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Frequently Asked Questions

4/11/2020

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The following is a list of the most popular questions from customers.  If your question is not listed, feel free to contact us by email, phone or at our store and we will be happy to answer your question.

When is it safe to plant my flowers and/or vegetables outdoors?
The average last frost date for our area is typically mid-May, however any Colorado resident knows this can be a tough one to call.  April is a great time for pansies.  They are a cold weather flower that won't mind the cold nights or a dusting of snow.  If you are planting in a container that you can cover easily or better yet, move under the porch or in the garage, than you can get started with other annuals such as petunias, marigolds and geraniums as soon as you see them appear in our store! (usually mid-April)  Your cool weather vegetable crops such as peas, lettuce can go out as soon as you can work the soil.  And unless you have the Wall O' Water, you will want to wait until mid-May or later to get your tomato plant in the ground.  You can use coverings such as a sheet or empty bucket for your plants, just don't let plastic touch the plant.


How should I take care of my plants?
While some plants may require a little extra TLC, the majority of your plants will benefit from the following basic care guidelines:
Water them!  Poke your finger down in the soil about an inch to gauge how wet/dry your container is.  Most containers that are in full sun will need daily watering on the hot summer days. if at all possible, water in the morning and try not to get water on the foliage and/or blooms as this can encourage disease/insects.
Feed them!  Just like people, all of your plants need food!  We recommend a slow-release fertilizer such as Osmocote and a water soluble fertilzer such as Jack's Classic or Daniel's Plant Food.
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Flower Gardens - The Best Annuals to Grow

4/11/2020

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By Doris M


Marvel at these garden annuals that will make your garden come alive with color, scent and foliage. When choosing your plants, aim for those all-summer-long bloomers.
  • Cleome Senorita Rosalita:  This new Cleome variety is amazing. Plant in full to part sun. No sticky stems, no thorny stems and no foul odor. Shorter than the other Cleome varieties, the Senorita flowers all summer long with soft lavender blooms. Does not require deadheading and easily doubles in width size. Grows to 12" tall.
  • Nelia Argyranthemum: With daisy-like yellow flowers, the Nelia prefers a part sun to sun location.  This annual eventually grows to a shrub like appearance. Having a slight fragrance, butterflies and bees love this annual plant. Grows to 24" tall.
  • Black Knight Pincushion Flower: What a discovery! With deep burgundy almost black flowers, this annual adds a real punch to any flowerbed garden. Having sturdy stems, the flower gives the appearance of dozens of straight pins! Attractive gray-green fern like foliage. Enjoys a part-sun location. Grows to 12" to 14" tall.
  • Felicia Daisy: This sun-loving edging annual plant produces tiny lavender blue flowers with bright yellow centers. Interesting mini shrub like appearance. Grows to 8" tall.
  • Magilla Purple Perilla: Striking coleus-like purple foliage. Great for shade container planting. Pinching this garden annual will have the plant becoming fuller, bushier. Great contrast annual.
  • Colorblaze Coleus: Having lime green leaves with raspberry color veins makes this foliage annual a great contrast plant. Can tolerate full sun, but prefers a part shade, even shade location. Grows to 12" to 14" tall.
  • Gartenmeister Fuchsia: This annual fuchsia provides gorgeous long, thin, red flowers with burgundy leaves all summer long. Can be planted in sun or shade. Great container plant, but because of its upright growth habit, it can be planted in a flowerbed as well.
  • Euphorbia Diamond Frost:  Blooms continuously in mounds of airy  tiny white blooms. Although it blooms better in full sun, it does tolerate part shade. No deadheading required. A great filler and spiller for container planting.
  • Sweet Potato Vines: Showy deep burgundy leaves, such as the 'Blackie', or the red leaves of the Sweet Caroline  and then there is the lime colored leaves of the Illusion Emerald Lace. All have a vigorous trailing habit making them appropriate for container planting. For sun or part sun.
  • Ageratum Blue Horizon: An old favorite garden annual. A taller ageratum variety with true blue floss flowers. Great as an edging plant. Good for sun or part shade. Grows to 12" tall.
  • Bonfire Begonia: A new begonia for sun locations. Although it can survive in shade or part shade, it fairs better in full sun. Amazing arched stems with red/orange blooms. This plant is self-cleaning. Great for container/hanging basket planting.
  • Dusty Miller: An old-time peacemaker in the garden. Because of its silver foliage coloring, it is used to make color transitions in the flowerbed garden. Also deer and rabbit do not like this annual. Grows to 12" to 14" tall. Makes a good edging plant.
  • Salvia Black and Blue: All annual Salvia varieties are worth planting. A tall growing Salvia, the Black and Blue rises up as a very good background annual. Can grow to 36" tall. The dark purple/blue tubular blooms seem to last forever and deadheading the spent blooms keeps them coming until the first hard frost.
  • Salvia Lady In Red: Another annual Salvia with red tubular blooms on taller sturdy stems. Very attractive to hummingbirds. They bloom throughout the summer months.
  • Salvia Mystic Spires: An annual Salvia that rivals any medium to tall annual. Beautiful deep purple spike blooms on tall sturdy stems. Grows to 28" to 36" tall and blooms last until a hard frost.
  • Impatiens: Another old-time favorite for shade gardens. All colors (white, pink, red) look great planted in mass. Or try planting in containers and placing in hard to grow areas of the garden, like under a tree.
  • Begonia Vodka: A Begonia (red, pink, white) with burgundy leaves. Can be planted in shade or sun. Makes a good edging plant.
  • There you have it. Suggestions for the best annuals to grow for sun, part-sun, shade and container planting. The above mentioned garden annuals are favorites for many gardeners. All are very easy to grow and are low maintenance.


    Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Doris_M

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How Malara Gardens Can Help You Make a Great Container Garden

4/11/2020

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The first question we always ask is "how much sun/shade will this container get each day?"  The answer to this will determine which type of plants we suggest.  Most plants will do best with 4-6 hours of direct sunlight, however there is a growing selection of shade choices these days.  Our staff will be happy to help you find the best sun or shade flowers for your container.  That's the best part of our job!

Second, we will need to know the size of the container.  A 10" pot or larger would allow for a great display of color all summer long.  Terra cotta or plastic, bowls, window boxes or baskets will all work.  

After filling your container with Black Gold All Purpose Potting Soil, you are ready to add your plants.  We follow the "Thriller, Spiller, Filler" plan.  Chose a tall, striking plant for the centerpiece as the "Thriller."  Then choose plants that grow down, trailing over the edge of the pot as the "Spillers."  And lastly, choose some upright growing plants to fill in the rest of the space as your "Fillers."  

Watering will be important!!! if this is a tough area for you, we have ways to help.  We might suggest more drought resistant kinds of plants for you or the use of water polymers such as Soil Moist.  

Fertilizing will be just as important.  Because containers get watered so frequently (on the hot days you should be watering daily), nutrients drain away with the excess water.  The more you feed your plants the happier they will be.  Weekly feeding with Jack's Classic Fertilizer will ensure greener foliage, more blooms and plants that will last til the first frost.




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How to Beautify Your Yard with Garden Decor

4/11/2020

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​By David Paredez


A great way to get into the spirit of spring is to upgrade your yard with some attractive Garden Décor. This can be one of your best investments to not only add value to your yard but to make it beautiful for years to come. If you are looking for some ideas to decorate your yard, keep in mind that it doesn't have to be expensive or time consuming to do.

All you need is a little imagination and a little initiative to turn your yard into a creative masterpiece. A great place to get started is your local hardware or home center. Not only will you find some of the items you may be looking for but some stores carry publications dedicated to decorating a yard.

