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Nationally renowned garden expert Melinda Myers helps everyday gardeners find success and ease in the garden through her Melinda’s Garden Moments radio segments. Melinda shares “must have” tips that hold the key to gardening success, learned through her more than 30 years of horticulture experience. Listeners from across the country find her gardener friendly, practical approach to gardening both refreshing and informative! On this page, Melinda shares some more extensive garden tips, which expand on the information provided in her one-minute radio segments.
New tips will be added throughout the growing season, providing timely step-by-step tips on what you need to do next in your garden! Visit Melinda’s website www.melindamyers.com for more gardening tips, how-to videos, podcasts and answers to your questions.
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Selecting Grass Seed - The Garden Mix
We walk on it, play sports on it and expect it to look great all year long – our lawns. But harsh weather, animals and less than ideal growing conditions take its toll, resulting in dead patches and thin lawns.
Late August through mid-September is the best time to seed a lawn and repair...
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Fall Containers - The Garden Mix
Add a little extra color and beauty to your fall landscape.
Consider purchasing a few fall blooming annuals and perennials to brighten your landscape. A pot of mums or asters can add color to your front steps. Try mixing...
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Controlling Quack Grass - The Garden Mix
It seems to be everywhere – your garden, lawn and cracks in the sidewalk.
You may have guessed I am talking about quack grass. This aggressive perennial grass spreads by a long white root-like rhizome. Control is difficult since any little piece...
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Harvesting Squash and Melons - The Garden Mix
All your hard work and effort is paying off with a bountiful harvest. Get the most production and best flavor from your garden by harvesting your squash and melons at their peak.
Pick vegetables regularly for a bigger harvest and better flavor. Pick zucchini when the fruit is 6-8 inches long, not the size of a baseball bat. They taste better and...
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Planting Shrubs - The Garden Mix
Use shrubs in the landscape for extra color, a bit of privacy and year round beauty.
Select a shrub suited to the growing conditions and your landscape design. Then insure its health, beauty and longevity with proper planting.
Start with a call to 811 a free utility locating service, three business days before you start digging. Then dig the hole the same depth as the
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Galls - The Garden Mix
Lumps on leaves and bumps on stems have your landscape plants looking like something from a horror movie.
No need to worry about these bizarre growths, they are just the plants’ response to insect feeding. As leaves and twigs expand in spring, mites, adelgids...
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Mulching - The Garden Mix
Save time and energy and keep your landscape looking its best with mulch.
Mulching is one gardening technique that provides many benefits for several seasons. Organic mulches such as evergreen needles, shredded leaves, and woodchips conserve soil moisture....
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Harvesting Flowers for Drying
Enjoy your garden’s beauty year round. Harvest and dry a few flowers to use in flower arrangements, craft project or as gifts for friends and family.
Pick the flowers when they are at peak bloom. I like to harvest flowers for drying mid day since they will have less moisture and are on their....
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Dog Vomit Fungus - The Garden Mix
It’s foamy, slimy and rather disgusting to look at. And nothing describes it better than its common name – Dog vomit fungus.
This slime mold often appears on woodchip and cocoa bean shell mulches during rainy weather. It starts out bright yellow and eventually turns tan, dries and disappears. It feeds on dead organic matter, such as mulch, and is no...
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Drying Herbs - The Garden Mix
Keep the flavor of your garden alive all year long. Pick and dry herbs for winter meals and holiday gifts...
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Vacation Care for Your Houseplants - The Garden Mix
You can stop your mail, kennel your pets, but it is difficult to find a reliable house plant sitter while on vacation...
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Squash Vine Borer - The Garden Mix
All your hard work is paying off with an abundant harvest. Then, one day you notice your squash plants are wilted and near death...
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Keep Your Landscape Green Despite Watering Bans and High Water Bills - The Garde
You can have a good-looking landscape and lower your water bill this summer!
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Add a Bit of Pizzazz to Your Summer Landscape - The Garden Mix
The summer weather and your busy schedule have left your landscape looking a bit weary. There’s still time to add sparkle and enjoy your landscape this summer.
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Summer Lawn Care - The Garden Mix
Warm temperatures, drought and summer rain storms take their toll on our landscapes. Keep your lawn healthy and looking its best despite the summer weather.
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Compost â ItâÂÂs Simple - The Garden Mix
Save time and money by turning landscape trimmings into a valuable soil amendment. It’s as simple as placing disease and insect free plant debris into a pile and letting it rot. Don’t add meat, dairy, weeds gone to seed or perennial weeds that can take root and grow in your compost pile.
