Jesse Jenkins

If your watering hose is in the sun, make sure to let the water run through for a little while before watering your plants. Hot hoses make for hot water!
Caladiums last longer if you pinch off the bloom stalks, which are always great for bouquets.
If your tomatoes or cucumbers remind you of Jack and the Beanstalk, use Takiron stakes and jute twine to lengthen your cage and keep those veggies contained.
You CAN give perennials a haircut in the summertime if you need to, but please nothing too drastic. Shearing blooms and gentle pruning are great ways to keep perennials looking fresh.
Weeds love to encroach on your garden beds in the summer. Walk your beds once a week! Pulling up small weeds now is alwayseasier, and can save you a lot of sweat.
If you have to spray insecticides or fungicides, do in early in the morning or late afternoon, not in the middle of the day! Water droplets have this nasty little habit of acting like magnifying glasses in 90 degree weather, and can cause burns.

-Marta

With all the recent rains, mosquitoes are here. First of all, remove any sources of standing water (that’s where they breed).

For your favorite birdbath, use Mosquito Bits in the shaker, for larger ponds or ditches, Mosquito Dunks, both totally safe for birds and frogs.

Mosquito Beater hose-end (Permethrin) is an easy spray to kill mosquitoes, ants, fleas & ticks throughout the yard. It is safe to spray on all plants where mosquitoes hide.

We also carry natural products to repel mosquitoes. Mosquito Beater Granules are a combination of natural essential oils to repel. They contain citronella oil, garlic, geranium oil, cedar oil, and lemon grass oil. Covers 4000 sq. ft and lasts up to 3 weeks.

Patio Egg Diffuser is an easy safe and effective way to help deter mosquitoes and other biting insects from your patio, porch and other outdoor living areas. It protects up to 200 sq. ft. and comes with enough refill oil to last up to 4 months.

-Deanna

We were walking with our family in West Seattle on Harbor Avenue, looking across Puget Sound to downtown Seattle. The esplanade opposite the water was lined with multi-level, concrete condominiums, I’m sure stacked as high as ordinances would allow. And then we came upon this little gem in the middle of all that concrete! What a treasure!

A small wood shingle residence was planted densely with amazingly beautiful blooming plants, including on the roof. They had water reservoirs out for the birds, dogs and even a water fountain for passers-by. The home owner received the Certified Wildlife Habitat designation from the National Wildlife Federation for providing four basic habitat elements needed for wildlife to thrive: food, water, cover & places to raise young. What a gift for their community, guests to their community AND all the birds and critters in the area!

-Sally & James

Because we have a lot of flowers and reservoirs of water at Gill’s, we also have a wonderfully large population of butterflies, dragonflies and bees.

This past 4th of July, I walked into our accounting office and found 8 bees buzzing around our ceiling fluorescent lights. I had never seen so many bees in our office and honestly, wasn’t quite sure what to do. Our buyer, Debbie walked in and immediately had the solution. She directed me to turn off all the lights & close the doors to get the room as dark as possible. Then we opened a window that had good natural light coming from outdoors and the bees, within seconds, began filing out through the window one by one.

I was so happy and amazed at how smart they were. Another example of the WONDERS OF NATURE!!

-Sally

I was blown away by the bromeliads that came in our last order from Florida. I wasn’t shopping for anything new but couldn’t resist their breathtaking beauty. Sometimes you’re only window shopping, and then, presto! – you walk out with something new. I thought, “wow, this is pretty, but how do I take care of it?”

Here’s what I learned:

Bromeliads originated in southern North America, most of South America, and isolated portions of Africa. There are a couple you may already know. The smallest is found hanging from oak trees. Spanish moss, a tillandsia, is part of the bromeliad family. Another bromeliad is a well-known tropical fruit, often used to garnish tropical drinks. Pineapple!

The more than 3,400 species of bromeliads have unique and fascinating foliage and flowers.

Some are toothed, some bloom tall spikes; others change color or develop tiny flowers inside their water wells.

Most bromeliads gather water and nutrition from their foliage or water well. They need little to no soil for their root system. They are often epiphytic, clinging to trees or other structures. They are not parasitic.

Caring for them is super easy.

Bromeliads enjoy filtered bright light – indoors or a patio is perfect. Keep water in the cup and only water the soil when dry. Dump water weekly to avoid stagnation. Feed them with a half-strength fertilizer once monthly. (We suggest Hastagro.)

Remember, they don’t need a big pot to grow. You can mount them on driftwood or stumps, even hang them from mossed wire.

Now, here’s the cool part.

As the flowers fade, the parent plant will produce offshoots around the base. These are baby bromeliads that can be removed and planted – making one plant into many plants! As new ones grow, the parent plant has done it’s part and begins to die. You can enjoy them for years to come and share them with friends.