You may even want to stop by nearest bookstore or newsstand and look for ideas through some of the home & garden magazines they may have available. You may also want to visit a friend or neighbor's house just to see and get a feel for what is possible for your yard.

There are more choices today than ever before. You may want to start out small and add a bird house, bird feeder or bird bath to your yard or hang a decorative wind chime on your porch. Lawn ornaments are a favorite of many as are garden plaques to spruce up the dull cinder block walls surrounding a yard.

Adding a statue or a fountain to your yard is a great way to give it some flare. In recent years they have come down in price and are now available in different styles. You can now add cherubs, angles, animals and even children playing to any area of your yard.

If you want to add beautiful plants but don't have the room to plant them, you may look to add them in decorative pottery. You can find different shapes; sizes and many are now hand painted. Decorative plant shelves and racks are also available.

If you have a tree, you may want to add a hammock. What a treat relaxing under the cool shade during a hot summer day! They come in different styles and colors and if you don't have a tree, don't worry, you can purchase a stand in which the hammock is hung on.

Once you get the items you want, experiment a little. Play around with where you may think an item looks best. This is where all the fun is! A Cherub statue may look better in the south corner of your yard next to the fence rather than in the middle of the yard, for example. You can always change your mind later.

Whether you have a large or small yard, it will only take a few items to really change the overall affect of your yard. You will be surprised with what you can create. Most importantly you will have fun doing it.

Written by David H. Paredez @2008 - All Rights reserved





Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_Paredez

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Plant Flower Bulbs For Beautiful Container Gardening

4/11/2020

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By Mary Hanna 

As a group, flower bulbs are outstanding plants--colorful, showy, and generally easy to grow for container gardening. Many have evergreen foliage; with others, the leaves ripen after flowering and the bulbs are stored and started again, year after year. Some flower bulbs are hardy, others, tender, though what is, and is not hardy, in a particular area is a matter of winter temperature averages. In cold regions, tender types--tuberous begonias, gloxinias, and calla lilies--can be treated like summer in container gardens. This gives the gardener a wide variety to grow from earliest spring to late fall.

Dutch flower bulbs include crocus, snowdrops, eranthis or winter aconites, chionodoxas, scillas, grape hyacinths, leucojums or snowflakes, Dutch hyacinths, daffodils, and tulips, the pride of northern spring gardens. Though hardy, they are not adapted to garden containers outdoors where temperatures drop much below freezing. They require the protection of a shed, unheated cellar or cold frame. Gardening Pots can also be dug into a trench in the ground for the winter and covered with a thick blanket of marsh hay or straw. Where temperatures do not go below freezing, Dutch flower bulbs can be left outdoors in gardening pots over the winter.

For best results in a container garden, start with fresh, firm, large-sized flower bulbs each fall. Insure good drainage in the bottom of each garden pot and use a light soil with bone meal added. If in clay pots, plunge during the rooting period in damp peat moss to prevent rapid drying out. If this occurs too often, roots will be injured and flowers will be poor. When weather permits, after the danger of freezing passes, put your container garden outside where they are to flower or in a nursery row until they reach the bud stage. After blooming, move your container garden where foliage can ripen unseen.

For fragrance, concentrate on Dutch hyacinths, excellent for bedding large planter boxes or raised beds. Daffodils look well grouped around trees or large shrubs, as birches and forsythias. Tulips, formal in character, combine delightfully with pansies, violas, wall flowers, forget-me-nots, marguerites, English daisies, and annual candytuft in container gardens.

As already indicated, in cold areas, Dutch flower bulbs cannot be potted or planted in small window boxes and left outdoors unprotected for the winter. They can, however, be set out in large planters and boxes, deep and wide enough to contain plenty of soil. The garden pots should be one and a half to two feet deep and about two feet wide. Set flower bulbs, with at least six inches of soil above them, planting them early enough in the fall so that they can make root growth before soil freezes hard. In penthouse gardens in New York City, Dutch bulbs have been grown successfully in this way, but it is always a risk. It makes no difference whether garden pots are made of wood, concrete, or other material; it is the amount of soil they hold that counts.

