by Jan Cashman Outdoor living rooms are not a new idea, but creating a unique outdoor living area is one of the biggest trends in landscapes today. Homeowners want areas outside their homes to enjoy life in the great outdoors. Some of these high-end outdoor living areas contain elaborate kitchens with huge barbecue gr...

by Jan Cashman There are 16 elements which plants require for survival, growth, and normal development called "essential elements". Three of them-carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen-are found in the air and water. The other thirteen are provided by soil and/or fertilizers. Six of these thirteen are listed as "macronutrients"...

by Jan Cashman If you're hiking around our forests with your permit, looking for the perfect Christmas tree, it might be nice to know the correct names of the evergreen trees found there. Even if you don't go hunting for your Christmas tree in the surrounding mountains, it is good to have some knowledge of Montana's n...

by Jan Cashman Landscape edging is not the most exciting topic. But whether you are landscaping a new yard, or sprucing up your old yard, you should know what options are available to separate your flower or shrub beds from your lawn. Why edge at all? Jerry and I prefer no edging material between our flower or shrub b...

by Jan Cashman It is again time to look back on this years' growing season and reflect what the gardening successes and failures were in our area and how our gardens were affected by the weather. Last winter was a snowy one with most of the snowfall early. February was dry, but even so, we entered spring with enough...

by Jan Cashman Fall is the time to plant hardy bulbs for beautiful blooms in your garden next spring. Most bulbs are perennial; they need to be planted only once and will come up and bloom year after year. Not all of what we call bulbs are true bulbs. Some are corms, tuberous roots, or rhizomes, but they all store the...

by Jan Cashman Few shrubs rival the often overlooked sumac for striking yellow, orange, and red leaves in the fall. There are approximately 250 species of woody shrubs in the sumac genus, Rhus. Some species of sumac are native to China and Japan, but many species are native to North America, in fact, almost every regi...

by Jan Cashman Peony (Genus Paeonia) is the perfect perennial flower for our climate. Peonies are fragrant, hardy, prefer our alkaline soils, and make a good cut flower. Long-lived peonies can be found, along with common purple lilacs and yellow shrub roses, in old, deserted farmyards, especially in the Midwest. Hist...

by Jan Cashman Growing up in Minnesota, my mother had me scrounging for wild asparagus behind our house near the railroad tracks, a duty I didn't mind because asparagus was one of the few vegetables I liked as a child. All this wild asparagus in the Midwest might make you think that it is native to North America, but ...