Expert Advice on Home Improvement TV Host of Emmy®-Nominated Today's Homeowner® and home expert for The Weather Channel

To grow new African violets, use a sterile knife and cut off a healthy leaf as near the base as possible. Dip the stem in rooting hormone then push it through a piece of paper and place the stem in water until it develops roots.

Removing buds (or debudding) is sort of like thinning a fruit tree. You hate to do it because every bud you take off will eventually bloom. However, for the biggest flowers, or in the case of fruit trees the biggest fruits, you should debud or thin out.

Provide a casual but sophisticated look to your groundcover by planting bunches of daffodils or tulips amidst low-growing green foliage, such as pachysandra or ivy. Another option is to outline an existing bed of ground cover or other plantings.

Roses that you purchase at a nursery are grafted onto rootstock. They’re sold that way so that they’ll grow faster and bloom more quickly. To avoid suckers that form from rootstock take your own cutting from year old stems of your favorite roses in autumn.

Roses love banana peels. They rot quickly, releasing minerals roses need such as calcium, sulfur, magnesium, and phosphates. Just cut them up and mix them in the soil at planting time or anytime you want to give your roses a boost. You can also make a banana peel tonic for use after the plants are established.

Transplanting roses is a little trickier than transplanting other plant varieties. Start by thoroughly soaking the rose bush so that you can remove it without disturbing any of the roots.

For an economic alternative to buying plants for the garden, consider raising annuals from seed. While many perennials take lots of time to mature, there are plenty of annuals that will come up quickly and give lots of color through the season.

Ground layering is an easy way to propagate hydrangeas. First, cut a notch in one of the branches of the main plant or scrape a little bark off the underside. Take the same branch, bend it over, and bury it in the ground. Make sure at least one leaf node will be underground.

Deadheading flowers is simply the process of removing faded or dead flower blooms. In many plants such as day lilies, roses and azaleas removing these blooms promotes new flower growth by preventing the plant from putting its energy into the setting of the seed. This energy is then used to produce more flowers.