The Most Fun You Can Have With Your Bibs On!
A hoop house or cloche is a tunnel made of plastic, usually semi-circular, square or elongated in shape. The interior heats up from the sun and warms the plants and soil inside, keeping your plants nice and cozy over the colder months. Instructions for your DIY hoop house for a wooden garden bed frame Materials… Click here to read more…
This is Mike and Pam’s little dog Ally. She loves the snacks and knows where I keep them!
Step 1: GATHER THE TOOLS, PALLET AND SPARE WOOD Here are some of the tools I used to build this potting bench. I also used wood glue, a building stapler and landscaping fabric. I used an 8x 4 pallet with a good half and a not quite as good half. I also needed spare wood… Click here to read more…
After a long season of watering your plants, garden and yard, it is time to take apart and winterize your irrigation system. Step 1: Supplies White vinegar, bucket, pliers,adjustable wrench Step 2: Disconnect and empty rain barrel (if you use one) Rain barrels are excellent for catching and holding rain water. They have to be… Click here to read more…
We’re giving away two full memberships to the Backyard Grower’s Business Center, a $610 value! To enter to win, all you have to do is leave a comment below. We will choose two numbers at random and match those numbers with the comment number below. (NOTE: only we can see the comment numbers, they’re not… Click here to read more…
Once or twice a year we invite our Backyard Growers to my place, Mike’s Plant Farm, here in Perry, Ohio. Each year we have a group of wonderful people. We enjoy the day talking plants, plant propagation, growing and selling plants and we eat. And of course the donkeys love the company. We also do … Click here to read more…
Mike and I were walking through the nursery yesterday discussing what we wanted to shoot our next “Mondays With Mike” video about. As we walked past a row of plants in the container area Mike said, “Hey Amber, check out the arborvitae”. As I walked closer to the grouping of evergreens tagged as Arborvitae ‘Emerald… Click here to read more…
Welcome to this issue of “Mondays with Mike”. We do this series for our backyard growers but are happy to share them with anybody that has an interest. Lots and lots of things for you to pay attention to in this video. 1. Our New Potting Area I reconfigured our potting area to take advantage… Click here to read more…
Patented plants, plants with registered trademarks. What does all of that mean? What is a person/backyard grower to do? Without a doubt this is an extremely confusing and an intimidating subject and as far as some are concerned the more intimidating the better. I need your help with this and I will explain. Lately, I… Click here to read more…
For people new to plant buying, making a purchase from an online retailer can feel like a gamble. Most sites show a beautiful picture of a mature plant and give a decent description of what conditions the plant will grow in, but most don’t do a very good job at telling you exactly what you… Click here to read more…
This is one of our Semi Famous “Mondays with Mike” Segments that I do for our Backyard Growers. Last week I went to a wholesale nursery stock auction and pick up about two truck loads of nursery stock. I’m going to do a post about growing flowering Hydrangea shrubs into trees so I grabbed a… Click here to read more…
Growing tiny seedlings into beautiful trees isn’t at all difficult if you know what to do. In this post I hope to clear up all the questions that people have. I know they they don’t look like much but these are Japanese maple tree seedlings. Our growers either grow these and sell them as is… Click here to read more…
Many people think they are limited in what they can grow because they don’t have a greenhouse. As long as you are growing plants that are hardy to your gardening zone, your plants will be okay outside over the winter. Plants in the ground rarely need to be covered for the winter. They will freeze,… Click here to read more…
An important message from Duston McGroarty (Mike’s son): I can’t believe it’s been 15 years (I guess time flies, right?). 15 years ago, this January, my Dad started FreePlants.com. He didn’t know it then but his life would never be the same. Over the course of the next 15 years he went on to change… Click here to read more…
Let’s see if I can put this photo in perspective for you. Our potting soil pile is off to the left, over there by the Donkey Barn. Many of our container grown plants are way out back by that beige building you see way in the background. But we’ve also got a smaller container area… Click here to read more…
This is a good winter project. At least it was for me. These wooden plant propagation flats are really quite simple and easy to make. I used pressure-treated wood so they would last and I’ve never had a problem with treated wood around my plants or rooting cuttings so don’t be concerned about that. Everything… Click here to read more…
Just to let you know that we really and truly do appreciate all of our customers and all of our newsletter subscribers, we made you a little video for Thanksgiving. Fall Photos of Mike & Pam with the Donkeys, Finnegan and Fergus. Questions or comments? Post them below.
The art of hand digging trees and balling them in burlap really is an art. Some are good at it, others not so much. Me? I’d rate myself as an okay tree digger. At least with relatively small trees and shrubs. Recently I put up a post about Canadian Hemlocks trees and I have some… Click here to read more…
Sometime last fall or winter I did a post about doing hardwood cuttings and I remember having a flat packed full of little tiny hardwood cuttings. I just looked for that post and I can’t find it. And to be perfectly honest, I don’t have time to keep looking. So the first person that finds… Click here to read more…
I have been doing these summer get togethers for customers for so long I don’t even remember when we first started them. Years ago I know that. The first few were at my house on Middle Ridge, then we had a few at the house we live in now and for the past three years… Click here to read more…
