It's always a challenge to come up with new and unusual gift ideas for Mother's Day. This year, why not plant a garden for her (either in the ground or in a container) that she will be able to use and enjoy year-round? Base the type of garden you plant on her interests.

Does your mother enjoy cooking? An herb garden might be the perfect gift. Many herbs stay, or can be kept, fairly small and compact and would be well-suited to a pot or window box; these include thyme, oregano, sage, basil and cilantro/coriander. If she has a favorite style of cooking (Italian, Mexican, Asian or Middle Eastern, etc.) you could plant a container with several of the herbs used in that particular style of cooking. If you have a sunny spot available for in-ground planting you could plant some of the larger herbs as well, like rosemary or bay.

Perhaps your mom is a nature lover. A garden to attract birds or butterflies would provide her with hours of enjoyment. Try planting a garden with plants that attract both, using plants such as butterfly weed (Asclepias), salvia (many varieties are available), beard tongue (Penstemon), California fuchsia (Zauschneria), lavender (many varieties to choose from), lantana (colors include white, lavender, red, orange, pink and yellow), butterfly bush (Buddleja) and columbine (Aquilegia).

If your mother enjoys growing her own fruit, a unique gift would be a fruit tree that has different types of fruits on the same tree. Citrus trees are available this way and usually sport five or six types of fruit per tree. These can be a combination of lemon, grapefruit, orange, mandarin, tangelo, or lime. Don't be too choosy about the combinations; what you are able to find will be based on the grower's availability and can change from year to year. Stone fruits (cherries, peaches, plums, etc.) are also available as multi-grafted trees. By having fruit with different ripening dates on the same tree, you are able to significantly extend your harvest period.

For those moms who enjoy growing flowers to use in indoor decorating, a cutting garden would be ideal. Some great annual choices for the warm season are: celosia, cosmos, zinnias (tall types), or sunflowers. For perennials, plant Peruvian lily (Alstroemeria), black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia), shasta daisy (Chrysanthemum maximum), pincushion flower (Scabiosa columbaria), cottage pink (Dianthus plumarius), sea lavender (Limonium perezii) or dahlias (taller types). If you have room, consider planting a focal-point plant to use for cut foliage such as pink breath-of-heaven; the foliage of this plant looks delicate and airy and lasts in a vase for up to two weeks.

Visit us soon so we can help you get your Mother's Day garden off to a good start. Mom will love it!

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Few of us can conceive of cooking (or eating) without the presence of tomatoes in our diet. In the US, the tomato is the summer vegetable (or fruit?) most often grown at home--and there are plenty of cultivars to grow. The U.S. Department of Agriculture claims there are 25,000 tomato varieties.

But this delicious food didn't always have it so easy. Up until the 1800's, most people viewed the tomato with caution--and many with outright fear. Originally grown by the Aztecs and Incas as early as 700 A.D., it is thought that the first seeds made their way across the Atlantic sometime in the 1500's.

Early Europeans categorized it with a group of well-known poisonous plants of the era: henbane, mandrake and nightshade. Because of its association with nightshade (whose hallucinogenic effects include visions and the sense of flying), it quickly became associated with witchcraft. In German folklore, witches would use plants such as mandrake and nightshade to summon werewolves (in fact, the common German name for "tomato" translates to "wolf peach"); because of this, the tomato was widely avoided (by everyone other than practitioners of the "dark arts," that is).

Legend has it that one of the main turning points in the popularity of the tomato in the US is largely due to one Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson. On September 26, 1830, standing on the courthouse steps in Salem, Massachusetts before a crowd of interested onlookers, he proclaimed his intention to eat a whole basket of the red fruit and survive. One member of the audience was his doctor, who loudly stated, "The foolish colonel will froth and foam at the mouth and double over with appendicitis. All that oxalic acid - one dose and he is dead! He might even be exposing himself to brain fever! Should he, by some unlikely chance, survive, his skin will stick to his stomach and cause cancer!" Colonel Johnson proceeded to eat the basket of tomatoes and survive with no ill effects.

Even with all its detractors, the tomato had a few fans. Some people once believed that placing a ripe tomato on a mantel of a new dwelling would ward off evil spirits and guarantee future prosperity. Since ripe tomatoes tended to go bad quickly, it became popular to make stuffed fabric tomatoes to put on the mantel. Invariably, people sewing began to use them as handy pin holders. To this day, pincushions are very commonly covered with red fabric--and many still look like tomatoes.

Today, are much more likely to put a ripe tomato on our plates than on our mantels. We can enjoy all the different shapes, colors and flavors of tomatoes available. Here's wishing you a bumper crop this summer!

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Planning an outdoor celebration for Memorial Day? Show your patriotism by planting some beautiful containers to adorn your deck in the traditional colors--red, white and blue!

A good way to design these containers is to choose one plant for the center or back of the container that can remain in the pot indefinitely and filling in with foreground or perimeter plantings that can be changed with the seasons. Be sure to choose a pot large enough to accommodate the plants selected for it. If the pot does not have drainage holes, be sure to drill some before planting.

Dwarf bottlebrush (red), hibiscus rosa-sinensis (red or white), sea lavender (blue), butterfly bush (blue), kangaroo paw (red) or 'Flower Carpet' Roses (red or white). For a more subtle look, you could select a plant with red foliage such as 'Tropicanna' canna lily or one of the red-leaf phormiums. The choices are a little more limited if your pot will be placed in a shady area, but a gardenia or a dwarf red-leaf Japanese maple would work well.

