Corn has an amazing history. "In Iroquois mythology, corn, beans and squash were represented as three inseparable sisters."* They were planted into one mound, seeds of maize first, later beans, and finally squash, because all three were eaten together.

Corn (Zea mays) or maize is a member of the grass family and is thought to have been cultivated by the Aztecs as early as the 8th century. There are many types of corn grown in the United States for varying purposes. Dent and flint corn are both grown for stock feed, silage, ground meal, etc. Sweet corn, (Z.mays rugosa) is the type grown in for human consumption. Both yellow and white sweet corn are popular today.

In Margaret Visser's book Much Depends on Dinner, she calls corn "Our Mother, Our Life." Much of our food supply has been touched by corn. Meat (corn-fed animals), canned and bottled food of all types, snacks, oils, margarines, syrups ... the list goes on and on. But long before groceries, in ancient history, corn was a staple food, a medicine and a means of exchange.

"When the young leaves of the oak tree are the size of a squirrel’s ear, then you plant," were instructions to early European settlers from the Indians. If you grew up in the heartland, you know that spring is planting time for corn. This is true for sweet corn, too. For your home gardens, corn should be planted in blocks no less than three rows wide, not single rows. Why, you ask? Because of pollination: pollen forms on the tassels and each silk will form a kernel of corn, if pollinated. When the corn is grown in a tighter grouping, with breezes assisting pollination, all those tassels in proximity to each other have a greater success ratio.

Corn needs lots of water and fertilizer while growing because it grows so fast and of course is so busy making ears of the sweetest corn you can imagine, just for you. Before planting, amend your soil with a high humus content amendment like Gardner & Bloome Harvest Supreme. Manure is another option. Mulch around your plants to keep weed growth down.

Harvest when the ears are mature. When is that? When the silks are brown and dry, the tips of the ears are rounded but not hard and the kernels spurt milky liquid when pierced with your fingernail.

In the meantime, , put in a few rows of sweet corn and enjoy. And if you are really feeling corny, sing a few bars of "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning" -- "The corn is as high as an elephant's eye..."!

* From Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser

It is the Merry Month of May here (and everywhere else in the world, including Camelot). Where has the beginning of the year gone?

This can be a busy time in the garden. There possibly are still chores from the winter; the weather is finally beautiful, so plant, plant, plant; and with all of the new vegetative and bud growth, there are insect pests back in our gardens. Here are some tips for you this month. This is a lot to ‘chew off’, so get ready!

Planting
Annuals and perennials abound in the garden center. Come to pick your favorites but do a favor, if you will. Try a new plant in your garden this year (or several). It’s fun to watch a new plant grow, and you may find one that becomes a new favorite. You just don’t know until you try.

The annual and perennial tables are so full it’s next to impossible to give you a full list of everything. But just to whet your gardening tastebuds, here’s a starting list: alyssum, asters, coreopsis, gaillardia, gaura, daisies, heliotrope, marigolds, petunias, penstemons, pentas, phlox, phygelium, rudbeckias, salvias galore, yarrow, verbena, vinca, zinnia. And much more.

Veggie Growers: Summer vegetables are in. Beans, eggplant, many kinds of peppers, tomatoes, and squashes. And of course, herbs such as rosemary, oregano, tarragon, parsley, thyme, stevia, mints and more.

Feed and Fertilize
Use organic fertilizers such as Dr. Earth Organic 5 Tomato, Vegetable and Herb Fertilizer on your vegetables.

Reward your roses with a good feeding.

If your camellias and azaleas are still blooming, hold off on the feeding. Did you know that if you feed camellias while blooming, you will lose all of the wonderful flowers and buds yet to open? It's true. These acid loving plants will need to be fed, but not until they have completed their bloom cycle.

Pruning
This is the time of year to cut back and shape your shrubs such as brugmansia, abutilon , hibiscus, tibouchina, etc. This spring cutback and shaping will help increase your flower quantity.

