Photo taken by crawfor3

TheGardenLady has read numerous articles about the many health benefits from gardening.  Gardening is said to provide the regular physical exercise necessary in the prevention of heart disease, obesity, adult-onset diabetes and high blood pressure as well as the strength training important n the prevention of osteoporosis. 

Gardening doesn’t allow for boredom; there is something one can be doing all year round, in the garden or planning for the next year’s garden. It is a social activity. Gardeners enjoy each other’s company. They enjoy discussing plants and sharing garden tidbits or even visiting one another’s gardens.

Gardening and having plants reduces stress - the dreary days of winter are relieved by the plants you grow in your house while these plants give a fresher more oxygenated breathing environment. 

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                              Photo taken by Celine

In case readers hadn’t noticed, this is a great time to buy plants. Most nurseries have already started their sales. One can purchase plants from 25% off the retail price to much more off. Nurseries want to get rid of most of their plant stock so that they can start planning for purchasing next year’s plants. They want to have room not only for garden favorites, but also for the newest hybrids that are going to come to market in 2009 and also for plants that are winners of plant awards, like The Perennial of the Year or the All American Rose. So now smart buyers can reap the benefits.

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                                                    Photo taken by wdbrad52

TheGardenLady received this from the EncoreAzalea company and is passing this fertilizing information on to those who grow azaleas.

If you didn’t fertilize your Encore Azaleas this spring or summer, or if you think your azaleas could use a little extra burst of energy, now is the time to fertilize.

Fertilizing promotes new growth, which can be damaged by cold weather. For this reason, we suggest that gardeners do not fertilize their Encore Azaleas after August. If you fertilize now, your Encore Azalea’s new growth should have time to establish itself before the threat of winter.

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                          Photo taken by urtica

One of the subjects TheGardenLady has been planning on writing about is invasive plants. Today she received this notice of a seminar at Rutgers on this very topic. If you are interested in learning how you can help in preventing foreign plants and insects from crowding out our natives, please contact the number below to see if you are eligible to attend.

On Saturday August 23rd, Middlesex County’s Extension Agricultural Office will be presenting a Garden Workshop from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM at the EARTH Center in Davidson’s Mill Pond Park, South Brunswick. The workshop will be on “Invasive Species”, and how homeowners can do their part in helping prevent foreign plant & insect species from crowding out more desirable native species in their landscape. While some of the more nationally know invasive species include, the snakehead fish, fire ants, nutria, and kudzu, in the Northeast we have been impacted by organisms like the Asian Longhorned Beetle and the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid.

This workshop will be hosted by Bruce Barbour, Environmental Program leader for Rutgers Cooperative  Extension of Morris County. Coming from graduate schooling in weed science he served as Chair of the Department of Agriculture & Resource Management Agents at Cook College and serves on two committees of the NJ Invasive Species Council.

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The other day a catalogue arrived. It came from a small nursery that specializes in Nursery grown and Propagated Perennial Wildflower plants native to Northeastern America only; Toadshade Wildflower Farm in Frenchtown, NJ. All the plant species in their catalogue, they say, to the extent that the Toadshade owners can determine,  are NATIVE - not alien, introduced or naturalized. They also let the reader know that “No plant or plant parts are dug from the wild!”

Since TheGardenLady has been so upset to see so few butterflies this summer- yes, she has seen a few more since she wrote the article- she decided to try to find more host plants to plant on her grounds. One butterfly enthusiast the TheGardenLady knows said that she has so many butterfly eggs and larvae on her host plants that she is “harvesting” them and raising them for the 6th annual Master Gardener Insect Festival to be held on Sat. Sept. 13 from 1-4 in Pennington, NJ on Federal City Road. TheGardenLady has offered to attempt to raise butterflies for this event.  Any budding scientists can raise butterflies themselves or teachers of science can purchase kits for their students to raise butterflies.

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