The Kansas Gardener

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Andrew Mitchell, also known professionally as the Kansas Gardener, is a Horticulturalist, Nursery Crops Specialist, and Landscape Maintenance Supervisor for Grimm's. He has a B.S. Degree in Horticulture from Kansas State University and a A.S. Degree in Agronomy from Cloud County Community College. Andrew is a Lifetime Member of the National Home Gardening Club and a member of the American Horticultural Society. He is a regular writer and on the Board of Directors of the Kansas Native Plant Society and the Eternal Hope Worship Center. Andrew lives on an oak-hickory remnant forest edge with his wife and 3 children. He is an avid collector of plant species, and has an interest in heirloom vegetables. Andrew spends his free time in photography, hiking, spending time with his family and church, and working in the garden.

Posts by The Kansas Gardener:

  • Pruning Blueberries

    Gather your tools and safety equipment and head to your blueberry patch! Blueberries are best pruned in early winter, usually January in NE Kansas and SE Nebraska.  We start pruning our blueberries at Grimm’s Gardens after the first of the year, before we get into peaches, apples, raspberries, apricots, and cherries.  Our patch is large; [...]

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  • Learn What Kind of Rock Mulch is Best.

    In the previous blog I talked about using mulches and comparing the different kinds available in our region-the central Great Plains. This week I am going to discuss using rock instead of mulch. The main thing to remember with using rock is that you must use a weed barrier fabric underneath for it to be [...]

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  • What Organic Mulch is Best for Your Garden?

    What kind of mulch should I use? Wintertime for the gardener is planning time. When snow comes and the frigid winter winds keep us from tinkering in the garden shed, we curl up on the couch with seed catalogs, garden magazines, and design ideas. It is usually in the spring we start thinking about mulches [...]

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  • How To Maintain Gardening Equipment

    At the end of each season of gardening it is time to prepare for winter by cutting back perennials, cleaning annual beds, raking up leaves, and setting up birdfeeders, but what about your garden tools? Many home gardeners forget to maintain their hand tools and power tools throughout the year. If this is so, then [...]

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  • Common Landscape Plants with Unusual Edible Qualities: Not Your Typical Fruit or Vegetable!

    We all want a landscape that is easy to maintain, provides beauty all year round, and provides benefits for our families, right? What if we create landscapes that are even more beneficial to our families and to wildlife, where we could, in season, simply pick fruit right off the tree in our backyard? And what [...]

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  • Using Native Grasses in the Landscape

    Native grasses have always fascinated me. Living in the Great Plains, and growing up in the Smoky Hills Region of Kansas, I got to find grasses from two separate ecoregions. The tall grasses of the east and short grasses of the west seemed to collide in my backyard. Now, I use native grasses and sedges [...]

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  • Six Perennials for Tough Conditions

    Summer is here and the heat is on! Over the course of the last two summers I have noticed the good and the bad of perennials in my gardens. I don’t have an irrigation system, and I rarely water after planting, even when it gets hot. My plants seem to perform in the heat, really [...]

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