Canna foliage is beautiful right now. After they bloom, some suggest a cut back to the ground. You might leave the foliage for a while, but eventually, canna foliage loses its beauty. At that point, your courage may rise for the stronger cutback!

Deadhead your petunias, pansies, snapdragons, roses, etc. This encourages more flowering. Pinching back new growth on most plants encourages new branching and a fuller look to the plant. If that’s a look you desire, pinch away! And don't forget to cut/pinch back your mums.

Pest and Disease Maintenance
Encourage (or release) beneficial insects into your gardens. You can do this by increasing the plant diversity and giving them habitat in which they'll not only arrive, but stay for a while. We can help you with some plant selections.

Who are the most obvious pests in our gardens right now? Aphids and rose slugs. You have several choices for treatment. A couple choices are a more natural or organic approach; and then there are the synthetic chemicals. Remember that insecticidal spray controls are not selective and will kill all insects, good and bad.

That rose slug guy is a tiny little green larva that hangs out on the underside of your rose shrub leaves. They eat little circles out of the leaf, sometimes almost skeletonizing the leaf. Just remember, unless you are growing roses for show, we don’t usually grow them for the leaves. We grow them for the flower. So choose your "pest in the garden" battle wisely. Remember, you can scale up, but you can’t reverse the chemical “nuclear bomb” of insecticides. Keep reading.

Aphids can be "squirted off" of your rose buds, etc,, with water. Both aphids and the rose slug can be sprayed. We recommend Green Light Spinosad.

Powdery mildew is popping up. Treat with a fungicide.

If you are in an area that had much rain all winter, with temperatures warming up, it is time to increase the garden and lawn watering.

Mulch, Mulch, Mulch.*

*We will always tell you to mulch. This does not mean mound up the mulch to 5 feet. It means continue to replenish the mulch and maintain a 2-4 inch blanket over your soil. So when you hear us singing the MULCH song, you know just what we mean!

Potting soil, planting soil, cactus mix, acid mix, harvest mix, soil building compost, rose planting mix. Oh my gosh, this is confusing! Which product do you use and when?

Important piece of information: All of these ‘soils’ or ‘mixes’ are meant to supplement and improve quality and health of the native soil in your garden, except for the potting soil. They are not real ‘soil’ as you read about in Soils 101- Part I. They are not made up of minerals; in fact, most of them do not have a mineral content at all (except for the dolomite and oyster shell pH adjusters).

Man-made, they are composed of organic composts (in different percentages depending upon the product and needs of the intended plants), and other products for fertilizers (source of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium or NPK) such as worm castings, chicken manure, bat guano, and kelp meal. The ingredients in any of these products are listed on their packaging in order of greatest to least quantity.

In general, most of the products are also pH adjusted with dolomite and oyster shell limes.

Most of these amendments also contain mycorrhizae, "good" fungi that can live on the roots of your plants carrying out a symbiotic life. The fungi take up nutrients from the soil that the plant needs in turn for an exchange of nutrients from the plant to the fungi. The end result: the fungi increase the root surface area, making plants healthier.

As you read further, you will notice one reoccurring term: Amendment.

Amending your native soil with products such as these will increase the organic compost content, thereby providing habitat for all of the creatures we discussed in Soils 101 – Part I and increasing soil health through the addition of nutrients, air pore space, and much needed fertilizers.

Potting Soil: For indoor/outdoor potting or containers. Most potting soils contain organic ingredients such as peat moss, worm castings, real topsoil, chicken manure, and kelp meal. A percent of perlite in the mixture helps to add air spaces to this man-made soil. Potting soil can be self-sufficient for a plant in a pot. It is not usually mixed with native soil in your garden.

Planting Mix: For soil amendment and/or direct planting into the ground. Most planting mixes contain a blend of natural composted materials such as peat moss, worm castings, chicken manure, bat guano and kelp meal.

Vegetable/Flower Garden Mix: For top dressing, mulching and feeding in your vegetable or flower gardens. Like the planting mix, it is a blend of natural composted materials (such as fir bark and forest humus, etc.), chicken manure, bat guano and kelp meal.

