(For Release On Or After 05/31/13) You’ve got to think that a vegetable with a name like yardlong bean would be incredibly productive – and you would be right. This vegetable originated in southern Asia and is now grown extensively in Asia and Europe.

(For Release On Or After 05/24/13) Nearly any plant may be grown outdoors in a container as long as you provide the requirements that the plant needs. Even commonplace plants take on a distinctive quality in containers.

(For Release On Or After 05/17/13) As the weather warms up, insect problems increase. Many gardeners still feel they should immediately get an insecticide and begin spraying when they see insects or some apparent insect damage in their gardens or landscapes. But just because you see an insect is not reason enough to spray.

(For Release On Or After 05/10/13) Louisiana gardeners crave color in the landscape. When thinking about landscape color, we often tend to focus mostly on annual bedding plants. These plants are bred and selected to produce outstanding displays of color.

(For Release On Or After 05/03/13) Lots of new planting gets done every spring. Proper watering can make the difference between life and death to newly planted lawns, trees, shrubs and ground covers as well as bedding and vegetable transplants.

(For Release On Or After 04/26/13) As May approaches, we transition from the warm days and cool nights of spring and early summer to the hot days and warm nights that will be with us until September. With the increasing heat, you should be noticing the inevitable decline of your cool-season bedding plants.

(For Release On Or After 04/19/13) Lantana (Lantana camara) is one of the first flowers I became aware of as a young child in Chalmette. After all, who could resist a plant so perfectly named with the common name “ham and eggs”?

(For Release On Or After 04/12/13) The foliage of ornamental plants generally plays a supporting role to their colorful flowers. Leaves, in all their many different shades of green, typically provide a backdrop for the flowers that delight the eye and dominate our attention.

(For Release On Or After 04/05/13) Blue, particularly true blue, is a color relatively rare among garden flowers. Blame the pollinators. Remember, flowers are not produced by plants for our enjoyment.

(For Release On Or After 03/29/13) I love to garden in shady areas, although I know gardeners who complain about gardening successfully in the shade. Trouble mostly occurs when sun-loving plants are planted in shady locations.

(For Release On Or After 03/22/13) Louisiana gardeners begin to plant spring and early summer vegetables this month. Watch the last freeze date in your area and be prepared to cover or protect tender plants in case of an unusually late freeze.

(For Release On Or After 03/15/13) Visions of delicious homegrown vegetables can become a reality with some planning and a willingness to put in the time and work that planting and caring for a garden require.

(For Release On Or After 03/08/13) If you have a thick layer of gunk on the bottom of a small decorative pond or aquatic garden, it’s a good idea to clean it out early this month. Generally, you should clean out smaller aquatic gardens about once a year and larger ones every few years.

(For Release On Or After 03/01/13) When it comes to gardening, knowing the sunlight conditions in different areas of your landscape is critical to success. If you should plant a shrub you just bought in partial shade, do you know where partial shade exists in your landscape?

(For Release On Or After 02/22/13) Swiss chard is a leafy vegetable that can be grown easily in Louisiana vegetable gardens during fall, winter and spring. It is reliable and very productive and should be planted more often. A cool-season vegetable grown primarily from October to June, it has better heat resistance than other greens, such as spinach.

(For Release On Or After 02/08/13) February is a great time to plant hardy fruit trees, bushes or vines in your landscape. Local nurseries should have an excellent selection newly arrived for planting in late winter and early spring.

(For Release On Or After 02/01/13) Early February is an excellent time to cut back roses growing in your landscape. Hybrid tea and grandiflora roses, in particular, should be pruned around this time every year. Otherwise, these roses tend to become leggy, less vigorous and unattractive and do not bloom as well.

(For Release On Or After 02/15/13) Homeowners whose new houses were constructed on lots with existing trees are often dismayed to find the trees declining in health or dying a few years after construction. This tragedy can be avoided if existing trees are properly protected during construction around them.

(For Release On Or After 01/25/13) Now is an excellent time to consider adding roses to your landscape. For many gardeners, particularly those just getting into roses, a rose is a rose. But several different categories or types of roses are available, and within each type are numerous varieties.

(For Release On Or After 01/18/13) The presence of birds is almost universally welcome among gardeners. Their contribution of movement, color, sounds and pest control to the landscape are unique and desirable.

(For Release On Or After 01/04/13) January and February are excellent months to plant trees in Louisiana. If you’re thinking about adding shade trees, small spring- or summer-flowering trees or trees for screening, head out to local nurseries and purchase and plant trees in the next few weeks.