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Harvest Tomatoes for the Best Flavor - The Garden Mix
Nothing beats the flavor of fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes. And, proper harvesting will insure the best flavor.
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Blossom End Rot on Tomatoes - The Garden Mix
It's finally here! Your first red tomato. You reach in, twist it off the vine and have a look. And there it is - a big black spot on the bottom of the tomato.
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Controlling Japanese Beetles - The Garden Mix
You can’t miss them. These voracious pests eat and mate in broad daylight and feed on the leaves and flowers of over 300 different types of plants and the roots of turf grass.
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Caring for Garden Fresh Cut Flowers - The Garden Mix
Bring a bit of your garden’s beauty indoors for all to enjoy. Fresh cut flowersright from the garden make everyday a special occasion...
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Holes in Cabbage, Broccoli and Kale leaves. - The Garden Mix
Have you noticed those beautiful white butterflies flitting across your garden? Lovely to look at, but what they leave behind is a problem for gardeners.
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Harvesting and Preserving Root Crops - The Garden Mix
It’s time to start reaping the benefits of your spring plantings. So break out the garden fork and get busy harvesting...
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Eco-friendly Powdery Mildew Control - The Garden Mix
Don’t panic when you find your zinnias, lilac, bee balm or phlox leaves are covered with a white powdery substance. This fungal disease, known as powdery mildew, is often a yearly problem on a variety of plants...
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Lettuce, Kale and Collards - Harvest Tips - The Garden Mix
Get the most flavor and nutritional value from your garden-fresh vegetables with proper harvesting, storage and preparation...
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Eco-friendly Slug and Snail Control - The Garden Mix
They’re gray, they’re slimy, they feed at night leaving holes in the leaves of your favorite hostas, tomatoes and other garden plants. Yes, you guessed it – slugs and snails...
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Late Additions to the Garden - the Garden Mix
Don’t let the calendar stop you from gardening. There is still time to plant vegetables for you and your family to enjoy...
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Eco-Friendly Mosquito Control
Don’t let mosquitoes prevent you from enjoying your garden this summer. A fan and a bit of outdoor housekeeping will help you manage these pests...
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Water Wise Gardening - The Garden Mix
Use water wisely in your landscape to save you time, improve plant health and reduce your water bill.
Water when the top few inches of soil are crumbly and slightly moist. Then thoroughly moisten the top 6 inches of soil. Apply an inch of water for clay soil and a half an inch to thoroughly moisten sandy soils. Use a straight sided can to measure the wate...
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Eco-Friendly Insect Control - The Garden Mix
Every garden season is filled with beautiful or tasty surprises and a few challenges. You can prevent or reduce challenges and damage caused by insect pests and still be kind to the environment. Check your plants thoroughly and often for insects. Remove small populations of pests by hand or use a strong blast of water to knock aphids and mites off plants.
Barriers of floating row cover...
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Weed Control in the Garden - The Garden Mix
No matter the time of the season, weeds seem to grow and thrive. Keeping them under control will give you a healthier, more productive and attractive garden.
Pulling or cultivating works great for annual and some young perennial weeds. Remove weeds before they set seed to reduce the number of weeds in next year’s garden. Deep rooted and persistent weeds like bindweed...
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Vacation Care for Plants - The Garden Mix
You’ve got the car packed, the pets at the kennel and your kids are ready to go. But what are you going to do about all those beautiful containers?
Here are a few tricks that can help. Move your containers to a shady spot. This will slow down the moisture loss so your plant sitter needs to make fewer visits. It also increases the odds that...
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Dividing Overgrown and Floppy Perennials - The Garden Mix
Overcrowded, poor flowering and floppy perennials can be invigorated with a shovel and a bit of your time and energy.
Dig and divide perennials to improve their overall appearance and create new plants to use or share.
The best time to divide spring bloomers is in fall, fall bloomers in spring and summer blooming perennials in either spring or fall. But most gardeners have foun...
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Deadheading Flowers for Maximum Beauty - The Garden Mix
Keep your flowers blooming longer and your garden tidier with a bit of deadheading. Remove the flower stem of salvias and snapdragons as the bloom begins to fade. Use a pruner or sharp garden scissors and cut just above the first set of leaves or the side shoots where new flower buds are forming.
Plants like daylilies and balloon flower require a bit different care. Remove th...
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Save Water and Money with Rain Barrels - The Garden Mix
Save money and be kind to your garden and the environment by capturing rainwater and putting it to work in your landscape. You can make your own rain barrel or purchase one. Either way there are a few features that should be included.
