One of our favorite plants, the flowering currant, is currently in bloom this month, and we’ve been watching bees and hummingbirds swarm to its flowers. The currant is just one of many plants that attract bees, which do the heavy lifting by pollinating fruit trees, squash and other plants.

Many of you have already heard of the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder that has wiped out thousands of bee hives throughout the region over the past several years. In Washington state, the loss of the bees have fruit tree growers particularly worried since they’re dependent on bees to pollinate their apple, pears and other trees. You can read more about Colony Collapse Disorder here.

You can do your own part to encourage bees to come to your garden. Create a landscape that encourages honeybees by growing flowering plants with plenty of nectar and pollen. Bees feed on the nectar for energy, and collect pollen to feed their young.  Some of our favorites bee-loving plants include lavender (pictured above), salvia, penstemon, black-eyed Susan, sunflowers, thyme, mint, purple coneflower, and rosemary. Herbs that attract bees and do double-duty in the kitchen include: basil, oregano, mint and sage. Bees like annuals, too, including zinnia, marigold, sunflowers and poppies. Other plants that attract bees (and that we often use in Seattle landscaping projects) include: flowering currant, verbena, barberry, lilac, and sedum.

Try to keep the bees interested throughout the season by planting flowers that provide nectar and pollen year-round. Landscapes that have a variety of plants, particularly native ones, will encourage more bees.

At Ecoyards, we pride ourselves on excellent customer service. We’re happy to report that the users think so, too. We recently won the top award for quality service from a popular online company Web site. We mentioned the name here once before, but have been advised that we’re legally not allowed to mention it unless we buy the rights to do so. (Without giving it away, it rhymes with Flanjie’s Wrist). We don’t agree with that policy, so it remains the company-that-shall-not-be-named. 

To be eligible for that award, we’ve had 100 percent positive customer reviews. Users of that site can login and search for “Ecoyards” to view our positive customer reviews and read about our award.

We work hard to help our clients figure out their lawn and landscaping needs, whether they’re looking for a complete makeover, a small paver patio, or to renovate a tired Seattle lawn.

One of our biggest pet peeves is walking into a commercial nursery and finding plants for sale that are considered noxious weeds. Washington has a state law that requires citizens to help control noxious weeds, but that doesn’t always mean you can’t find it for sale in various places. In our opinion, no Seattle landscape should have English ivy, English holly, Scotch broom or any of the numerous other weeds that spread like rapid-fire and choke out our native plants and take over natural landscapes.

Ivy in particular is vicious because it’s well-adapted to our climate, grows year-round West of the Cascades, and can cover everything in its reach. It’s hard to get rid of it once it has taken over your landscape, so we recommend the next best thing: prevention. Don’t buy any ivy (or other noxious weeds) if you can help it, even if you find a tiny little plant at the nursery and think it can’t be that harmful.

Milk thistle is a noxious weed.

King County has a noxious weed control program that tries to keep noxious weeds like Himalayan blackberry and Italian thistle, just to name a few, out of our streams, parks, and public lands. Don’t know what is a noxious weed? King County has a terrific photo index to help you identify which ones are noxious. Some are nasty-looking, like the milk thistle pictured right, but many have pretty yellow or pink flowers. Find out more by reading this citizen’s guide to noxious weeds.

There are some great plant sales coming up in the next few weeks. We want to call your attention to two sales in Seattle in early May.

As Master Gardeners, both Andy and I will be volunteering to help the Master Gardener Foundation of King County with its annual plant sale. There’s a huge selection of annuals, perennials, vegetables, trees and more. Many are grown by local master gardeners, while some professional nurseries will also be on hand to sell their goods. Proceeds go toward paying for the Master Gardener clinics, demonstration gardens, youth programs and more. The Master Gardener Plant Sale is May 2-3, 2009 at the University of Washington Center for Urban Horticulture, 3501 NE 41st St, Seattle. Hours are Saturday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m.; Sunday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

If you’re into growing vegetables, head to the Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale that same weekend. I’ll be volunteering to help out with this sale, which offers the largest selection of organically and sustainably grown vegetable starts in Seattle. You’ll find over 50 varieties of tomatoes and 20 varieties of peppers, rare and heirloom veggie varieties, an extensive selection of culinary herbs, edible flowers, and drought tolerant perennials. The list of starts includes ‘Fairy Tale’ eggplant, lemon cucumbers, golden midget watermelon, ‘Cajun Delight’ okra, ‘Gypsy’ sweet peppers and much more. Find the lists of items on sale here. The sale is May 2-3, 2009 at Meridian Park in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood, 4649 Sunnyside Ave. N. Open 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday & Sunday.