To start your new plants, leave the sprouts growing until they are just big enough to handle, 3″-4″ tall should be good. Remove them by cutting them off just under the soil and plant them in sphagnum moss or loose planting mix. Orchid bark or seed and cutting mix would be great. They will require the same care as the parent plant. Moisten the soil and fill the center cup with water.

The more widely cultivated species are Aechmea, Guzmania, Cryptanthus, Vriesea, and Tillandsia. They are commercially grown in Florida, making them available for us year-round.

Tropical and exotic and easy?! You bet! See ya soon!

-Debbie

What a stark contrast! The owners of these three homes in Denver, one next to the other, each have a very different look.

The home on the bottom has grass, but it is dead due to a faulty irrigation system. The home on top has grass with irrigation. Kind of boring, and getting to be expensive with the cost of water. The owner on the left has chosen plants that require little water along with an assortment of brick, stone and gravel. And no grass! Interesting and very attractive!

If you would like to work towards a lower water requiring landscape that’s pretty but don’t quite know how to accomplish it, give our landscape department a call. We can design and install it for you and give you direction on how to maintain!

-Sally

Saturday morning, I went out into my cutting garden to harvest some fresh zinnia and sunflower blooms for our home. Upon touching the stems, I was immediately swarmed with whitefly.

Whiteflies are small flying insects that resemble gnats. They are especially noticeable when you brush up against an infested plant – they fly out in a cloud of white. Yikes! Whiteflies suck the sap out of plants and weaken plants if left untreated. They love my flowers (zinnias, sunflowers, and gomphrena), lantana, Mexican honeysuckle, copper plant, coral vine, gerbera daisies, ornamental peppers, turks cap, hibiscus and more. One reason for their abundance might be the harvesting of cotton right now. Cotton seems to be a host plant for whitefly.

Neem Oil is very effective in cooler months, but can risk burning your plants in the heat of summer. We recommend Fertilome Broad Spectrum Insecticide sprayed early in the morning or the evening. Be sure to spray tops and bottoms of the leaf surface thoroughly. These hard to control insects may require 2-3 applications one week apart.

James had me dip my blooms in a solution of dishwashing detergent (like Dawn) before I brought my flowers inside so I didn’t infest our other plants. Oh, but I do love my flowers!!

-Sally

I get my green thumb from my sweet, sweet grandma. She was an avid organic gardener long before the term was coined. Her beautiful vegetable and flower gardens mesmerized me and instilled a love and wonder for the beauty of nature within my soul. I bet she chuckles in heaven, accepting that I am usually too busy to adopt her old fashioned ways of planting from seed. I usually begin with starter plants, but a busy girl has to do what a busy girl has to do.

My Grandma Atkinson always did everything the old-fashioned way, meaning plants were propagated from cutting or by seed and everything got a good dash of rich, smelly cow manure from time to time. She even saved seeds from her beloved garden babies and set them aside for future generations.

A couple of years ago I decided to grow sunflowers, my grandma’s way, from seed. Once they were up and blooming, even my husband Mike fell in love with them. That year the smash hit ended with us harvesting the seeds for the birds!

This year Mike purchased some sunflower seeds from Gill’s at the end of May. I started numerous varieties, more babies than I had room to plant in my garden. So many that I was able to share some with Gill staff! I staggered the seed plantings so the plants would set bloom over a period of weeks. The seedlings this year were sown in starter flats. They also can be successfully started in other types of containers like recycled milk cartons (Grandma’s favorite) or even straight into your flowerbed. The key to success is water. Keep the soil damp enough that the seeds are able to break out of their heavy shells and emerge as seedlings. Once they emerge, don’t splash water on their foliage because that can cause downy mildew. Find that sweet spot where they do not drown from being kept too wet, and yet never allow the soil to completely dry out.

Prior to my second set of seedlings being transplanted to the ground, I did a show and tell with them at Gill’s at one of my garden talks. After the talk, it was time. My seedlings were large enough to endure being transplanted, so into the garden they went. I mixed Plant Tone into the soil for good organic matter. I was rewarded with a ton of rain shortly thereafter. They started growing by leaps and bounds.

The week of July 4th, they started revealing their happy faces one by one all over my backyard almost as if to announce, “Summer is here!” As a result, my Facebook page was filled to the brim with happy sunflowers that warmed everyone’s hearts and vases were filled with sunshine flowers I shared with friends.

Gill’s has sunflower seeds now and no, it’s not too late to plant for a beautiful fall harvest! Hope you enjoy them as much as my family has!

-Grace

Jesse Jenkins

The more than 3,400 species of bromeliads have unique and fascinating foliage and flowers.

Caring for them is super easy.

Now, here’s the cool part.

Footer