Experts say that hummingbirds will starve rather than consume spoiled feeder syrup, so a dirty feeder isn’t likely to cause harm. But it may cost you the pleasure of their company if they abandon your yard for more reliable food sources elsewhere.  So if you would like to enjoy your hummingbirds all summer long, follow these simple directions…

Every filling, flush the feeder with hot tap water; a bottle brush can be very helpful. Do not use soap – hummers don’t like the taste.  Visually inspect the entire feeder for black mold; a bleach soak is the best way to remove mold. Discard any unconsumed sugar water. If the birds are not emptying your feeder between cleanings, it’s unnecessary and wasteful to fill it completely. If the sugar solution in your feeder turns cloudy, it’s spoiled and needs to be replaced. This can happen in as little as two days.

At least once a month, clean the feeder thoroughly with a solution of 1/4 cup bleach to one gallon of water or a 50/50 solution of hot water and white vinegar. Soak the feeder in this solution for one hour and then clean with a bottle brush. Rinse well with running water and refill.

Which Brushes Should You Use?  The Perky Pet Feeder Cleaning Mop is made from a no-scratch foam for regular cleaning of bottles to prevent build-up.  Droll Yankees Perfect Little Brush is just the right size to clean Hummingbird ports.  Droll Yankees Hummer Plus Brush is a 9” angled brush with soft bristles that won’t scratch.  The Microban antimicrobial technology fights the growth of damaging bacteria, mold, and mildew.

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North America has more than 50 species of warblers, but few combine brilliant color and easy viewing quite like the Yellow Warbler.  Males are a bright, egg-yolk yellow with reddish streaks on the under-parts. Both sexes flash yellow patches in the tail. The face is unmarked, accentuating the large black eye. Look for Yellow Warblers near the tops of tall shrubs and small trees. They forage restlessly, with quick hops along small branches and twigs to glean caterpillars and other insects. Look to find the males singing their sweet, whistled songs from high perches.

Yellow Warblers build their nests in the vertical fork of a bush or small tree such as willow, hawthorn, raspberry, white cedar, dogwood, and honeysuckle. The nest is typically within about 10 feet of the ground but occasionally up to about 40 feet. The female builds the nest over a period of about 4 days. First she builds a cup of grasses, bark strips, and plants such as nettles. She places plant fibers, spider webs, and plant down around the outside. The inner cup is lined with deer hair, feathers, and fibers from cottonwood, dandelion, willow, and cattail seeds. If a cowbird lays its eggs in a Yellow Warbler’s nest, the warbler often begins building a new nest directly on top of the old one; abandoning both its own eggs and the cowbird’s… sometimes they result in nests with up to six tiers!

Click the play button below to hear the Yellow Warbler!

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B.Y.O.B-Build Your Own Barrel Workshop

Saturday June 8th 1-3PM

only $100 and you leave with an AWESOME Rain Barrel!

• How would you like to save hundreds of $$ on your summer water bill? One of our customers saved over $350 last summer just by using FREE rain water instead of her garden hose!
• Tired of those HIGH water bills?
• Want larger healthier plants and more veggies?

Come join us for a couple hours Saturday afternoon and you will take home a fully assembled rain barrel, with instructions on how to paint and decorate it. Learn where to best place your barrel, how to install your diverter, and the many uses for rain water besides just water plants!

What else can YOU use rain water for? Anything you would normally use your garden hose for!

Wash the dog or the car, fill the pond or top off the pool, power wash the deck, house or driveway, and of course use the water for your flower beds and vegetable gardens!

And in an emergency…you have water for any of your needs!

Bonus Composting Class

After the class, we will have a quick Composting Class. Hang around and learn how to make your own compost. Turn all of your yard and kitchen scraps into beautiful nutrient rich SOIL!! We will show you how to make your own DIRT in as little as 4 weeks. We will also teach you how to make compost in a pile, a bin or in a cylinder.

Call The Rock Pile or stop in to register
800-448-3478

Class run by Rain Barrels N’ More, check out their website.

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It’s not easy being a new parent, and don’t you wish those precious bundles came with instructions? Well, they do.

I’m talking about hanging baskets, of course. I can’t help you with the other kind of parenting.

Hanging baskets are pretty easy once you get the “hang” of them. Here’s a handy summary of everything you need to know about caring for your beautiful new addition to your family.

(FYI: All combination hanging baskets are full sun)

Cleaning

Petunias need to be deadheaded in order to maintain a heavy bud count.

Trim long and stringy stalks; this will help the basket to grow bigger and fuller.

Watering

Water by weight. For example, if basket is heavy, it doesn’t need water. If the basket is light, it needs water. You can also water by the color of the soil; if it’s a light, tan color, it needs water.

Try to water at least once a day.

Make sure to fertilize your basket once a week with Jack’s Classic or Jack’s Blossom Booster.

