Delightful, Semi-Homemade Holiday Gifts From Your Garden

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Give From Your Garden, Then Help Them Start Theirs

gifts from your gardenGardeners rarely need much encouragement to show off the bounty of their efforts, and the holidays come with many opportunities to showcase your garden’s pleasures. Take a look at a few of the best ideas for creating beautiful gifts from your garden:

Herb-infused jellies and jams: Create a gift from your garden that will have your loved ones looking for any excuse to eat a muffin or piece of toast. Keep in mind that when you give herb-infused jellies and jams, there’s no reason to commit to an entirely homemade product. Buy your favorite brand of local jam and infuse it with your herbs. Your friends will love it.

Decorated candles: Press dried flowers, ferns or leaves from your garden into a holiday-scented candle by softening the wax just a bit. Candle making can be a messy, expensive project, but you can start with store-bought candles and let your plants offer the special touches.

Herb-infused olive oil: A flavored olive oil is a real treat for cooks, and even more so if the herbs come from the garden of a friend or family member. The effects only last about two months, so encourage the recipient not to save it for a special occasion, but instead, use it to warm up their best recipes in the winter months.

Potpourri and sachets: The smell of dried flowers is a welcome change in the chilly winter season. Add different combinations of flowers to a netted bag for a drawer or place in a keepsake bowl to be displayed on a table. Even young girls love to receive a beautiful sachet to keep in a drawer, so make one for all the ladies in your life, both young and old.

Plant cutting party favors: When it’s your turn to host, place plant cuttings in mini pots and then decorate the pots with the names of your guests. Your party favors will be the talk of the event; a plant cutting is such an unexpected gift during the holidays. Use potpourri, evergreen trimmings or pinecones from your garden to add a centerpiece to your garden-themed table.

Help them get started: Choose a creative gift to help a friend or family member get their own garden planned for spring. High-quality plant markers are a great idea, because while seeds or gardening tools may be expected, plant markers lend a bit of pride to gardening success.

Get started with your holiday shopping at Kincaid Plant Markers. Choose a set to give to a friend with their plant cutting gift, or choose your own for a little holiday treat for yourself. Our plant markers are made for a lifetime of gardening, because they’ll never rust or become corroded. Take a look at our selection and choose the perfect gift!

Decorate Your House This Season With Traditional Plants for Christmas

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Bring These Plants Into Your Home for Christmas to Add Color and Cheer

plants for ChristmasPreparing your house for the holidays can be a lot of fun, and a lot of work, but no home is complete without a few colorful and festive plants for Christmas. They also make wonderful gifts that will be a welcome addition to any hostess’s home, so purchase a few varieties to keep on hand when you host this holiday season. They’ll be a gorgeous decoration for your own home until you give them away.

Poinsettias: One of the most common and recognizable plants associated with Christmas, these tropical beauties need to be kept warm inside. They come in a variety of shades of red, white and pink, and some even come sprinkled with sparkles for an extra-festive look.

Amaryllis: This tall and stately flower grows from a bulb and will make a striking addition to any holiday display. Line up a variety of red and white amaryllis to make a statement, or place a single plant in the middle of your coffee table for instant elegance. The trumpet-like bloom of the amaryllis makes it seem like it is announcing the holiday, so give this plant a prominent place to make its big declaration that Christmas is here.

Christmas Cactus: The Christmas cactus is so named because it tends to bloom during the holidays, but they often show their color closer to Thanksgiving. The flowers hang from the ends of the leaves in a way that brings a Christmas tree with colorful ornaments to mind. The Christmas cactus makes a lovely gift.

Rosemary: One of the lesser-known plants for Christmas, a rosemary bush is a charming gift. It can be cut to look like a miniature Christmas tree and its fragrance and use in cooking make it a plant ready for a resurgence in popularity. According to tradition abandoned centuries ago, a common Christian belief was that the clothes of baby Jesus were dried on a rosemary bush.

