Daffodil which is planted in the fall, and it is considered to be unmatched in it’s blooming length. The pure white flowers are huge, and they tend to stay open for as long as four weeks in April and May. The plants grow to be about eighteen inches tall, and they multiply year after year. Usually you’ll see the most flower blooms in the second or third year of growth.

Another interesting white blooming flower is not fully white. The Dahlia Hawaii is actually white and yellow, with splashes of pink on each petal that look as if they’ve been dabbed on with a paintbrush. This adorable flower will bloom from July through late fall, and it’s excellent for cut flower gardens and containers too.