Make sure the top is covered and secure to keep out debris, mosquitoes and children. Some come equipped with a solid lid with an opening just bi...
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Mulch Your Way to a Beautiful Low Maintenance Garden - The Garden Mix
Summers are filled with barbeques, vacations, and caring for our landscapes. Mulching is one way to save time and effort over a season or two, giving you more time for fun. Organic mulches such as evergreen needles, shredded leaves, and woodchips conserve soil moisture, reduce weed problems and add organic matter as they break down, improving the soil.
Use shredded
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Plant an Instant Lawn with Sod - The Garden Mix
Transform bare soil to green lawn in less than a day. Use quality sod to create a new lawn or fill bare patches in existing turf. After properly preparing the top 6 inches of soil, select quality sod. The grass should be dark green, free of weeds and pests, have minimal thatch and preferably been grown in soil similar to your own.
Lay the first roll of sod next to a drive,
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Get Outdoors and Improve your Family's Health - The Garden Mix
June 12th is National Get Outdoors Day. So gather the family and head out to the garden.
Research has found that our children spend too much time indoors watching TV, playing video games or working on the computer. Children that engage in nature and gardening are more focused, suffer less from ADD and score better on exams. And, all gardeners know the mental, emotional and
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Pruning Perennials - The Garden Mix
Tame those unruly perennials with a little early season pruning.
Prune back coneflower, Shasta daisies, asters and other late blooming perennials that tend to flop. Use hand pruners or shears to cut the stems back halfway in mid June. Some gardeners prune just the outer ring of stems. They grow shorter and stiffer and act as a living support for the taller, unpruned, stems
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Pruning Spring Flowering Shrubs - The Garden Mix
Late spring isthe time to bring overgrown lilacs, forsythia and other spring blooming shrubs down to size.
Prune spring blooming shrubs right after flowering to control their size without sacrificing next spring’s bloom. Lilacs, forsythia, bridal wreath spirea and other spring bloomers set their flower buds in summer. Pruning after this in late summer, fall or winter will
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Growing Potatoes - The Garden Mix
I have a quiz for you - What is white, red or yellow, can be eaten fresh, fried or even raw and is one of the most important staples of the human diet. If you guessed Potato, you are right.
This nutritious vegetable can be fun to grow in the home garden. You’ll start with seed potatoes. These are really tubers just like the potatoes we eat. These contain...
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Planting and Training Cucumbers, Squash and Melons
The soil has finally warmed and it is time to get pumpkins, melons, squash and cucumbers in the ground.
These large plants require lots of sunshine and space so pick their spot in your garden carefully.
Try growing some of your vine crops in a cage or on a trellis to save space. Trellising vine crops not only saves space, but helps reduce disease problems by increasing the air and...
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Simple Strategies for Planting Small Seeds - The Garden Mix
Do you have trouble properly spacing the small seeds of carrots, radishes or lettuce? It's easy to end up with half the package in one short row. This is a waste of seed and time spent thinning.
Reduce this problem by mixing small seeds with sand, vermiculite or other fine material. The sand gives you more material to work with while separating the seeds for better...
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Simple Tips for Planting Annuals - The Garden Mix
Memorial Day is the traditional start of gardening for many. Get your plants off to a healthy start with proper planting.
Include annuals on your Memorial Day planting list. They can add a little color and even fragrance to any garden in any season. Maximize their beauty and your enjoyment with proper planting. Push on the sides of the container to loosen the roots and...
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Tomato Growing Tips - The Garden Mix
Nothing beats the flavor of fresh-from-the-garden tomatoes. And no matter what size your landscape, there’s always room for at least one plant.
Space challenged gardeners can grow tomatoes in containers. A 3 to 5 gallon pot is perfect for a single tomato plant skirted by a few flowers or herbs. Or try mixing ...
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Lawn Fertilization for a Healthy Lawn - The Garden Mix
A proper diet will keep your lawn healthy and better able to fight off weeds and pests.
Midwest and northern gardeners should follow the holiday fertilization schedule for a good looking healthy lawn. Start with a light feeding on Memorial Day, followed by Labor Day and then make your final application around Halloween. Increase success and decrease the risk of damage by using a lo.w...
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Grow a Nutritious Garden in a Pot - The Garden Mix
Add a bit of nutrition to your diet and landscape. Grow a container full of nutritious vegetables for your patio, deck or balcony.