The post Hanging Basket parenting 101 appeared first on The Rock Pile Garden Center Landscape Mateterials, Firewood, Mulch, Topsoil.

by Jamie Haas

It’s that time of year when the grackles are introducing themselves to our feeders. They really are pretty birds with their iridescent purple hues and white eye ring. But soon they will be driving people who feed birds a little crazy. With their ravenous appetites and large numbers they can be a bit irritating as they crowd out other birds. While we, at The Rock Pile, enjoy the bump these uninvited guests provide to our bird feed sales, we’d rather you truly enjoy your bird feeding experience.

You do have some options in dealing with grackles. One is to feed safflower. You usually have to slowly introduce your feeder birds to safflower. Sometimes, when you have been feeding black oil sunflower all winter and then make the sudden switch to safflower, the usual feeder crowd quits coming. It would be like going to your favorite eatery only to find they had completely changed the menu. You may not dislike the new food, you were just expecting something else. Switching cold turkey could take a few weeks to get regular bird activity back to “normal”. It works best if you can gradually increase the safflower in your mix so the birds get used to the change. Do not be disappointed if the grackles toss the seed out of the feeder looking for something they may like. In time, they will give up and move on to other feeding areas.

The advantage to feeding safflower is Grackles, Sparrows, Starlings and many other birds cannot work the hard outer shell, while Cardinals, Chickadees, Titmice, Nuthatches and Grosbeaks also enjoy it. Also, squirrels and other mammals do not like the bitter taste of safflower.

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Organic Gardening

So you’ve decided you want to go with an all organic garden this year. We have a great line from Dr. Earth, an organization founded in California 20 years ago, with the goal to contribute to the health of our environment and mankind. Their brand contains no synthetic materials and is 100% organic and can boost the health and well-being of your garden. The base of all gardens is the soil that you use for it. Dr. Earth has their own “Mother Land” blend of planting mix that works wonderfully for vegetables, flowers, trees, shrubs, and many other plants. This planting mix is very unique and has characteristics that set it apart from other soils. The first thing that it has to help your plants is its probiotics. Without making this too complicated you can think about it the same way that probiotics work for us; they help us with our digestive system and our immune health, and they do the same for your plants. The planting mix also includes a blend of Aloe Vera and Yucca extract. The Aloe Vera does what it does when we use it for ourselves by helping with moisture of the soil. It helps to hold the moisture and distribute the healthy microbes to increase the plant growth.

Once you have your base of planting mix you are ready to start planting. Now you may ask: What do I do when planting my trees, shrubs, vegetable, and other flowers? Dr. Earth has the answer for that too. When you go to plant you will want to use the Dr. Earth Starter Fertilizer to help with the initial growth. This fertilizer is a “quick release” fertilizer; this means that you will see quick results and notice how it starts to grow. Although it is a quick release but it does not peter out quickly and stop working. It continues to feed your plant for several months.

After you have started your plants you will also want to check out our line of more specific fertilizers. We have a few different types of specific fertilizers for your plants. We have a Bulb Food; Rose and Flower Fertilizer; Tomato, Vegetable and Herb; Fruit Tree Fertilizer; and an All Purpose Fertilizer. You will want to apply this about a week after planting. Remove some of the soil that is around the base of the plant, apply the fertilizer and work the soil back in and water. This will activate the fertilizer and help the growth. With high-nitrogen synthetic fertilizers you may be afraid of burning the roots. With Dr. Earth you have no worries; these are all organic fertilizers they will not burn any of your roots.

To determine which Dr. Earth bag is best suited for your garden you can read the yellow stripe at the bottom of the bag. If you cannot find what you are growing don’t be worried; the All Purpose Fertilizer will work for well for almost everything (make sure to check with an employee for any questions about any specific plants we are more than happy to help). Don’t forget to pick up your free copy of the Ohio Gardener for more information on your organic garden.

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Growing Green with Greenview and Bayer Advanced “Better Science Better Results”

Buy a 4 Bag Greenview Green Smart Fertilizer Lawn Care Program Get an instant $20 coupon Coupons Good only on any Green View or Bayer Family of Products

PLUS!!!

Save up to another $6.00* when you buy any 2 Bayer Advanced Products

-and-

Save $5.00* on Grub Control!

 *mail-in rebates

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Saturday, March 16th 1pm

An awesome selection of tea with a lovely hostess!

The Rock Pile is having a Tea Party hosted by Kim Plzak, tea enthusiast and wonderful person. We’re terribly excited about the upcoming opening of our new cafe, where we will serve excellent tea and we just can’t wait to show it off to everyone.

On Saturday, March 16th Kim will walk us all through the simple, yet important steps of making a great cup of tea and explain a bit about the different types of tea and why you’ll love drinking real tea!

About Bec’s Teas

“Our business is to provide the freshest and best tasting tea in thoughtful and unique packages. We start with loose leaf that is bought from very reputable and conscientious suppliers. Our teas, tisanes, yerbe mate, and rooibos are then hand packed and hand wrapped.”

