The Pet-Friendly Garden airs on KRFC 88.9

Join Jill Reynolds of Canine Massage of the Rockies, hosting me on KRFC's Critter Patter Thursday, April 29, 6:30pm, as we discuss the Pet-Friendly Garden. I'll offer some tips on sharing your yard and garden with your dog while keeping your sanity and your beautiful garden intact. My emphasis will be incorporating observations of natural dog behavior with strategies that embrace that behavior rather than fighting it. If you can't catch the show, you can still find the information here next week when I post the tips. You'll miss Jill's expert advice and generous sharing of her extensive experience with dogs and their behavior, though. So tune in for the whole she-bang!

Free Cookie Giveaway April 24-25

Well, OK, there'll be homemade cookies at the Ask a Designer event at the Fort Collins Nursery Open House this weekend, April 24-25. And I'll be there with free garden design advice, enthusiasm, and ideas. The goodies, my famous sage shortbread cookies, will, however, steal the show and the garden advice will just be an adjunct. It'll be fun, though, so join me and others at the open house this weekend. Lots of things are blooming at the nursery already and I can guarantee that you'll be stricken with the gardening muse and will want to start planting.

Tuning the Pruning

Early spring is the time to prune shrubs that don't flower in the spring, or ones with insignificant blooms that you don't mind pruning off. Spring blooming shrubs such as forsythia and lilac should be pruned after they bloom. Diseased, damaged or dead branches are the first to go no matter what time of year. Plants such as dogwoods here in Colorado thrive on the rejuvenation pruning gives them because it stimulates new branch growth and the new red, or yellow depending on the variety, branches are what gives the shrub its interest and beauty. Pruning is also used in thinning and shaping a shrub or containing it in size. There are right and wrong ways to prune so if you're in doubt, get advice from an expert.

Recently I got to hear from an expert plantsman, Tom Throgmorton of Throgmorton Plant Management about these and other pruning tips. His excellent talk at Fort Collins Nursery was very informative and accessible. You can catch him again April 10 at the Shrub Pruning Workshop at the Gardens on Spring Creek, Fort Collins, Colorado www.fcgov.com/gardens. Go and learn!