Try using peppers, eggplants or tomatoes for a vertical accent. All are nutritious and suited for container gardens. Use patio tomatoes or provide a decorative support for taller tomato plants. And, try growing cucumbers, peas or beans up a decorative...
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Mow Your Way to a Healthy Lawn - the Garden Mix
A good cut can keep your lawn healthy and looking its best.
Keep the grass 3 to 3 ½ inches tall. Setting the mower high means longer grass blades that produce more energy and deeper roots that are more drought tolerant, pest resistant and better able to compete with the weeds. Mow often removing no more than 1/3 the total height of the grass. Frequent mowing is less...
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Speed Up Your Tomato Harvest - The Garden Mix
Be the first in your neighborhood to harvest a red ripe tomato from your garden this summer.
Start by selecting an early-ripening tomato like Early Girl or Fourth of July and plant in properly prepared soil. Plant tall, leggy tomatoes deeper to encourage a larger root system to develop along the buried stem. Dig a trench, remove the lower leaves and set the plant in the trench...
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Converting Grass to Gardens - The Garden Mix
Add more planting space to your landscape by converting a portion of your lawn to a flower or vegetable garden.
Start by laying out the design of your new planting bed. Use a garden hose or rope to mark the borders. View the proposed bed from all sides and be sure to avoid tight corners or angles that make mowing difficult. Adjust the bed layout as needed. Next, edge...
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Stretch Out Before Digging In - The Garden Mix
Don’t let gardening become a painful experience. Warm up your muscles before you dig into gardening.
Drink plenty of water and stretch before you start digging, raking, planting or enjoying other garden activities. Slow, easy bends can warm up muscles and help avoid strains. And, don’t forget about your neck and shoulders. Several repetitions of shoulder shrugs...
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Spring Container Gardens - The Garden Mix
Add a bit of color and fragrance to your entryway with a spring container garden.
A pot filled with cold tolerant annuals, vegetables and herbs can create the perfect welcome for you and your guests. Use snapdragons, fragrant stocks, kale or Swiss chard for your vertical accent.
Add some medium size plants around or in front of them. Pansies are a spring...
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Celebrating MotherâÂÂs Day in a Public Garden
Celebrate Mother’s Day and National Public Gardens Day with a visit to your favorite public garden or arboretum.
It’s the perfect gift. No watering, dusting or care needed for this Mother’s Day gift. And a walk through the garden can raise everyone’s spirit, provide a breath of fresh air and create new family memories. Be sure to bring along th...
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Caring for MotherâÂÂs Day Bouquets - The Garden Mix
Extend the beauty and enjoyment of this year’s Mother’s Day bouquet. A few extra minutes spent caring for cut flowers can add days to your enjoyment. Select flowers free from brown edges and blemishes that are just starting to open. Wrap flowers with paper or plastic to protect them on their journey home.
Remove the lower leaves before arranging. Submerged leaves can....
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Dig, Divide and Multiply Perennials - The Garden Mix
Overcrowded, poor flowering and floppy perennials can be invigorated with a shovel and a bit of your time and energy.
Dig and divide perennials to improve their overall appearance and create new plants to use or share.
The best time to divide spring bloomers is in fall, fall bloomers in spring and summer blooming perennials in either spring or fall. But most gardeners have found the best...
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Arbor Day Celebrations - The Garden Mix
Give a tree a hug and celebrate Arbor Day on the last Friday in April.
First celebrated in Nebraska in 1874 Arbor Day was initiated by J Sterling Morton to encourage individuals and civic groups to plant trees. The tradition spread and now is celebrated throughout the country.
But Arbor Day is about more than just planting trees. It’s also about valuing and taking...
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Plant a Tree for Arbor Day - The Garden Mix
One of the biggest plant investments you make for your landscape is your trees. Help insure their longevity by planting them right.
Start with a call to 811 at least three days before digging in. This free service will mark the location of all underground wires. This one call can save you money and even your life.
After purchasing the tree, locate the tree’s root flar...
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Eco-friendly Crabgrass Control - The Garden Mix
Spring is the time to prevent crabgrass problems in the lawn.
The best defense against this and other lawn weeds is proper care. Grow your grass tall. Keeping it 3 to 3 ½ inches tall encourages deep roots that are more drought-tolerant and better able to fend off pests and outcompete the weeds.
Proper watering and fertilization will further reduce weed...
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Jump Start the Growing Season - The Garden Mix
Don’t let cold soil and late spring frost delay the start to your garden season.
Prepare the soil as soon as it can be worked. Then cover it with clear plastic for several weeks. This warms the soil for planting and helps germinate many of the weed seeds.
