Home & Garden

Music will add new dimension to Northwest Flower & Garden Show

The cacophony of tinkling fountains and gurgling streams at this year’s Northwest Flower & Garden Show will have a new aural element: music.

Plants also get awards

South Sounders get creative, harvest rain

Got rain? Of course you do. Sometimes in the Northwest it can seem like that’s all we do have. Yet there’s always a period of total drought midsummer when your water bill skyrockets, and forecasters are predicting that situation will only get worse. But so will flooding. Plus, the big problem is that pollutants in stormwater runoff can hurt Puget Sound. Time to get creative with the rain – and a handful of South Sounders are exploring three different ways: above ground, in-ground and below ground.

Garden bureau dubs 2012 'Year of the Herbs'

Create a haven at home with some creative landscaping

We all need a little privacy from prying eyes. So up around our homes go high fences and foreboding hedges. How do you maintain your privacy without looking like you live in a compound?

All is not lost for gardens hit by snow

Oh No! We got snow! Plus a lot of ice, wind and freezing weather. The good news for your garden is that we’ll have a lot fewer slugs, bugs and other garden thugs this spring, and the winter storm might also freeze a few million weed seeds.

Mid-Columbia Master Gardeners share favorite weeding tools

Mild winters not so nice for some plants

Time to sharpen those pruning shears

Sharpen your shears this week and get outdoors for some winter pruning. You can get snippy with plenty of plants now, but there also are some you should not be pruning.

Winter blooms add color

The third week of January is the start of the gardening season – yep, the Tacoma Home and Garden Show will be Jan. 25-29 followed by the Northwest Flower and Garden Show Feb. 8-12, and then a bumper crop of garden shows, plant sales and blooming celebrations to welcome the growing season of 2012.