From Our Blog

Gardening Posts...refresh your page if no results show

Need Dirt? Support our Soil3 Fundraiser

Need Dirt? Support our Soil3 Fundraiser

Roswell Garden Club and Soil3 have so much in common. We both want to make Roswell and its surrounding cities look more beautiful. We hope you will make your spring soil purchase using the links below. With Soil3, you get the best products for all your planting needs and save $5 on The Big Yellow Bag plus take advantage of the sale in February ($30 off) and March ($20 off through the 15th, then $10 off through the 31st) . Your purchase of The Big Yellow Bag and the mini cube supports RGC goals and projects.

RGC’s fundraiser is for the Big Yellow Bag (1 cubic yard) of Humus Compost, Veggie Mix or Soil3 Level Mix and the Grab’n’Go Mini Cube (1 cubic foot) of Humus Compost or Veggie Mix. Mini-cubes can be picked up from a local Super-Sod Store. 

Read the rest of this post for more details, including the links to order. Thank you for your support…

read more
Gardening Alert: Don’t Prune Freeze Damage Yet, by RGC Blogger Suzy Crowe

Gardening Alert: Don’t Prune Freeze Damage Yet, by RGC Blogger Suzy Crowe

If you’re like me, this winter’s extra-cold temperatures have taken a toll on many of your plants. I’m itching to cut off the freeze damage, but that is not what experts recommend.

In a recent article in the Gwinnett Daily Post, Tim Daly, UGA Extension Ag & Natural Resources Agent, gives several great tips for assessing and dealing with freeze damage. These tips assume your plants are cold hardy and appropriate for zone 7B.

  • Bronze colorization doesn’t mean a plant or a branch is dead…it’s the plant’s reaction to a big chill
  • Scratch the bark with your fingernail. If the stem tissue is green or white, the wood is still alive…look for new growth in the spring 🙂
  • If the stem tissue is brown or brittle, …
read more
In Search of Winter Color by RGC Blogger Suzy Crowe

In Search of Winter Color by RGC Blogger Suzy Crowe

I like to buy plants for my containers that can be planted in the yard at the end of their bloom season. This fall I felt the need for large bursts of color and enticing texture, so I did a little research before heading out and put Brown’s Japanese Yew, Huechera, Floral Berry (St. John’s Wort), Stone Crop, Hens & Chicks, Compact Oregon Grape, and Lime Twist Sedum on my list of plants to look for.

After my first stop, Snow ‘N Summer Asiatic Jasmine, mugo pine, cabbage, and violas were added to the list. I hadn’t bought anything yet, though. At my next stop, Frenzy Juncus, an Autumn Empress Encore Azalea, a few Hazy Dark Pink Asters, and a pack of SnapdDragons jumped the list and hopped into my cart. They called my name, and there weren’t many of them, so I needed to get them right away. Oh, and 5 hot fuscia cyclamen. I love cyclamen…

read more
Creating a Whimsical Container by RGC Blogger Dawn McGee

Creating a Whimsical Container by RGC Blogger Dawn McGee

Last month’s speaker, Jeanne Singer, inspired me to put together a container project I had been thinking about for some time. It involves a length of rebar or other sturdy thin rod and various sizes of pots with drain holes in the bottom (I used 4), then stacking them on top of each other and putting in plants. You can even stack them topsy turvy at angles for fun. Rebar can be found in various lengths and is inexpensive.

Steps: Find a fairly level spot in your yard or flower bed and hammer the rebar, pipe, etc. into the ground several inches (be careful not to puncture your sprinkler system, cable or utilities) then place your largest container down …

read more
RGC Goes to Adaptive Summer Camp by RGC Blogger Carolyn Herndon

RGC Goes to Adaptive Summer Camp by RGC Blogger Carolyn Herndon

As part of our Adaptive Recreation partnership with Roswell’s ARC, on June 12, several RGC members worked with about 16 children attending the Adaptive Summer Camp at the Waller Park Gym. Three crafts related to gardening and the outdoors were provided: a flower, a rainbow and a butterfly.

Crafts included gluing colorful cupcake liners of varying sizes onto a sheet of paper with grass and leaves creating a flower with leaves.

The second activity was making a rainbow mobile. Beforehand, a rainbow design was cut from paper and lines added to create spaces for colors of the rainbow. The children colored these and glued on cotton balls for the clouds. Blue raindrops were attached with string, and a string was attached to …

read more
National Garden Week – Got Ivy? Get Goats! by RGC Blogger Sherron Lawson

National Garden Week – Got Ivy? Get Goats! by RGC Blogger Sherron Lawson

In the Spring of 2022 my husband and I realized that we could not tackle the tangled mess that is the rear of our 1+ acre lot. So instead we decided to engage goats to work on the English ivy, wild grapevine, honeysuckle, Virginia creeper, and privet in the under story of our oak, walnut, magnolia, sassafras, mimosa, and sweetgum wooded lot.

Mansell Landscaping (Arnold Mill Road, Woodstock) to the rescue! They have diversified their services to include a herd of goats which they rent out for just this work. We loved the idea of using a local company, especially with an old Roswell family name.

Barry and Joy Mansell showed up with a trailer full of 10 hungry goats ready to munch away. They stayed with us for seven days and nights enjoying a smorgasbord of greenery. Their bleating greeted us each morning as the sun rose to wake them…

read more
National Garden Week: Planning an Heirloom Garden by RGC Blogger Florence Anne Berna

National Garden Week: Planning an Heirloom Garden by RGC Blogger Florence Anne Berna

Ahhh!!! Spring and early summer! The time of year that stirs our mind, spirit and body into venturing outdoors and communing with nature. So you rise up, arm yourself with tools and head out to tackle the weeds, pruning and edging. After all of the ‘grunt’ work is done you head to the stores to buy your beloved summer plants. Buying plants that have been pampered in greenhouses to look their very best to entice you to buy them. At home, you follow all the rules for Southern gardening: Till the clay. Amend your soil with sand and peat moss. Mix in some all-purpose fertilizer. Plant your summer selections and water. Then the heat comes and quite possibly a drought. Or perhaps too much rain. In no time at all those lovely summer plants are not well or worse not even alive! There is an alternative…

read more
National Garden Week: Autumn Sage-A Perfect Perennial For Georgia by RGC Blogger Dotty Etris

National Garden Week: Autumn Sage-A Perfect Perennial For Georgia by RGC Blogger Dotty Etris

Autumn Sage is a perennial plant native to North America – specifically native to Texas Hill Country and Mexico. It is named for Josiah Gregg, a naturalist who found it as he traveled throughout the Southwestern United States and Mexico.

It is a sub-shrub that blooms from March – November on previous or current year’s growth, attracting pollinators. It is specifically known as a magnet for Hummingbirds. It thrives in rocky soils but does well in dry to medium well-drained soils. When first planted, water 2 times a week until it is established but then it does well on its own. If it gets to be terribly hot for too many days with no rain at all, I will sometimes water it, but it seems to thrive even when neglected – perhaps that is why I love this plant so much…

read more
Garden Week in Georgia: Friendship is a Garden Club

Garden Week in Georgia: Friendship is a Garden Club

JoAnn: We are not always in the garden, our friendship happens all around Roswell. Last week some of us got together at Jeanne’s home and stitched 50 of the cutest “Happy Sacks” to be placed on each meal delivered by Meals on Wheels this spring.

We had many laughs and caught up on our families. Besides Jeanne and myself, JoAnn, Marcia, Carolyn, Stephanie, Donna, and Dawn helped with Happy Sacks. We missed those who were not able to join us.

Amy L: Proust said “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”

read more