Hershey Gardens opens for the season this coming Saturday (March 31), and it’s a milestone year for our area’s only botanical garden. 2012 marks the 75th year since chocolate icon Milton Hershey decided to build a “nice garden of roses” on the hillside just below Hotel Hershey (and now overlooking Hersheypark). I’m […]
The USDA updated its Hardiness Zone Map for the first time since 1990, and the new data shows most of the country has warmed by about half of a growing zone on average.
I was out inspecting the botanical troops over the weekend, and two things struck me. One is that the landscape is unusually colorful for this time of year. And second is that some of my plants are doing odd things they’re not supposed to be doing in early January. A nice surprise […]
Gardeners are a demanding sort these days. Ask people what kind of plant they’re looking for, and most say they want plants that look great in all four seasons and that don’t get bug or disease problems. We want plants that are colorful, that are different from what’s growing in every McDonald’s […]
Another week, another weather calamity. This time it was a record-setting October snow – one that tore the branches off trees and shrubs that hadn’t even lost their leaves yet. Most of the damage I saw was to the fastest-growing, weakest-limbed species, especially flowering pears, willows, silver maples, elms and poplars. But that snow was […]