Some good choices for foreground plants or plants that will drape over the sides of the sunny container would be petunia (red, white or blue), million bells (red, white or blue), red or blue salvia, verbena (red, white or blue), vinca (red or white) or ageratum (blue or white). Shady selections would include impatiens (red or white), begonia (red or white), lobelia (blue or white), heuchera (a red-leaf or white-leaf variety) or coleus (a red-leaf variety).

Choose a good quality potting soil. Make sure when potting your plants to compress the soil well; this will get rid of air pockets that will keep water from reaching portions of the soil and will also minimize settling of the soil. Be sure to allow enough room to water by leaving a couple of inches between the top of the soil and the top of the pot.

After your containers have been planted a few weeks, feed them with a good fertilizer to keep them blooming and growing well. Use the recommended amount and frequency suggested for the fertilizer (more and/or more often is NOT better).

With the proper care, your container will continue to bloom until July 4th and beyond. When fall comes, the filler plants can be removed and replaced with cool-season annuals of your choice.

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Prized by gardeners for their beauty in the landscape and by flower collectors who proudly display their colorful blooms in elaborate crystal bowls, Camellia japonicas are enjoying renewed popularity across the world. Their classic-shaped flowers herald the spring, and each year new hybrid varieties are introduced to delight collectors everywhere.

Until now though, gardeners in colder climates could not enjoy these classic beauties because they couldn't survive the cold of winter. But all that has changed with the introduction of two new cold-hardy camellia series called Ice Angels and Ice Follies. All the varieties in these series can tolerate temperatures down to -10 degrees.

Camellias were first introduced from Asia to the West in the early 18th Century by a Jesuit priest named George Karl Kamel, from whose name camellia is derived. Since then, plant hunters have been searching for camellia species growing wild in countries like China, Japan and throughout the Pacific Rim. Growers then take these new plants and use them to create new hybrids for the home landscape, and one of the by-products of this breeding process are these new cold-hardy hybrids.

Because camellias are evergreen, they not only make for great focal points in the garden but also can also decorate a deck or patio in containers. They are so versatile they can even be trained on a trellis as an alternative to a shade tolerant vine. The classic flowers range in shape from loosely-petaled semi-double blooms to anemone shaped and more layered formal blooms. The 3-4 inch blooms range in colors including white, shades of coral, pink and red along with many variegated colors.

These new japonica hybrid camellias prefer filtered shade and bloom from March until June depending on their local climate. Most grow 6-8 ft. high and wide, and can get even taller with age if not pruned. They also prefer well-amended, fast-draining soil so water doesn't accumulate in their root zones. They prefer to be kept moist--but become drought tolerant once established.

Camellias require little fertilizer. We recommend waiting until the plants are finished blooming before giving them their first feeding of the year. After flowering, wait for new growth to appear at the ends of branches and then feed every two months through the end of September with cottonseed meal or an organic acid food.

It's the perfect time to see our camellias in all of their blooming glory. We promise you will enjoy their spectacular flowers. But be warned, growing camellias and enjoying their flowers can be addictive!

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One of the most versatile blooming plants one can put in the garden is the weigela. And the new varieties that have been introduced in the past few years are very different from the original single blooming specimens of the past. Today's weigelas come in an array of different foliage colors, bloom shades, and growth habits to please even the most finicky gardener.

If you're a bird lover, then this deciduous flowering plant is the perfect one for you. The one-inch funnel-shaped flowers are especially attractive to hummingbirds, who love the extended blooming season (spring-fall) of most of the new varieties. The flowers are also great for cut flower arrangements.

These outstanding shrubs make a charming addition to any garden and are especially suited to withstand city conditions. The size of the plants ranges from 2 ft. high and wide up to the 5-6 ft. range. They are superb as a solo specimen or a garden background plant, or they can be combined to create a colorful hedge.

Weigelas are extremely hardy as well as pest and disease resistant. They require only a minimum of care to provide you years of beauty and enjoyment in the garden. A light pruning in mid-spring after initial blooming in spring will usually reward you with a second bloom. A slight trim in winter when they go dormant will shape them up for the following year.

Weigelas prefer full sun locations but will perform fine in partial shade in warmer locations. They require regular water the first year to get established, but become quite drought tolerant after that. We recommend planting them in a 50/50 mix of native soil and a soil amendment to create the perfect growing environment for them. They look their best when fed every two months during the growing season.

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Do ladybugs really help control bad insects?

Answer:

They sure do! In fact, ladybugs are one of the most effective predatory insects around--and love to make a meal out of bad ones. But give them time to do their thing. If you get too impatient with them, they just might "fly away home." Make sure your garden friends are happy by providing them with water and shelter. Remember that good bugs are living creatures and they have feelings too.

It is best to release them in the evening or early morning, just after you have watered the garden. This will help keep them in the garden. It is also better to release them in small batches all around your garden than in one big group; otherwise, they might get all huffy and start duking it out for the territory.

Ladybugs are more likely to remain in your garden if there is a ready food supply. It is important to provide them with an alternative food source when meals of pest insects are scarce. Flowers produce nectar and pollen, which ladybugs also need to survive. Plan your garden to feed beneficial insects by choosing a variety of plants that will bloom as many months of the year as possible.

Don't be surprised if they leave after they have removed all your bad insects, though. They will only stick around for as long as there is a good food source in your garden.

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