Holly: While holly is not usually sold as a live plant at Christmas, snips of the red berries and dark green, glossy leaves are a common decoration during the holidays. Take a gift of holly cunningly arranged around a sweet-smelling candle to make a nice presentation.

Mistletoe: Getting caught with your sweetheart under the mistletoe is a fun tradition. Put it in a high-traffic area in your own home or tie a sprig to a bottle of wine when you attend your next holiday party. It also makes a nice little party favor if you’re hosting your own Christmas party.

Christmas Tree: No discussion of plants for Christmas is complete without a mention of the centerpiece of holiday decorations. Whether you love the scent of a Douglas fir or prefer a Scotch pine, there’s no substitution for a live Christmas tree in your living room. From choosing the perfect tree with your family to the thrill of lighting it for the first time, you’ll enjoy hours upon hours of beauty with a Christmas tree.

Looking for the perfect holiday gift for your favorite gardener? Along with a gift of a poinsettia or Christmas cactus, tuck in a set of Kincaid Plant Markers. Made for a lifetime of gardening, Kincaid Plant Markers will never rust. Choose from a variety of styles for your favorite gardener this Christmas.

What to Buy the Gardener for Christmas: Plant Markers and More

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Quality Plant Markers Are a Perfect Holiday Surprise

plant markersThe blooms are long gone and the trees are nearly bare. Even your pumpkins displayed as harvest decorations are done. It’s time to plan your Christmas list, and for the gardener in your life, there may be nothing better than a gift that honors their passion. A quality set of plant markers may be just the thing: when everyone else is thinking scarves and hot cocoa gift sets, you’ll be right in tune with what’s on the mind of every gardener: spring.

When it comes to Christmas gifts for the gardener, it’s always the thought that counts, but why not come up with a really great thought? Here are a few thoughtful ideas for the gardening enthusiast:

High-quality garden tools: Sure, an experienced gardener likely already has a spade, but they may not own the one they’d really like to have. How often have they splurged on a really great garden tool? Talk with other gardeners or do some research and find out the best spades for your budget, and give that as a gift.

Something just for fun: If the gardener in your life has a spunky personality, or they are more reserved but have just a bit of flair in their style, consider something a little fun. Buy them gardening clogs in an outrageous print, or a re-potting apron that is embroidered with the name of their signature bloom. Get them a floppy hat that is a little over the top.

Membership or subscription: Maybe you have a local botanical garden that sells an annual membership, or there’s a magazine subscription that is filled with in-depth articles about gardening. Think about how to extend the time that your loved one can spend on gardening. Even a ticket to a home tour can be a fun way for someone that enjoys beauty to see how others might plant a clever succulent garden or they may have the opportunity to see an unusual set of terrariums.

Plant markers: Plant markers are a nice gift for any gardener because they create a sense of order to an outdoor space. Purchase high-quality plant markers that can be used year after year. Your loved one will appreciate such a thoughtful gift that gives them a way to look forward to a new level of organization in their plots.

Turn it around: Consider asking your gardening friend or family member for a gift of their gardening expertise this Christmas. Gardeners often love to share what they know, and their experience and expertise can be a priceless treasure to those just starting out with gardening. Request that your Christmas gift this year come in the form of a certificate for an hour or two with them in their garden. It will be a gift to both of you.

When it’s time to do your holiday shopping, find the perfect gifts for all the gardeners on your list at Kincaid Plant Markers. Made for a lifetime of gardening, Kincaid Plant Markers will never rust, providing year after year of beauty in your garden.

Identifying Native Plants for Your Garden

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Share a Part of Your Region by Identifying Native Plants to Grow at Home

identifying native plantsWhen planning the layout of your yard, it’s understandable that you’d take a conventional approach and choose a combination of attractive plants that are normally found in a landscaping plot. If you want a conversation piece, you may want to take a different direction. Identifying native plants for a garden with a little history can create an interesting retreat that invites a discussion of your region.

