Sage beush in the high desert. - Native Plants Forum - GardenWeb Seed or perhaps cuttings. I'll try both.

We have one of those Whitehall aluminum mailboxes from Frontgate Catalog, and were told to wax it with car wax. We do so every spring, and it brightens it up quite nicely. The manufacturer's instructions recommended this. Hope this helps!

We have two gardenia bushes planted in the back of the house, right below our kitchen windows facing East. (We are in the north Atlanta area). The gardenia bushes were there 7 years ago when we moved into the house. They looked very nice then, with beautiful, swirly white flowers when in bloom. Unfortunately, we have not known much about gardening until very recently and had virtually no time to do anything in the garden other than keep the lawn cut and blow leaves; so they've gone down under our watch (or lack of watching, more precisely). I just let them do their thing. I never watered, fertilized or pruned them - it's been between them and Mother Nature and they've been fending for themselves for 7 years now (Yeap, we've been THAT bad). Over time, they bloomed less and less until this pasts year when they stopped altogether; they got tall and spindly and many leaves became yellow or browned, as you can see in these pictures. [This is the part where you say "duh!".] As I recently decided to restore the beautiful garden the previous owner left us - I would really love to be able to bring these lovely gardenias back to their original glory. They get morning and midday sun - and when the sun moves on the other side of the house they are in shade. I suppose this is good given the hot afternoon sun in the South. Briefly, what should I do? Flying by the seat of my pants, I am thinking to remove some of those extra blown leaves in the bed that may have piled too much mulching over time; then prune, amend soil with some soil conditioner and cow manure and fertilize; also water regularly over the summer. Am I remotely close to a decent start with this plan? Any advice is highly appreciated!

I have a similarly large tomato garden. Once you clean up the mess you should build a framework to support the plants vertically. My system for maintaining order was to install those green metal fence posts at both ends and the middle of each row. I used the 7' posts and drove them in about a foot-and-a-half. Then I got poly baling twine and ran it at three different levels between posts and tied it really tight so there was minimal sag. This is a surprisingly strong framework that takes up little space. As the tomato plants grow, I tie the branches to the twine so that they are kind of espaliered. I use a MAX Tapener tool for the tying as it goes really fast and is secure. Next year will be much easier for you ;-)