2019 Garden Superstars - New Plants and Products for Spring

The best way to reverse those winter blues is to get back in the garden. To get you excited for spring, Garden Media Group has released its 2019 Garden Superstars for Spring. This year’s list features delicious edible plants, safe garden food and innovative products.

These Garden Superstars will transform any patio or backyard and make gardening easier

Grow your own homegrown nutritious blueberries. This spring try two new varieties from the Bushel and Berry® collection that are perfect for warmer climates and self-pollinating. Blueberry Buckle™, a quick growing blueberry that stays compact with white bell-shaped flowers that appear in spring and produce sweet, dark blueberries. Southern Bluebelle™ will be a charming addition to your patio or landscape. This petite blueberry plant produces plump, juicy blueberries in late summer and displays bright red, emerging foliage that turns emer­ald green as it matures. For more information on these and other berries, visit www.bushelandberry.com.

Summer Bulb of 2019. Get blooms all summer in fiery shades of red, orange and yellow with Crocosmia. Requiring little care, they combine well with ornamental grasses to create a beautiful scene in your yard. Crocosmia is a hummingbird magnet, makes outstanding cut flowers and can provide a vivid splash of color to containers. Plus, they’re deer resistant too! Visit your local garden center to find more summer flowering bulbs. For more information, visit Bulb.com.

Small Space Gardening. The new Collapsible Watering Can and Collapsible Watering Bucket from Centurion were created with storage and mobility in mind. Their heavy duty, non-porous silicone material offers superior strength, while the foldable and detachable parts allow freedom to use these products in any space. The Watering Bucket is perfect for gardening, boating and camping while the Watering Can doubles as a storage container. For more information visit CenturionBrands.com.

Better fruits and veggies. The Espoma Company’s new Tomato! Liquid fertilizer and Berry-Tone granular fertilizer provide just the right nutrients to these timeless favorites. Tomato! comes in a colorful 8 oz. bottle with a user-friendly cap that measures just the right amount of plant food to encourage plump and juicy tomatoes. For berry gardeners, Espoma’s new Berry-tone provides a long-lasting, slow-release of nutrients. Feed plants in early spring to encourage growth and more berries. Find Berry-Tone and other Espoma products at your local garden center or at Espoma.com.

Grow a Hanging Garden. Fresh herbs in the kitchen? Yes, please! This rustic herb kit from Bloem comes with a real wood back and comes with three 6” Ariana planters in black. Write the name of your favorite herbs on the planter holders, and grow vertically! Perfect for growing herbs indoors so you can enjoy the freshest ingredients all year long! Find this and other beautiful containers at BloemLiving.com.

For more exciting new plants and garden products for spring 2019, visit gardenmediagroup.com.

GMG's Friday Find: Use Fish To Grow Food - Meeet the Aqualibrium Garden

Imagine a closed-loop ecosystem that can fit anywhere offering the freedom to grow food year round.  That was the vision of the designers of the Aqualibrium Garden, a product that can be used as an aquaponic or hyrdroponic system.

A sleek design that is part fish tank, part garden is small enough to comfortably fit in an urban apartment or small space dwelling.  It utilizes the latest trend of  aquaponics, which is essentially the symbiotic relationship between fish and plant life.  The bottom section of the unit is the fish tank where the waste from the fish is a perfect plant fertilizer. The upper section is where the plants live, their roots providing the perfect biofilter to absorb and purify the fish's water.

GMG's Friday Find: A Vertical Gardening Tower That Does It All

The Garden Tower is a revolutionary gardening and composting system developed by a small company with big ideas in Bloomington, Indiana. This system is incredibly efficient utilizing a design that provides the benefits of a self-contained ecosystem. The features and benefits of the Garden Tower include:

* 50 plants in 4 square feet

* Significantly faster growth

* Generates worm-activated compost

* Turns kitchen scraps to fertilizers

* Self conditions and fortifies soil

* 100% recyclable

* Weed-free, accessible and senior friendly

* Reduced watering

Check out this video and see how the Garden Tower system works.

With gardening and sustainability an ever present challenge, we applaud the ingenuity and dedication of the team behind the Garden Tower to empower people toward their own food security. We'd love to hear your thoughts. 

Happy sustainable gardening!

~Peggy
Garden Media Group

The Groovy Red House

One of the big mega trends we are seeing is the downsizing of the American dream. We've re-evaluated our relationship with money and are reassessing what is important to us and our families.

From our fries to our homes, we're downsizing everything. The National Association of Home Builders reports the median sq footage of new homes was down 9% from 2,300 sq. ft. in 2006 to 2,100 sq. ft. in 2009 (NAHB)

Which brought this groovy home in my neighborhood to my attention. It can't be more than 1,200 square feet.

Few will move to a house this small, but let's face it. McMansions are dead. In this new less is more generation, w e're returning to smaller homes with more reseasonable sized yards where we play and entertain outdoors.

In our gardening and care taking of Mother Nature, let's remember to plant for "all creatures great and small" in our own backyard. Check out National Wildlife Federation's program.

Suzi
GardenMediaGroup.com