Epic Gardening Blog

3 days ago | epicgardening.com | Melissa Strauss

Gardening Tips The sun is shining, the birds are singing, it's June, and it's prime time for gardening! Whether growing season is in full swing in your region, or just getting started, gardening expert Melissa Strauss has ideas about what you can plant this month for a bounty of late summer flowers and veggies. Depending on your region, June can be the beginning of the warm season or the middle of summer weather.

3 days ago | epicgardening.com | Melissa Strauss

Vegetables Just because it's summer doesn't mean you have to miss out on your favorite cool-weather veggies. Broccoli doesn't love hot weather, but several types tolerate it quite well. Gardening expert Melissa Strauss lists some great varieties that can take the heat. Delicious and nutritious, few vegetables can compete with broccoli’s satisfying crunch. Broccoli is a cruciferous vegetable, and it’s usually best grown in cool weather.

4 days ago | epicgardening.com | Melissa Strauss

Few garden pests can cause the kind of devastation left behind by a squad of caterpillars. These moth and butterfly larvae have the ability to decimate entire plants, seemingly overnight. With voracious appetites for veggies like squash, cabbage, beans, parsley, dill, and others, when they strike, it’s easy to want to spray them away. It’s important to note that while caterpillars are a nuisance in the garden, their adult forms are beneficial.

5 days ago | epicgardening.com | Melissa Strauss

There’s no doubt about it, peaches are popular. A delightfully juicy, sweet, and sour flesh, wrapped in a skin of peach fuzz perfection, peaches are the star of the early summer fruit salad. I love to watch them ripen on the tree, changing from green to yellow and then finally a sweet pink blush to let you know it’s time to pick them. As with almost any plant, peach trees are not without their enemies. It seems like everyone and everything loves those tasty fruits.

1 week ago | epicgardening.com | Melissa Strauss

Floribunda roses are a hybrid created by crossing a polyantha with a tea rose for a beautiful melding of qualities. Like tea roses, floribundas are fragrant and large, though they aren’t usually as large as their tea parent. Like polyanthas, they have a low-growing, cluster-blooming habit. This leads to a spectacular, fragrant, beautiful floral display, often more than once a year. The name floribunda comes from the profusion of blooms it produces.