Need a little flair in your garden? Want to add some sizzle? Consider adding some red-flowering plants to your landscape. Red is a powerful and passionate color that can be enjoyed throughout the season and blends well with other perennials, ornamental grasses, shrubs, evergreens, groundcovers and trees.

Too much red can quickly overwhelm a small space, but in a larger outdoor garden setting, red flowers can be combined with orange and yellow, blue, purple and white to provide a striking contrast.

For starters you can use taller shrubs or perennials such as buddleia, red canna, flowering quince, peony, roses or weigela to create a backdrop for shorter plants. you can also use a red clematis vine or climbing rose to hide a fence. now layer in some perennials such as daylily, dianthus, geranium, nemesia, or red spirea. Finally, add some low growing spreaders such as armeria, calibrachoa, english daisy, sedum or verbena.

Do you have shaded areas? No problem. You can create the same effect with a background of abutilon, camellia or rhododendron. Then layer in some astilbe, azalea or heuchera to give your borders some definition.

Don't just limit your planting to garden beds. Many red flowering plants look great in containers for patios and decks or even in hanging baskets. You can create a blend of annuals, perennials, and ornamental grasses to make any pot, urn, window box or decorative planter look fantastic all season long.

Many red flowering perennials such as achillea, monarda, penstemon, and Salvia gregerii, are also wonderful at attracting butterflies and birds, particularly hummingbirds. But most of all they will spice up a garden and make it come alive with color. So what are you waiting for? Come on down and pick up some red flowering plants for your garden today.

Forcing bulbs to bloom inside the house is a wonderful, easy way to get through the cold gray days of winter while adding fragrance and color to your life indoors. If you plan ahead, you can have red tulips for Christmas Day, pink and white hyacinths on Valentine's Day, and the fragrance of springtime in your home all winter long.

The term "forcing" refers to inducing a plant to produce its shoots, leaves or flowers ahead of its natural schedule and out of its natural environment. To force bulbs, you need to mimic and compress the process the plant would undergo outdoors naturally in the garden.

Small-sized bulbs, such as snowdrops, scilla, muscari, chionodoxa, and crocus can be forced just as easily as larger bulbs such as daffodils, tulips, and hyacinth. Early blooming varieties are better suited for forcing than others. It's also important to select varieties that don't grow too tall.

Narcissus (paper whites) hyacinths, amaryllis, and lily of the valley will grow indoors in water. You can use a bulb vase or a shallow dish filled with clean pebbles or marbles to stabilize the roots and to support the bulbs above the water. Just wedge the bulbs among the pebbles, close to each other but not touching, and cover the pebbles with water. Allow air space between the top of the water and the bottom of the bulb to prevent rot.

For other bulbs, half fill a shallow container with Kellogg Premium Potting Soil. Fill this layer, small end up, with as many bulbs as will fit in your pot without touching each other. Then add more soil between until they are completely covered. With hyacinths, amaryllis, and narcissus, allow the necks to protrude slightly.

After planting, place the pots in a cool, dark place, such as a cellar, garage or refrigerator to initiate root and shoot growth. If necessary, set boxes, pots or black garbage bags over your potted bulbs to keep them dark during the cooling period. Keep the soil moist through the rooting and cooling period. After five or six weeks, the roots and growth should emerge.

Then move the bulbs to a cool location indoors. The bulbs should be placed in indirect lighting and should not be allowed to dry out. Forcing will take about 12 weeks for the early blooming bulbs (snowdrop, crocus, and daffodil) and about 16 weeks for tulips.

Feed weekly with a half-strength solution of a good houseplant fertilizer, such as Dr. Earth Liquid Solution 3-3-3 . Turn the pots every couple of days to help the flower stems grow straight and strong. When the foliage and buds are well developed, move the pots to a bright, sunny window in the house. Once the flowers begin to open, take the plants out of direct sunlight to prolong the bloom. Then sit back and enjoy the early breath of spring indoors!

Annuals quickly provide more color in the landscape for longer periods of time than any other garden plants. They are versatile, sturdy and inexpensive. Fall is a great time to plant winter-blooming annuals because the still-warm soil will stimulate faster root growth, helping the plants to get established sooner.

While there aren't quite as many winter blooming varieties as in the summer, there are still plenty of flowers that prefer the cool season to perform their best. Most sun annuals need at least 4 to 6 hours of sun per day, while shade annuals prefer just morning shade and can tolerate full shade as long as there is some filtered light.

Among sun-loving varieties consider alyssum, calendula, dianthus, Iceland poppy, ornamental cabbage and kale, pansies, phlox, snapdragon, stock, sweet pea and violas. For shadier locations, you can count on cyclamen, English primrose, fairy primrose (primula) and primrose to perform their best.

Most annuals will perform better in flower beds that have been turned over and been amended with an organic soil conditioner, such as Gardner & Bloome Soil Building Compost and a starter fertilizer, like Dr.Earth Organic 2 Starter Fertilizer. This helps ensure not only water retention but also good drainage. Avoid planting in areas where water stands after a heavy rain.

We have a great selection of fall and winter blooming annuals just waiting to light up every corner of your garden. When the dreary days of winter get you down, you can count on annuals to cheer you up and make your day!

By Tamara Galbraith

Nowadays, Americans are eating five times more fresh spinach than we did in the 1970s. And forget about the canned, slimy stuff Popeye downed in one shot back in the old days; we now prefer our spinach fresh.

And what could be fresher than growing it yourself? The cool temperatures of autumn are perfect for optimum spinach production. Those of us gardening in warmer regions can grow spinach through the winter, as long as temps stay above 25 degrees. A light frost will not hurt it.

There are generally two types of spinach: smooth or savoyed. Smooth types are more tender and are best for salads, while the crinkly leaves of savoy spinach can be rubbery and are better for cooking. Some spinach cultivars walk the line between smooth and savoyed and are pretty yummy either raw or cooked.

Before planting, amend your soil with Gardner & Bloome Harvest Supreme. Place transplants about six inches apart, and make sure the soil stays moist and cool. The biggest enemy of spinach is heat, so use shade cloth if temperatures rise dramatically during the day. Mulch is also a good addition for keeping the soil cool. Spinach, like lettuce, does well in containers, with the advantage that you can move them into shadier areas when there's a warm spell.

You can harvest spinach by individual leaves or by cropping off the entire plant at the base. As long as temperatures remain cool, the plant will continue to produce leaves...and keep those delicious spinach salads coming.