Grass Seed Seminar!

Ask the expert! Saturay, March 16th 10am

Are you stuck on where to start to get to a great lawn? You’re not alone, but we can help! Join us Saturday, March 16th at 10am to learn all you wanted to know about grass seed!

The post Tea Party & Grass Seed Seminar Saturday! appeared first on The Rock Pile Garden Center Landscape Mateterials, Firewood, Mulch, Topsoil.

Turkey Vultures are large birds, with a wingspan of 63- 72 inches and weighing in at 1.5-5 pounds. The females are slightly larger than the males, but otherwise the sexes look alike. Both have the tell-tale featherless red head, dark body feathers, gray underside wing-tip feathers, and a vicious-looking hooked pale beak. Vultures have no septum separating their nostrils, so it’s possible to look in to one nostril and see straight through the beak. Generally considered one of the least charismatic avians, turkey vultures are actually very gentle and exceedingly non-aggressive. (Potentially this results from having few natural predators and not having to hunt and kill to eat.) In the air, you can spot a vulture by its flight pattern. Their upswept wings are held in a V-shape as they glide on thermal air currents. (This is unlike eagles and hawks, which tend to soar on flat wings, or crows, which flap their wings frequently.) Contrary to popular belief, circling vultures do not necessarily indicate the presence of a dead animal.  Circling vultures may be gaining altitude for long flights, searching for food, or playing.  On or near the ground, you’ll often see vultures adopting the “horaltic pose” with wings spread wide, looking quite fierce. Research into this behavior suggests that vultures may be absorbing sunlight to return to full temperature after dropping a few energy-saving degrees overnight. Another theory suggests they are airing out their wings. Since vultures can’t sweat, they urinate on their legs when they need to cool off. Additionally, this washes any carrion-carried bacteria off their legs and feet. Turkey vultures also lack the vocal capability of other birds. They hiss when threatened and grunt when they’re courting, or when they’re immature and hungry. Turkey vultures get the bulk of their calories from carrion, using their superior sense of smell to detect the gases produced by the beginning stages of decay. Adaptively speaking, their bald head helps keep vultures clean while sticking their head inside carcasses. They feed their young (2 per year) by regurgitation. While the general belief that vultures “projectile vomit” is mistaken, they do also vomit as a stress response. One theory holds that their unreliable food source forces them to gorge, often to the point of rendering flight impossible. The ability to throw up a token amount not only renders them able to fly away but also frequently distracts the predator, which goes after the meat instead of the vulture. All this clean living puts a vulture’s estimated maximum lifespan at about 21 years, with the oldest on record being a ripe 37 years old!

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Squirrel Buster Peanut +, Squirrel Buster Mini, Squirrel Buster Plus

Come in to Win Free Feeder Draw FAQ’s

WHAT CAN I WIN?

One of 120 Squirrel Buster Mini’s, 18 Squirrel Buster Peanut+ or 12 Squirrel Buster Plus.

WHEN DOES THE FREE FEEDER DRAW BEGIN?

You can visit The Rock Pile and receive their unique store code starting Monday February 11th

The first draw will be on Tuesday February 19th.

WHEN DOES THE FREE FEEDER DRAW END?

The final draw for 10 Squirrel Buster Plus will be held on Saturday March 30th.

HOW DO I ENTER THE DRAW?

By visiting The Rock Pile and getting a unique store code that we provide you and then enter the code via the Squirrel Buster website, phone or our Squirrel Buster Facebook page.

DO I HAVE TO BUY ANYTHING?

No.

HOW OFTEN ARE THE DRAWS?

3 Squirrel Buster Mini’s are drawn each day starting Tuesday February 19th

3 Squirrel Buster Peanut+ are drawn each Saturday starting February 23rd

12 Squirrel Buster Plus will be drawn on Saturday March 30th

HOW WILL I KNOW IF I HAVE WON?

The Rock Pile will contact you using the contact information you provided when you entered via Squirrel Buster website, their Facebook page or the phone.

HOW WILL THE WINNER GET THEIR FREE FEEDER?

The Rock Pile will contact you when we’ve received your winning feeder and you can pick it up at your convenience.

WHAT INFORMATION DO I HAVE TO PROVIDE TO ENTER THE DRAW?

All you need is a first and last name, an e-mail address (if they have one) and a phone number. Basically we just need to make sure we can get hold of you if you win.

WHAT WILL YOU OR SQUIRREL BUSTER DO WITH MY INFORMATION?

Squirrel Buster, nor The Rock Pile will share your information, nor solicit them.

DO I NEED TO ENTER MORE THAN ONCE?

No. Once you have entered The Rock Pile’s unique store code and contact information, you qualify for all the draws. So the sooner you enter the more chances you have to win!

The post Come in to Win 1 of 150 Squirrel Buster Feeders! appeared first on The Rock Pile Garden Center Landscape Mateterials, Firewood, Mulch, Topsoil.