- Make your own compost and lay it down as a mulch, about two inches deep.
- Wood mulch in the garden? No, but maybe a bit of liquorice root or cedar mulch on a highly trafficked footpath.
- Don’t prune anything in the Fall. Pruning can cause the plant to start growing again, using up the plant’s, shrub’s or tree’s energy stores to send out new growth, growth that will promptly be killed by the first frost.
- Prune Spring blooming plants in the Spring, AFTER they bloom.
- Prune Summer blooming plants like Rose of Sharon and Butterfly Bush in early Spring.
- I added a one to two inch layer of compost around my columbine this spring and it appears to have practically eliminated the appearance of leaf miners.
- The same amount of compost under my roses greatly diminished the appearance of Black Spot.
- Dead-heading (removing spent blossoms), saves the plant energy it would normally put into making seeds, and induces the plant to make more flowers.