If you need help finding the right plant to fit into your Seattle landscape, Ecoyards is here to help. We love assisting clients to find the right perennials, trees, even edible plants, to incorporate into an existing landscape or add to a newly-designed landscape. Email us or give us a call at 206-770-7879.

The city of Seattle and others have made it easy to recycle your used nursery plant pots, but we found an even better way to put them to good use. At Ecoyards, we have hundreds of pots that we try to reuse or find good homes for.

This week, we cleaned up our used pots and delivered them to volunteers with the Longfellow Creek Community Garden and the Longfellow P-Patch, the Community Harvest of Southwest Seattle and the West Seattle Edible Garden Fair.  They plan to reuse the pots for several community gardening projects in West Seattle.

You wouldn’t know it’s April, given the snow and cold weather we’ve been having lately. Despite that, daffodils and forsythia are strutting their stuff, tulips are poking through the cold ground, cherry blossoms are in full bloom, and we just noticed some blooming trillium deep in the woods of Schmitz Park in West Seattle.

Now is a good time to walk around your yard and give your landscape a good once-over: What plants are going well and where? What plants should be moved so they thrive better? Could you add a paver patio or walkway to your landscape to make it easier for people to move through it, or add interest to your landscape?

Here’s what else you can do in the garden this month:

1. Finish cleaning your garden by pulling weeds while they’re still young.

2. Plant annual seeds of asters, cosmos, marigolds, zinnias.

3. Plant cool season crops such as peas, lettuce, radish, and broccoli through seeds or transplants.

4. Fertilize raspberries with ammonium sulfate to lower the soil pH, just as bud swell begins. Apply about 3/4 to 1 pound of ammonium sulfate per 100 feet of row. Give blueberries a spring application of a balanced fertilizer such as 5-10-10.

5. April is Arbor Month so it’s a good time to plant trees. The second Wednesday of the month, or April 8 this year, is the official Arbor Day in Washington state.

6. Plant strawberries, which you should be able to find bare-rooted in most nurseries this time of year. Give strawberries a sunny spot and good drainage and they’ll produce for you for three to five years. Weed the bed, work in a good amount of compost or manure and about 4 pounds of 5-10-10 fertilizer per 100 square feet.

7. Shear winter flowering heather after it blooms.

8. Prune forsythia once it is done flowering.

Greg Rabourn

Greg Rabourn of the King County Community Stewardship Specialist/Project Program is providing a free talk today on avoiding the high-maintenance landscape trap of placing shrubs in improper places.  The talk will be at the Lewis Creek Visitor Center in Bellevue from 7:00-9:00pm.

More information is available here – http://www.ci.bellevue.wa.us/cobcalendar/Default.aspx?EventID=2295

You’ve seen these topped trees in your neighborhood: trees that branch out into the sky, only to be unceremoniously hacked across the top, a headless shell of its former shelf. Or trees with absolutely no leaves or no branches, or ones whose amputated branches are replaced with a broomstick mess of sprouts. Not only is topping trees ugly, it can also greatly reduce tree life and health.

Plant Amnesty, a non-profit based in Seattle, has worked tirelessly to inform the public about the pitfalls of topping trees. It’s ugly. It’s expensive (you have to keep it up). And it could be dangerous. If you aren’t convinced, check out Plant Amnesty’s photo gallery, a pruning horror show. The captions are hilarious, including our favorite: “put your hands up,” for a tree that looks like it’s surrendering.

Read rest of story…

While the weather is still fickle in March, the days are starting to feel longer and the temperatures are starting to warm up. There’s lots yet to do in the garden.

1. If you haven’t completed pruning your roses, this is is the month to do it.

Tulips are coming!

2. It’s also a good time to divide overgrown perennials and rearrange and move existing plants.

3. Thatch, aerate, top dress and over seed your lawn from late March to early April.

4. Plant native trees, shrubs and ferns as temperatures warm and rains are consistent.

5. Overgrown forsythia can be cut to the ground.

6. Cut back dead fern fronds.