You may need to do a little digging at your local library or consult with a gardener at a botanical garden in your region to find out more about identifying native plants that will thrive in your yard. It’s worth the effort, and here’s why:

It gives a boost to the local ecosystem. When you include native plants in your landscaping, you’re helping the soil get the nutrients it needs and you help animals find the shelter and food that they’re accustomed to eating. Wildlife depends on native plants that have been in the area long before the first settlers landed in the New World.

It adds beauty to your landscaping. There’s a wide variety of native plants that you can choose from, and they come in many different colors and textures. You’ll enjoy the vibrant combinations of leaf shapes, various growth heights and range of colors that come with your native plants.

You’ll help bees and other local pollinators. You’ve read the headlines about the decline of bees, and identifying native plants to add to your garden is a great way to help promote the survival of your local bee populations. Pollinators not only help your garden thrive, but are also important for the growth of food crops for stocking grocery stores and for feeding animals.

You get a chance to dig into your heritage. Poring over information about native plants, you’ll end up learning about a variety of topics for your region, such as farming practices and the history of how cultivating plants has changed. Get ready to find some interesting history about plants in your region, but also about the people that cared for them.

Create a conversation piece in your backyard. Planting a garden with native species will help your landscaping stand out from your neighbors’, and you may soon find that it’s a place that draws attention from those in your community.

As you create a landscape with your native plants, don’t forget to identify them in your garden with Kincaid Plant Markers. Our markers are made for a lifetime of gardening, because they won’t rust or wear down, no matter what climate or region you live in. Take a look at the six styles available, and choose the right one for your garden and your budget.

Gardening Tips For Enjoying an Heirloom Garden

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Starting Heirlooms Can be Challenging, so Use These Gardening Tips For Great Results

gardening tipsAs a home gardener, maybe you are motivated to get started because you love the taste of homegrown produce or appreciate knowing where your food comes from. Or you might have begun your first garden to help your children understand the growing process and learn to enjoy fresh foods. As you have learned more about gardening, you might have developed an interest in heirloom gardening, but these varieties can be tricky to grow. A few gardening tips can help you get started if you are a novice heirloom gardener.

Heirlooms tend to have richer flavors than some of the other varieties you could grow, but they come with some special care needs. Here are a few of the common mistakes that you’ll want to avoid:

Starting out too big: It’s hard not to get excited about growing heirlooms, but because they can require some individualized care, you may want to start out small your first year planting them. You’ll be tempted to try them all, but choose a few varieties and enjoy success rather than starting out with grandiose visions of a big heirloom harvest, only to end with a failed garden.

Heirlooms require some particular conditions to thrive, and managing those requirements for three to five plant varieties may be a good challenge the first year. Heirlooms need certain soil temperatures, spacing, sun exposure and watering, so take your time and start small. Seek out gardening tips from the pros at your local nursery for heirloom success.

Choosing the wrong heirlooms for a starter garden: Some heirlooms are easier to grow than others. You may be setting yourself up for failure if you choose more difficult varieties like carrots, artichokes, sweet potatoes or onions. While no heirloom is guaranteed for success, you may have better luck getting a good harvest if you choose kale, beans, beets, radishes or squashes. You may also fare better by talking with an experienced heirloom gardener to see what tends to grow well in your climate. They may also have other gardening tips that will help if you run into trouble along the way.

Not saving your seeds: One of the core principles of heirloom gardening is that you save the seeds to keep the species growing year after year with identical qualities. Heirlooms are open pollinated, so you can save the seeds from your best plants and use them again next year. Choose your seeds, dry them and then save them in an airtight glass container until spring. This will give you a great start on next year’s garden.

Starting an heirloom garden is exciting, and you’ll love having the taste of heirloom vegetables to add to your table and share with friends. Be sure to label your heirlooms with Kincaid Plant Markers so you can give them all the special care they need to thrive. Take a look at the options we offer for rust-free markers that can be used year after year for a lifetime of heirloom gardening.

