Hopefully your garden is beginning to reward you with enough beautiful blooms to cut a few and bring them indoors. About.com's Anne-Marie Barton has an excellent short video demonstrating several tips for prolonging the beauty of your cut flowers. Nothing's more disappointing than sacrificing flowers out of your garden, only to see them wilt, whither and die in a day. As Anne-Marie points out, different stems require different techniques. And here are some more tips on which flowers last longest when cut and how to grow your own cutting garden.

• Top Cut Flower Choices
• Selecting and Caring for Cut Flowers
• Consider A Cutting Garden (National Garden Bureau)
• A Perennial Cutting Garden Design
• 10 Tips for Cutting and Displaying Roses

Usually I find tropical plants a bit out of place in anything less than a Zone 9 garden, but cannas seem to blend in better than most of the drama queens of the tropics. Granted, you can’t expect a plant with a cultivar name like ‘Tropicana’ to be a wall flower. Still there are cannas, like 'Stuttgart' shown here, that don’t scream for attention. Whatever your personal preference, cannas are easy going plants with a big impact. All they ask is heat and water and they’re happy all season. Although they’re not hardy for most gardeners, they are also one of the easiest tubers to over-winter.

Photo: Courtesy of Palmer W. Cook / Stock.xchng. Used with Permission.

I got this question while I was shopping for fertilizer the other day. Someone had read that she needed dormant oil for her apple tree and she wanted to know if she could still use it now, even though her tree was no longer dormant.

You don’t see dormant oil recommended much these days. The first dormant oils were heavy and you couldn’t safely use them on actively growing plants or you could damage the foliage. Dormant oils were further refined to produce lighter-weight oils that can be applied during the growing season, without harm to many plants. When the term dormant oil is used now, it generally refers to the application timing, during the dormant season, rather than a type of oil. Here’s the lowdown on what actually counts as a horticultural oil.

Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2008) licensed to About.com, Inc.

White is actually a pretty tricky color to design with, in the garden. White washes out in bright sun, but positively glows in partial shade. The garden design plan outlined here features plants with white and silver flowers or foliage that will brighten a forgotten, partial shade corner. Because many of these plants aren’t dependent on flowers to make an impact, it’s also a lower maintenance garden design. Cool shade, undemanding plants. What else could you want?

Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2008) licensed to About.com, Inc.

Darlene Fry sent in this very appropriate photo, in response to my asking what items you recycle in your garden. I don’t think Darlene had compost tea in mind, when she tucked this cup and saucer into a spot in her garden, but it made me think of a recent article from About’s Guide to Small Farms. Gardening can become an expensive habit, so anything that makes for a better garden and is free is a real find. Recycled garden ornaments certainly fit the bill. Compost is another such freebie. Compost may happen, but it doesn’t necessarily happen fast enough. To stretch your compost further, use some of it to make compost tea. This tea is for giving your garden a long, cool drink in the summer. As Tamara Lujan points out, compost "...tea will invigorate your garden, help control pests, and fight diseases." Not bad for free.

Thanks for the great photo, Darlene. If you’d like to send in a photo of something you’ve recycled in your garden, here’s how.

Photo courtesy: Darlene Fry. Used with Permission.

I always wish I had a brick or gray house whenever I start to pick out plants for my front yard. Landscaping plants should enhance the house and my red shutters seem to rule out pinks and pastels. If you’re playing with colors, whether in pots or in the ground, David Beaulieu has some examples of how to use color effectively in your Landscape Color Schemes. According to David, "an effective landscape color scheme can compensate for many a landscape design flaw." Well, who couldn’t use that kind of help?

Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2008) licensed to About.com, Inc.

Container gardening offers limitless possibilities and several advantages over conventional gardening. In container gardens you can control the soil quality, follow the sun, raise your garden to a good working height and maintain absolute control over sequence of bloom, to name a few pluses. Some simple rules of thumb will make your containers the talk of the neighborhood.

Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2008) licensed to About.com, Inc.

Hostas are shade plants, right? Well, yes and no. We think of hostas as shade perennials, but there are some hostas that need a dose of sunshine to look and perform their best. Bu then, too much sun will fry any hosta’s leaves. So how do you know which Hostas can tolerate a sunny site? A quick rule of thumb is to give yellow leaved and fragrant hostas at least morning sun and keep the blue and green hostas in partial shade. But there’s a bit more involved in choosing hosta plants for a sunny garden.

Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2008) licensed to About.com, Inc.

Phormium is a spiky, spectacular, sword-leafed evergreen perennial that makes a striking garden focal point or specimen plant. Some are small enough to use in containers, others can reach several feet in diameter and 7+ feet tall. The new hybrids dazzle in the garden in shades of pink, bronze, rich reds and dramatic stripes. If you’re looking for a standout plant, consider growing Phormium.

Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2008) licensed to About.com, Inc.

Here’s another question I’ve gotten from more than one reader: can you use vinegar as a herbicide? The short answer is - yes. There are some ifs, ands and buts, but the bottom line is that household vinegar will kill many weeds. It may take more than one try and you’d have better luck with a stronger concentration of acetic acid, but it’s an organic control worth trying. Here are some suggestions for using vinegar as to kill weeds..

Photo: © Marie Iannotti (2008) licensed to About.com, Inc.