Acid mix: For soil amendment and/or direct planting into the ground. Most planting mixes contain a blend of natural composted materials which include fir bark and sphagnum peat moss, pumice stone, worm castings, chicken manure, bat guano and kelp meal. It is intended for bare-root planting, mulching and soil amending when planting azaleas, camellias, rhododendrons, gardenias, maples, etc.

Rose Planting mix: A different blend/formulation for roses that contains organic composted materials, alfalfa meal and worm castings.

Cactus Mix: For cactus, succulents, palms, and other plants that need very good drainage. This is a mixture of organic forest products, pumice, and sand.

Soil Building Compost: All-purpose organic composted materials including redwood and fir bark, chicken manure, bat guano and kelp meal. The intended use is to break up clay soils and add micro-nutrients to your soil. Used for top-dressing, bare-root planting and mulching.

We hope that you have a little better understanding of these general "soil" product categories. There really is a reason for each of the variations, although some of them can do overlapping jobs. They are not real soil, in the literal sense of the word, but they will improve your soil health significantly, which in turn will create a lovely, healthy garden.

Full sun, full shade, part sun, part shade. How’s a gardener supposed to know and understand the best place in the garden for these plants?

This determination can be an interesting proposition! Let us begin with the definitions of the terms. Then we will digress into the nuances of gardens.

Exposure refers to sun, shade, part sun, part shade, etc. Information tags on plants from the nursery will indicate which of these exposures is recommended for that particular plant.

Full Sun or Sun: the plant grows at its optimum with full sun all or most of the day. An hour of shade in the morning or afternoon would be ok.

Part Sun/Part Shade: the plant needs shade for about 3 hours of the hottest time of the day. It also means that a plant may succeed in full sun in more northern areas that do not get extremely hot sun.

Full Shade/Shade: the plant prefers little to no direct sun. This exposure can be provided on the north side of the house or under a large dense-foliage tree.

Now that you have the definitions (as provided by the Sunset Western Garden Book), don’t be surprised to learn that there are exceptions to the rules.

The effects of full sun on a plant are quite different in cooler and warmer climates. Full sun in a very hot climate may be too much for the same plant that loves full sun in a cooler climate. That plant may need to be in part shade or even indirect sunlight in the hotter climate. Conversely, a plant that requires full shade in warmer climates may grow quite nicely in partial shade, if the climate is cool.

Physical structures can contribute to these exposure issues. Think about where in your garden this new plant is located. If you plant near a white or almost white building, along a concrete sidewalk, a plant that may normally take full sun may find that it is too hot and bright in this location. Light-colored buildings, light-colored sidewalks, and pools all reflect much light and generate more heat that might prove to be too much for some plants.

Alternatively, if your white house, light-colored walk and pool are in full shade, that same reflected light could allow you to grow otherwise sun-loving plants in the part shade or shade.

What happens if you grow a plant without following the exposure recommendation?

Flowering plants or variegated plants that love sun but are grown in the shade may not flower to their full potential. The variegation may revert to a solid green color, and the plants may become leggy and less attractive than they could be.

Plants that love shade but are grown in the sun may wilt, especially in the warmest time of the day; flower color may fade; and foliage color may bleach and dry out. The plant will live under constant stress.

There are very good reasons for the exposure recommendation on each plant tag, but many plants have built-in flexibility in a garden. Look around your neighborhood and take note of the light exposure for the plants you like. Get to know your own garden and discover whether or not you can slightly bend these rules. And above all, trial and error is the best way to learn! Happy Gardening!

Cosmos is a hardy, erect annual requiring very little moisture once established. A native of Mexico, it can easily adapt to all regions of the United States. The attractive flowers are a mixture of stunning deep crimson, soft pink and pure white. They bloom summer through fall—how can you beat that! The delicate looking leaves are deeply dissected, almost threadlike in appearance.

Plant in full sun and give moderate water. Cosmos is beautiful planted en masse or spread irregularly throughout a perennial bed. This annual can self-seed, so if you plant this year, you’ll definitely have seedlings next year too.