Back when so many homes had exposed concrete-block walls, the first order of landscaping business was to plant evergreens the whole way around the foundation. The dark-green, hard-to-kill, soft-needled yew bush usually got the assignment. Box- and ball-shaped yews are so common around mid- to late-20th-century Pennsylvania houses that it seems as […]
New plants often look like they’re having a near-death experience almost as soon as we put them in the ground. They’ll wilt, yellow, turn brown around the leaf edges, and maybe even drop leaves and needles, scaring us into thinking we’ve killed the poor things right off the bat. And that sometimes […]
I’ve planted 11 trees at my new place in the last year and a half, and in every case, I bought small ones. Small as in ones in the four- to six-foot-tall range as opposed to the bigger ones that many nurseries also offer. I mention this because it’s a question I […]
For better or worse (mostly for worse), it’s time to rethink how we garden in our new and changing climate conditions. This summer served up a model for what climate researchers and horticulturists say we should get used to in the coming years – warmer winters, earlier springs, hotter/drier summers, increasingly erratic changes […]
This is a classic tale of a good guy turned bad… except the star is a tree instead of a movie villain. It’s about the ornamental or “callery” pear, that hard-to-kill spring beauty that blooms white in yards, parking lots, and along streets all over Pennsylvania and beyond. When it came to […]
One question I get a lot is about plants that seem to be turning into something else (i.e. some other version of plant, not a lizard or monster or something). A common one is the popular landscape evergreen dwarf Alberta spruce, that dense little pyramidal upright that flanks so many front doors. […]
A lot of lawns went brown during the weeks-long hot, dry spell in July. That’s normal and is a lawn’s way of “hiding out” in survival mode until conditions improve. A good rain or two typically brings a lawn out of summer dormancy, and it goes on to green up and start […]
So here’s what I’ve learned after a year and a half of trying to garden up close and personal with deer. 1.) Deer are picky. That’s right. You might’ve heard (and seen) that deer will eat just about anything when they’re hungry enough. And that’s right, too. However, deer have definite preferences […]
We’ve reached that point in the growing season where much of our gardening time is spent dealing with “issues” that have cropped up with plants. By now, just about all bugs and diseases have made their annual appearances, not to mention troubles related to animals, weather, and such. Figuring out what’s gone […]
Forget AccuWeather, the National Weather Service, and even the Farmer’s Almanac. If you’re a gardener and you really want to figure out what weather’s on the way, the most accurate system is one I’ve figured out… one I call the “WOOPS model of weather forecasting.” I’ve been using it for years, and […]