'Jane' magnolia and part of the fescue lawnette. This area gets a lot of shade in summer from the tree line that starts in the center of the property. A couple of weeks ago, I got my 10,000 steps seeding and feeding the fescue lawn. The lawnette always looks pretty pitiful this time of year. How did I get 10,000 steps? I mixed Milorganite and grass seed in the walk-behind seed spreader and worked the lawnette in a crosshatch style. I walked one direction back and forth, and then I did the same in the other direction.  It's boring, but necessary work so let's look at The Rising Sun™ redbud against the Oklahoma sky instead. See, doesn't that feel better? The Rising Sun™ redbud against the Oklahoma Sky. You can use whatever grass fertilizer you like. I don't suggest weed-n-feed because it will kill all the lovely little flowering weeds...

Big and bright yellow daffodils. Hi Everyone! Because of the Coronavirus, we've all been told to stay home. I say, take it a step further. Let's stay home and garden. Once you've been through your backlog of Netflix and Amazon Prime, you can read a book on rainy days, trawl the internet endlessly, or you can go outside.  My 'Jane' magnolia has grown very large over the years. Magnolia 'Jane' in 2009 maybe one year after I planted it. Hard to believe it was the same tree. If we have to stay home, let's stay home and garden.  Leucojum aestivum, summer snowflake. What can we do in the garden now? Plenty. It's time to prune roses and feed them. That reminds me, I need to pick up some natural food for my roses. Normally, I would buy Mills' Rose Magic, but I don't want to put further strain on delivery systems...

One of the cheapest ways to garden in Oklahoma is to grow your own transplants from seed. Starting vegetable and flower seeds indoors isn't as hard as you might think, and broken down into steps, the process is even more straightforward. Pepper plants I transplanted into four-inch containers with a fine layer of grit. I dearly love grit because it helps the pots to retain moisture while keeping moisture away from plant stems. I buy chicken grit at the hardware store. Step One In the central part of Oklahoma, the transplant date for warm-weather crops is around April 20th. To know when to start tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, or any other seeds for that matter, check your seed packets and count back the days from the transplant date.  Don’t forget to label seeds before planting. You can’t tell one tomato, pepper, or eggplant from another otherwise. Step Two Use good-quality,...

The plantswoman who inspired me, my Grandma Nita. This week's Gardenangelists podcast is about garden inspiration and plantswomen. In the episode, Carol and I talk about dahlias and my gardening grandmother, Juanita. We also discuss Jennifer Jewell's fabulous book, The Earth in Her Hands: 75 Extraordinary Women Working in the World of Plants. We felt like her book was so powerful we devoted our entire episode to it and to two women we either know personally, Ms. Ira Wallace and a floral designer we admire, Ms. Sarah Raven. 'Juanita' dahlia at Little Cedar Garden, my garden. A few years ago, I was perusing the online catalog of Old House Gardens, and under dahlias for hot nights, it listed 'Juanita.' Well, I had to have it. My grandmother who first walked the garden path with me when I was so little I could look down and see those 1960s baby shoes,...