Identifying Plants That Thrive in a Winter Vegetable Garden

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Need Help Identifying Plants With Cold Weather Resilience? Here’s Your Guide

identifying plantsIf you’re limiting yourself to only one growing season, it may be time to try something new. There are a few vegetables that do well in a winter garden, and some produce a sweeter, milder taste that may make you a big fan of planting in the fall. Identifying plants that you can grow throughout the winter is easy with this list.

Radishes: This is a particularly good choice for those that find summer radishes a bit too spicy, because winter radishes are much sweeter. The grow cycle for radishes is only about a month, so you can chase the blues of many a cloudy winter day with the refreshing crunch of radishes. They can be planted outside in late August or early September with a thick mulch covering, but you can also add a floating row cover or a cloche.

Carrots: If you want full-size carrots, you’ll need to plant before the end of July, but carrot seeds can be sewn a little later to enjoy baby carrots all winter long. Carrot seeds are tiny and can be nearly impossible to space evenly or even in rows with a steady hand. Harvesting baby carrots allows you to thin your plants for better growth and these sweet little vegetables are a welcome taste that reminds you that spring will come again.

Beets: When identifying plants for your winter garden, don’t forget the candy of the harvest. Beets use sugar to ward off freezing temperatures, so they produce a delicious harvest during the winter months. As with carrots, you can plant beets a little more closely spaced than recommended, and then harvest baby beets throughout the cold months, thinning as you go.

Mixed greens: It’s hard to beat a fresh salad clipped from your own garden in January. Sewing loose leaf mixed greens can be fun, because you can choose the mix of your varieties and clip it all winter long for delicious, fresh taste on your table. When the plants are between three and six inches tall, you can clip them about halfway down, and then the plants will grow again for a spring harvest. Choose any combination of mustard greens, Swiss chard, spinach, kale and leaf lettuces.

Kale: If you plant kale in late summer, you’ll enjoy this hardy winter vegetable throughout the cold months. Even if you plant it later, it makes a nice addition to your mixed baby greens. Best of all, the sweet winter leaf needs little protection against the winter cold, and whatever you don’t harvest will burst into flowering plants when spring arrives.

When in doubt, be sure to cover each of these plants with a fluffy layer of mulch, or try a floating row cover or cloche to protect them from extreme winter temperatures. Even in colder climates, these winter vegetables make good choices for a taste of spring all winter long.

Identifying plants in a winter garden with Kincaid Plant Markers will help you provide the individual care your vegetables require. Take a look at our full selection to see how our plant markers will help your garden stay organized year after year. The only plant markers made completely with stainless steel, they are designed for a lifetime of gardening.

What You Can do to Prepare Your Garden For Spring This Fall

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Get Excited For the Next Planting Season and Prepare Your Garden For Spring Now

20919059 - hand pulling potato plant from soilNow that you’ve harvested your vegetable garden and canned a winter’s worth of food, you may be ready to sit back and put up your feet. With a little effort and time, you can prepare your garden for spring and make sure your dirt is prepared for the next planting season.

Clear out remaining vegetation. Once you have all your tomatoes, zucchini and peppers in from your garden, take time to clear out the remaining plants. Watch for signs of blight, mold or pests because your compost pile won’t get warm enough to kill them. You’ll need to either burn these plants or send them out with your household trash.

Take notes about what worked this year. As you clear out your garden, keep a notebook in your pocket. As thoughts occur to you about what worked well this year and what didn’t, jot them down in the journal. When it’s time to plant in the spring, you’ll have handy information about items such as how many of each variety you should plant, which plants fared best in which locations and whether any vegetables turned out to be a disappointment.

Prepare your garden with compost and mulch. Peel back your layer of mulch and then add a generous layer of compost. Recover it with mulch to help seal the soil against wind or water damage. Be careful not to layer too much compost and mulch because you’ll want the ground to freeze completely.

Conduct a soil test. This is a good time to check your garden’s pH level, lead content and soil nutrient composition. If you need to add any nutrients or lime to balance the pH level, it will have all winter to seep into your soil.