(For Release On Or After 01/11/13) Many gardeners consider snails and slugs to be the most disgusting pests in the garden. I could live with their looks if they just didn’t cause so much damage.

(For Release On Or After 12/28/12) Our winter landscapes look decidedly different from our landscapes in summer. The major reasons for this are that many of our shade trees drop their leaves in winter, and in their leafless state their appearance is stark and bare. In addition, our lawn grasses go dormant and turn brown.

(For Release On Or After 12/21/12) This time of year when we have brought many of our container tropicals inside for the winter, we need to be on the lookout for pest problems. When they do happen, indoor pest infestations can be devastating if not dealt with promptly, effectively and safely.

(For Release On Or After 12/14/12) The majority of plants in our landscapes are completely winter hardy. The primary concern during freezes is our tender plants in the ground or in outdoor containers. These plants – native to tropical regions of the world where it never freezes – do not have the ability to protect themselves from sub-freezing temperatures. If we want them to survive freezing temperatures during winter, we must provide protection for them.

(For Release On Or After 12/07/12) We use a variety of decorative plants to dress up our homes during the holidays. Poinsettias, holiday cactuses and living Christmas trees, in particular, play an important part in decking the halls. How well you care for them once you get them home has a lot to do with how long they will stay attractive.

(For Release On Or After 11/30/12) BATON ROUGE, La. – Few flowering bulbs can surpass the stately beauty of the amaryllis. Typically blooming in April, this popular bulb is a star performer in the spring garden. Dormant bulbs are readily available now, and with proper care, they can become a long-lasting part of your landscape.

(For Release On Or After 11/23/12) BATON ROUGE, La. – Gardening is a well-documented and beneficial form of exercise. It contributes to a healthy lifestyle, and I am always impressed when I meet gardeners in their 70s, 80s and even 90s who are still actively gardening.

(For Release On Or After 11/16/12) BATON ROUGE, La. – Fall is an outstanding time to plant many of the hardy culinary herbs. And one of the most popular is parsley.

(For Release On Or After 11/09/12) BATON ROUGE, La. – Fall – November through early December – is the best time to plant hardy trees in Louisiana. Are you are thinking about adding shade trees, small spring or summer flowering trees or trees for screening? If you are, this is time of the year to head out to local nurseries and purchase trees to plant in your landscape.

(For Release On Or After 11/02/12) BATON ROUGE, La. – Louisiana gardeners often use containers of tender tropical plants on decks, patios and porches and in courtyards to provide color and beauty through the summer. These plants thrive in outdoor conditions. But because they cannot withstand freezing temperatures, they must be protected during winter. Generally, this means bringing them indoors.

(For Release On Or After 10/26/12) The Sorbet series violas are the best-flowering violas in LSU AgCenter trials. As a result, they are a fall 2012 Louisiana Super Plants selection. These vigorous plants produce inch-wide, bright flowers that cover the plant from late fall through spring.

(For Release On Or After 10/19/12) There are many reasons why we shouldn’t let weeds grow in our landscapes. Weeds, particularly in flowerbeds, shrub plantings and ground covers, cause landscapes to look unattractive and neglected.

(For Release On Or After 10/12/12) Conversation Piece azalea (Rhododendron ‘Conversation Piece’) is the first Louisiana Super Plants selection to be promoted for the fall 2012 season.

(For Release On Or After 10/05/12) It seems that everywhere you look in October you see chrysanthemums blooming. Widely available and relatively inexpensive, they are almost indispensable for providing quick color in the fall landscape.

(For Release On Or After 09/28/12) Roadsides and meadows come alive with colors of native wildflowers in September, October and November. Gardeners – who sometimes struggle to create beautiful displays of flowers in their landscapes – often marvel at the way nature seems to achieve such beauty without effort.

(For Release On Or After 09/21/12) Birds can contribute wonderful things to the enjoyment of a landscape, such as movement, color, sounds and even pest control. Gardeners almost universally welcome the presence of birds. They can even go so far as to design and plant landscapes that are particularly attractive to birds.

(For Release On Or After 09/14/12) For gardeners tired of the heat and longing for cooler weather, September can provide welcome relief. Cool fronts often begin to make their way this far south in September. But days in the 90s are not uncommon this month, and after a long, hot summer, these last scorching days are especially hard to bear for gardeners and their landscapes.

(For Release On Or After 09/07/12) Much of the work dealing with trees after a hurricane should be done by professionals who have the equipment and training to do the job safely. Most people do not have the equipment or expertise to safely remove large trees or fallen trunks. That means hiring an arborist.

