Winter Reading and Learning
The Garden Hotline staff share their favorite gardening books; also where to find great seeds.
Winter is here and this is a great time to sit down with those gardening books you always mean to read but are usually too busy with your hands in the soil to get to. We want to share our favorite books, ones that we make use of for our personal gardening goals and to […]
Waning into Winter
Garden planning and simple chores during the dark days of winter.
The Pacific Northwest is a special and unique place on the planet. We are blessed with thick coniferous forests in mountain ranges that store our water and keep it clean. We have shoreline galore, from Pacific ocean beaches to the Salish Sea borders. We host a river through our largest city with more creeks and […]
Fun With Food Scraps!
Sue Hartman - Garden Hotline educator emeritus
We throw away a lot of food! According to Seattle Public Utilities, Seattle residents throw out approximately 100,000 tons of food annually. Composting food waste is an important step in reducing this mountain of garbage that is now hauled 300 miles away for disposal in a landfill in Eastern Oregon. But you don’t have to […]
Greenery for Wreaths: Honoring our Flora
Katie Vincent, Garden Hotline Educator
As a symbol of strength and prominence, the wreath has adorned crowns and dwellings of humankind for thousands of years. And in the dead of winter when little else grows, what better way to pay tribute to our region’s resident evergreen trees than to make our own wreaths from fallen branches? After all, these benevolent […]
Mulch 101
Laura Matter, Garden Hotline Educator
What is Mulch? Mulch is a form of organic matter spread on the surface of the soil around plants to keep weeds down, conserve moisture and moderate soil temperatures all year long. Fall is a great time to apply mulch—getting ahead of cool season weeds and freezing winter temperatures. When applying mulch to beds with […]
Winter Tree Pruning
Sue Hartman, Garden Hotline Educator
Winter is a perfect time to prune many trees in the Pacific NW. In the Seattle area, dormancy begins in late November or December when plant growth becomes temporarily inactive. This enables a tree to survive freezing temperatures. Dormancy usually lasts until mid-February, depending on Mother Nature. During this time, the bare branches of a […]
Deciduous Tree I.D. in the Winter
Falaah Jones, Garden Hotline Educator Have you ever wondered what that beautiful deciduous tree is in your neighborhood? Even without leaves, flowers and fruit to help you, winter’s a great time to identify trees. The tree’s bark, buds and twigs and the sad remaining leaves provide great clues. Kick around the litter at the bottom […]
Planning New Garden Features
Winter is a good time to think about adding new features to your garden spaces. Consider bringing new life into the garden, in the form of chickens or bees. Both will help you have a more productive garden as they eat the bad bugs, manufacture soil enriching compost for your soil and pollinate your fruiting plants over the summer.
Planting for Habitat
Laura Matter, Garden Hotline Coordinator Brighten your dark of winter outlook by envisioning the addition of colorful, diverse and productive habitat plantings to your garden for next season. Including certain plants that will attract parasitoid wasps, ladybeetles, bees, songbirds and even bats can help you to manage pest problems in the growing season and make […]