Actually, it is not the freezing of the soil that injures flower bulbs (this occurs in open ground), but it is the pressure and counter pressure exerted by frost on the sides of containers, which are firm and do not give. As a result, flower bulbs are bruised and thrust out of the soil, their roots torn. Where there is no hard freeze, but sufficient cold weather, hardy flower bulbs can be grown successfully in garden containers of small size.

Here is a partial list of flower bulbs that thrive in container gardens. They will help you with your container garden design

Achimenes are warmth-loving trailing plants with neat leaves and tubular flowers in blue, lavender, red and white. Related to gloxinias and African violets, they are nice in hanging baskets and window boxes or in garden pots on tables, shelves, or wall brackets. Start the small tubers indoors and give plants a sheltered spot with protection from strong sun and wind. Achimenes, an old standby in the South, is worthy of more frequent planting.

Agapanthus or Blue Lily of the Nile is a fleshy-rooted evergreen plant, with strap leaves, often grown in tubs and urns on terraces and steps during the summer, when the tall blue spikes unfold. Culture is easy, but plants require a well-lighted, frost proof room or greenhouse in winter. This is an old-time favorite, often seen in the gardens of Europe. It is a perfect flower bulb for container gardening.

The Calla Lily is Showy, and outdoors in warmer regions, but a tender pot plant in the North. Most familiar is the white one with large, shiny, heart-shaped leaves. Start bulbs indoors in February or March in rich soil and, when weather settles, transfer to large gardening pots and take outdoors. Calla lilies do well in full sun or part shade, are heavy feeders and need much water. There is also a dainty yellow one with white-spotted leaves. Rest your flower bulbs after foliage ripens and grow again.

Colorful and free-flowering Dahlias provide bounteous cut blooms. Tall, large-flowering kinds can be grown only in large planters and boxes, but the dwarfs, even freer flowering, are excellent in small garden containers. Attaining one to two feet tall, they grow easily from tubers in average soil in sun or part shade. They may also be raised from seed sown indoors in February. If tubers are stored in peat or sand in a cool, frost proof place, they can be grown for years. Check bulbs during winter, and if shriveling, sprinkle lightly.

Gladiolus, the summer-flowering plant has spear like leaves and many hued spikes. Corms can be planted in garden containers outdoors after danger of frost is passed. Set them six inches apart and four to six inches deep. The best way to use these in container gardening is to planting a few every two to three weeks, giving you a succession of bloom in your container garden. Stake stems before flowers open. After the leaves turn brown, or there is a frost, lift corms, cut off foliage and dust with DDT to control the tiny sucking thrips. After dusting, store corms in a dry place at 45 to 55 degrees F for future planting.

Gloxinias, another Summer-flowering plant and tender with large, tubular blooms of red, pink, lavender, purple, or white, and broad velvety rosettes of leaves. Start tubers indoors and don't take outside until weather is warm. Since the leaves are easily broken or injured by wind or rain, put plants in a sheltered spot. The low broad eaves of contemporary houses, with restricted sun, offer an appropriate setting for rows of pots or window boxes filled with gay gloxinias.

Now you have some great ideas for your container garden design. It's time now to start planting your flower bulbs.

Happy Container Gardening!

Copyright © 2006 Mary Hanna All Rights Reserved.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mary_Hanna
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Location: 7190 Kipling St, Arvada, CO 80004

Phone: 303-424-1452
Open Daily 9am - 6pm
malaragardens@gmail.com  

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We Love Malara Gardens!!! We live in the neighborhood and we love to fill up the wagon with their beautiful plants to bring home for our garden!!! Just got our pumpkins from them too!!! They have that special family run business feel!!! And the quality is the Best!!!
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