(For Release On Or After 08/17/12) August is a month when gardeners should think about two important aspects of landscape maintenance – fertilizing and pruning. This month is the latest we fertilize lawns, hardy shrubs and ground covers in the landscape.

(For Release On Or After 08/24/12) Growing plants in outdoor containers is popular for a variety of reasons. In-ground beds are not always available where you would like to grow plants – as in the case of paved courtyards, decks, apartment balconies and patios.

(For Release On Or After 08/31/12) If you maintain a landscape, you deal with weeds. At this point in our long, hot summer, I’m sure you have devoted considerable effort to keeping your landscape from being taken over by various weeds in beds and lawns and by vines growing up trees and on fences.

(For Release On Or After 08/10/12) Forlorn flower beds past their prime and overrun with weeds are an all-too-familiar sight in late summer landscapes. Our long growing season and abundance of insect and disease problems generally make it unreasonable to expect all bedding plants to hold up from the beginning of summer in early May until its end.

(For Release On Or After 08/03/12) There is something particularly satisfying about putting quality, nutritious food on the table as a direct result of your gardening efforts. This month is a transitional time in the vegetable garden.

(For Release On Or After 07/27/12) Deadheading is an important but often neglected gardening technique. It refers to pruning off old, faded flowers from a plant as it blooms. It is most often done to annuals and perennials, but it is also useful with some summer-flowering trees and shrubs.

(For Release On Or After 07/20/12) If you regularly read national gardening magazines and get a variety of gardening catalogs, you may have noticed that tropical-look landscaping is a trend that is gaining attention across the country these days.

(For Release On Or After 07/13/12) When it comes to vegetable gardening in Louisiana, gardeners should take advantage of our year-round growing season. Yes, even in the torrid depths of summer you can plant delicious, heat-tolerant vegetables to keep your garden productive.

(For Release On Or After 07/06/12) By midsummer, many adults are thinking of ways to provide something for children to do until school begins. Why not start a gardening project? You can introduce your youngsters to the joys of gardening and at the same time exercise their bodies and brains.

(For Release On Or After 06/29/12) There is a great deal of confusion among gardeners about what fertilizers are, what they do and why we use them. To put things in perspective, using fertilizers properly is an important part of gardening, but it is almost never a matter of life and death.

(For Release On Or After 06/22/12 ) As if mowing the lawn wasn’t trouble enough, dealing with and disposing of grass clippings can be a major problem. Clumps of grass clippings left on the lawn are unsightly and yellow the grass beneath them.

(For Release On Or After 06/15/12) No other summer-flowering shrub surpasses the tropical hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis) for glossy, dark green foliage and nonstop flowers in shades of and blends of pink, yellow, orange, white, lavender or scarlet. And their exceptionally long blooming season runs from late spring through late fall.

(For Release On Or After 06/01/12) Gardeners crave color in shady areas of their landscapes just as much as they do in sunny areas. Unfortunately, shade-loving plants are generally not so flamboyant, and the selection of colorful bedding plants for shady gardens is limited. Thank goodness for caladiums.

(For Release On Or After 06/08/12) People often take their longest vacations during summer. When planning a vacation, people make arrangements to have someone take care of everything from their pets to the newspaper. But it’s also important to have someone look after plants and home grounds during an extended absence.

(For Release On Or After 05/25/12) Propagating plants means to create new plants from those you already have, and you can do that in many different ways. Planting seeds and rooting cuttings are two of the most common methods of propagation. But another technique, called layering, is useful in propagating a wide variety of ornamental plants.

(For Release On Or After 05/18/12) Summer-flowering bulbs provide an excellent way to introduce colorful flowers, interesting foliage and even fragrance into the summer landscape. Most summer-flowering bulbs are native to tropical or subtropical climates and will reliably bloom here for many years.

(For Release On Or After 05/11/12) You can recycle yard waste back into the landscape through the process of composting, which benefits your garden, your budget and the environment. Compost is used primarily in bed preparation to improve the soil and can even be used in preparing potting mixes.

(For Release On Or After 05/04/12) Hydrangeas have a long tradition of use in shady Southern gardens. From late April through July, huge flower heads of light pink, pink, rosy red, lavender, light blue, bluish purple and blends of those colors as well as white appear above the rich green leaves.

(For Release On Or After 03/30/12) The cucumber family, properly known as the Cucurbitaceae (cu-cur-bit-A-cee-ee), provides a wide variety of vegetables popular for the spring, summer and fall home vegetable garden.