Expand your garden. It’s a rare gardener who starts small and stays small, so there’s a pretty good chance you’re thinking of even more delicious vegetables you could plant. Expand your garden by adding a raised bed, right on top of your grass. Fill it with soil and top it with mulch and you’ll be ready to plant in the spring.

Gather leaves for natural (and free!) mulch. Shredded leaves make the perfect mulch to suppress weeds and retain moisture over the winter months. You can also use it as the ideal brown element in your compost pile.

One of the best ways to prepare your garden for spring is by ordering Kincaid Plant Markers. Designed for a lifetime of gardening, they’ll add beauty to your vegetable garden year after year. Explore our entire inventory and choose the markers that fit your needs for your garden.

Need Help Identifying Trees That Add Beauty to Your Yard?

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Identifying Trees For the Best Color Throughout the Year

identifying treesWhen identifying trees to add to your landscape, there are a lot of factors to consider. You may not want to sweep up a lot of pods or find smashed fruit on your driveway. You may prioritize your choices based on the density of shade you’d like to have. Perhaps you choose mostly ornamental trees because you have a tiny yard.

Color is one of the main considerations for many people when identifying trees to create a beautiful yard. While you may immediately associate color choices with fall, there are varieties you can combine for vibrant color all year long. Take a look at the best trees for achieving gorgeous effects in each season:

Spring: In spring, the main consideration is flowers. There are flowering trees that also have nice bark or are easy maintenance, but the driving factor for choosing these trees is their bloom. Magnolia trees produce large white flowers, and their large, glossy, waxy leaves are an attraction in their own right. You can also consider dogwoods, which not only flower beautifull but also produce a show in the fall with colorful foliage. Apple trees are also great for flowers, and if you don’t care about growing apples to eat, crabapple trees are also a nice choice.

Summer: Add some excitement to your summer lawn with a couple of trees that bring interesting texture and color. Japanese maples break up the greens of summer with their burgundy leaves, and even the shape of the leaves adds variety to your yard. Another good choice for summer beauty is the maidenhair tree, which has green leaves in the summer, but the leaves are formed in a delicate shape.

Autumn: While many trees are beautiful in the fall, one of the best choices is a sugar maple. These showy trees provide splendid color in autumn, and because they grow quickly, you’ll enjoy a vibrant show soon after planting. There are several varieties of maple, so check tags carefully to get the look want. For instance, a red maple isn’t always red in the fall.

Winter: It’s no secret that once the leaves have fallen, it’s time for evergreen trees to take center stage. Be sure to include some evergreens in your landscaping to provide you with winter beauty (not to mention some relief from all that raking). Spruce varieties are particularly lovely for winter, such as blue spruce planted in the yard and dwarf spruce flanking either side of your doorway.

There are many great choices for planting combinations of trees to have color all year round. When you’re planning your collection, don’t forget to include a plan for identifying trees in your yard. Kincaid Plant Markers offer a sturdy, rust-resistant design that adds beauty to your yard year after year. Take a look at our full selection of plant markers, each created for a lifetime of gardening.

Looking for Gardening Tips to Help You Understand Common Planting Terms?

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These Gardening Tips Will Help You Distinguish Annuals From Biennials and Perennials

gardening tipsYou’ve decided to try a spring garden. You arm yourself with books from the library full of gardening tips for the novice, but some of the terms hardly seem fit for someone who’s never wielded a spade. From “hardening off” to understanding the difference between biennials and perennials, you could easily be scared off from your first garden before you’ve even tilled the soil.

While an array of new terms in a set of gardening tips can be a bit intimidating, they often describe simple processes or differences. While all those Latin terms won’t be tackled here, you can at least find out a little more about a few common gardening practices with complicated-sounding names.

Do annuals come back annually? Sadly, no. If you want a plant that will return each year, you’ll be shopping for a perennial species. Annuals need to be replanted each year, and biennials like hollyhock and even some vegetables live for just two years. There are many good choices for perennials and some require little care.