Lightly cultivate, removing the young weed seedlings without bringing more weed...
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Create Some Beauty from Landscape Trimmings - The Garden Mix
Turn tree and shrub trimmings into a beautiful wattle fence for your landscape.
This old tradition has been a popular, low cost fencing method since medieval time. Sturdy branches are used for the post while quick growing pliable stems of alder, willow and even grapevines are used for the woven sides.
Use tall wattle fences as dividers and screens in the landscape...
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A Beautiful Garden Starts with a Soil Test - The Garden Mix
Growing a beautiful landscape starts with the soil under your feet.
And the best place to start building a healthy soil foundation is with a soil test. The results tell you if and what type of fertilizer is needed for the plants you are growing.
Check your yellow pages or contact your local Extension service for details on submitting a sample.
Taking the sample is simple. Slide away an...
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Low Maintenance Design Tips - The Garden Mix
Don’t let your spring garden enthusiasm lead to overplanting and the creation of a summer gardening nightmare.
A designer once shared great advice for reducing garden maintenance. She recommended that once you design your garden, cut the number of species used in half and double the amount of each. You’ll have fewer plants to identify in spring as they...
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Expand Your Garden with Plant Cuttings - The Garden Mix
Expand your indoor and outdoor gardens on a budget.
Turn a few leggy houseplants and overwintering annuals, like geraniums into lots of beautiful plants for your garden with cuttings.
Start with pruners, a garden scissors, or a sharp knife and take cuttings about 3 to 4 inches long. I like to make my cutting right above a set of healthy leaves so the remaining stem and plant looks...
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Repairing Winter Damage - The Garden Mix
As you begin spending more time outdoors, you may discover some winter damage once hidden by the snow.
Throughout the winter hundreds of little critters known as voles were busy searching for and eating seeds and bark. They wore trails in the lawn and fed on the bark of young trees and shrubs.
Start repairing damage by gently tamping any uprooted grass back...
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Starting Plants from Seeds - The Garden Mix
Extend the gardening fun and save money by starting your plants from seed.
Purchase seeds of your favorite or hard to find plants from a garden center or catalogue. Purchase or clean and reuse old containers. Or, make your own by punching holes in yogurt, cottage cheese or fast food containers or folding newspaper into biodegradable pots.
Fill the containers with a...
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Cleaning Tools - The Garden Mix
Burn off a few calories and get ready for spring with a trip to the garden shed or garage.
Now is a great time to rid your tools of dirt and rust. Clean, sharp, quality tools can make the difference between drudgery and efficiency when working in the landscape.
Let’s start with shovels, a tool every gardener uses and seems to abuse. Use a wire brush to remove any
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Starting Plants from Cuttings - The Garden Mix
Expand your indoor and outdoor garden by taking cuttings from your favorite plants.
Use a hand pruner, garden scissors, or a sharp knife and take cuttings about 3 to 4 inches long. I like to make my cutting right above a set of healthy leaves so the remaining stem and plant looks nice.
Once you have your cutting, remove the lower leaves, any buds, and flowers that may be on that...
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Houseplants Purify the Air - The Garden Mix
Save energy and money by growing your own air purifier.
Research by NASA and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America (now known as PLANET) has shown that some of our popular houseplants can help eliminate air pollutants like volatile organic compounds found in homes and office buildings. As we tightened up the seals around windows and doors to conserve energy we...
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Forcing Branches for Indoor Enjoyment - The Garden Mix
Bring a bit of spring indoors by forcing branches of forsythia, quince, pussy willows and other spring flowering plants into bloom.
Use a pair of pruners to cut branches above a healthy bud, where a branch joins another branch or just above ground level. Start with crossing or winter damaged branches. This way you can manage the plants growth while harvesting some stems...
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Indoor Start for Earlier Bloom - The Garden Mix
It’s not too early to start planting - indoors that is. Start cannas, dahlias or other non-hardy bulbs indoors for bigger transplants and earlier bloom in the garden.
Retrieve the rhizomes, tubers or corms you may have stored for winter or purchase new ones from your favorite garden center, catalogue or on-line.
This is also the perfect time to divide...
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Grow Your Own and Save
Reduce your grocery bill this summer by growing a few of your favorite vegetables. And the good news, you don’t need much space to produce enough fresh vegetables for you and your family to enjoy.
Add one or more tomatoes, peppers or eggplants to your existing gardens or plant in a pot. The colorful fruits can add beauty to any garden and a tomato in your flower bed is sure to
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