The designers of Penn State Arboretum’s new Pollinator and Bird Garden leaned heavily on research to determine the features, layout, and plant selection of this three-acre garden, which opened last month just down Park Avenue from Beaver Stadium. Spots of it are very colorful already. But what struck me during my opening-day […]
Bill and Jane Allis just built a home garden in Perry County that they’ve decided to share with everybody. It’s called The Bower, and it’s a new combination native-plant sanctuary and sculpture park that covers 36 acres in the Carroll Twp. countryside not far from Shermans Dale. Six of those acres is […]
The Pennsylvania Horticultural Society didn’t want to move its world’s-biggest indoor flower show outside or change the timing from end of winter to late spring. If COVID wouldn’t have come along, I’m sure the 2021 Philadelphia Flower Show would have taken place inside the Pennsylvania Convention Center in early March, just as it […]
My past two posts looked at Dr. Allan Armitage’s “solution gardening” theory on how people buy plants – by the situation they address, not their type. The posts included 14 situations with my Pennsylvania-geared recommendations on plants that make good sense in those situations. Today finishes the three-part series with good plants […]
Dr. Allan Armitage’s plant-buying theory is that most people don’t show up at the garden center looking for certain plants. They’re there looking to carry out a gardening project or to solve a yard problem. My post last week looked at this idea and Armitage’s intriguing suggestion that maybe plant-sellers should start […]
When people head to the garden center to buy plants, most of the time they’re not there looking for a certain plant. They’re generally looking to carry out a goal or solve a problem. A disconnect happens when would-be plant-buyers find that the gazillion plants available aren’t grouped by goals or problems […]
If you live in an urban setting or other more-populated/less-tree’d area, you may be wondering what all the hubbub is over Brood X cicadas, that bug that emerges en masse only once every 17 years. It’s entirely possible you may not see (or hear) a one. However, if you’re in an area […]
Pennsylvania keeps getting hotter and hotter in summer, with 90-degree days more common than ever. Climate forecasters say this is no fluke, that the Harrisburg area is on the road to a climate more akin to Arkansas than past norms. If that’s the case, it makes sense when picking our annual flowers […]
Most people know tulips and daffodils. So it’s no wonder those two spring bulbs show up in a lot of yards, even though tulips are leading snack targets of deer, rabbits, and rodents and tend to go downhill after a stirring debut performance or two. A fair number of people also know and […]
Our climate isn’t like it was just a generation ago, and our plants are showing it – especially trees. Many of Pennsylvania’s recent tree demises – from diseases on spruce and firs to branch diebacks on Japanese maples to “mysterious” deaths of sugar maples – are directly or indirectly related to climate changes. […]