Aren’t all plants open-pollinated? While the term “open-pollinated” may make you wonder how other plants are reproduced year after year, this refers to plants that are pollinated by birds, butterflies and other insects, the wind and humans. As long as you save the seeds of your plants, the next year’s harvest will be just like that of the year before. Many open-pollinated plants are heirlooms, which have produced over a period of at least 50 years.

Hybrids, by contrast, are plants that have been bred from two different varieties to achieve a certain set of characteristics, such disease-resistance or better yield numbers. These will not return true to type the following year, so seeds must be purchased for each planting.

Is side-dressing something that’s used near lettuce plants? Side dressing is, in fact, a technique for adding fertilizer around the perimeter of a plant. It’s used to distinguish from broadcasting, in which fertilizer or seeds are cast by hand or by a spreading machine to cover a broad area.

What does “hardening off” mean? This is in reference to plants that have been started from seed inside but may struggle to survive when transferred to an outdoor garden. Hardening off refers to the process of taking seedlings outside for a few hours each day to help them become acclimated to the conditions of your yard.

Is it necessary to use plant markers? When you plant your first garden, it’s hard to imagine how much bigger your plants will grow and that you may forget in a few weeks when you were supposed to thin them out or add fertilizer to each type of plant. Using plant markers can help you give the right individualized care to each of your plants, and if you choose the right markers, you can enjoy them year after year.

When you’re ready to design your first garden, choose Kincaid Plant Markers. They’ll not only add a touch of sophistication and organization to your garden plot, but their rust-resistant design will provide you with year after year of their use.

Landscaping Ideas For a Brilliant Winter Garden

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Winter Doesn’t Have to be Boring With Creative Landscaping Ideas

landscaping ideasIt’s hard not to feel a tinge of sadness amid the excitement as a lush green summer gives way to fall’s explosion of color. The changing leaves are beautiful, but there’s the knowledge that bare trees and dull lawns will shortly follow. With a few new landscaping ideas, your winter garden doesn’t have to be spent simply waiting for spring to arrive.

Many of your plants, trees and grasses will grow dormant, but there are some species that are ideal choices for keeping your winter garden vibrant and other ideas for helping you enjoy the view out your window this winter:

Try new, winter-friendly landscaping ideas. You’re often limited to evergreens for enjoying color during the winter, but there are a few plants that you can choose for your garden that will bring color to your landscape in the winter. There are several varieties of the Lenten Rose, which is a flowering perennial that blooms from January until March. Its stem makes a nice winter bouquet if you cauterize the stem to prevent sap from flowing.

You can also plant an unusual conifer tree called Techny Gold that has gold foliage and only becomes more intense with color during the winter months. If conifers don’t appeal to you, try a Colored-twig Dogwood, which can produce bright yellow, orange or red stems that are visually appealing against a largely colorless backdrop.

Add a colorful container. Brighten up your landscaping with some brightly colored containers and add your favorite winter plants. Many ornamental grasses, like Carex Toffee Twist or fountain grass are beautiful even in dormancy. You can also add small conifers to containers, choosing small varieties like False Cypress and Juniper that can be tucked in anywhere you need a spot of color.

Depending on where you live, you may also be able to add in some flowering plants that thrive in the winter, such as the Pansy or Primrose. Some edible plants make nice winter additions too, like Kale or Swiss Chard.

Entice animals to come and play. Birds are particularly good at livening up your winter garden. Provide a water source with a heated dog bowl to attract birds. Get creative with sticks or rocks to prevent the birds from bathing in the water, which can be dangerous for them in cold weather. You can also freeze cranberries into a mold to provide a treat for your feathered visitors. If you live in a rural area, put a salt lick out for deer or make a corncob available for chipmunks.

A winter garden doesn’t have to be bleak and boring. The right plants and a few colored pots, plus a way to attract animals can make your winter garden fun. You may find that with some clever landscaping ideas, you feel a little excited about the coming winter.

Take the opportunity to label your winter garden with Kincaid Plant Markers. Designed for use year after year, Kincaid Plant Markers are made for a lifetime of gardening.