The lawn-care pros who care for so many of our yards have no magic secrets on how to grow a nice lawn. They just know what conditions and measures lawns need to thrive – and when and how to deliver them. Any of us can do the same thing… if we learn […]
The horrors of World War II were still fresh as Japanese botanist Dr. Toichi Itoh focused on an apparent pipe dream that had long eluded plant breeders. Itoh was determined to cross herbaceous peonies with tree peonies to come up with a hybrid that offered the best traits – and none of the […]
If you’re investing the work into growing your own food garden – as so many stuck-at-home people did for the first time last spring – you may as well get the most out of it. As you plant cool-season crops now (onions, broccoli, cabbage, etc.) and summer crops in May (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, […]
Many of you no doubt noticed that new bug in town late last winter – the spotted lanternfly. This rather large (pinky-sized) flying insect with the spotted grayish-tan wings (red underneath) has now made its way from its initial 2014 invading point of Berks County to throughout the Harrisburg area. Lanternfly adults […]
So many plants to pick from… but which ones are the best? One bit of homework to go on is plants that have won awards from various plant-trial and plant-selection programs. Each year, organizations of growers, horticulturists, researchers, and other plant experts bestow awards on top plant performers – some new, some […]
I hope you got your 2021 supply of seeds already. If not, you’d better get busy ASAP because we’re seeing another seed slam in which seed-sellers can’t get seeds in the packets and out the door fast enough to keep up with another huge-demand year. For the second year in a row, […]
It’s hard to imagine Longwood Gardens getting much bigger or better. This magnificent botanical legacy of industrialist Pierre du Pont already graces 1,100 acres of Chester County countryside with elegant formal gardens, fountains that rival Versailles, a meadow garden that alone covers 86 acres, and just about every plant cultivated for garden use. […]
The end of February used to seem like the turning point to me between winter and the gardening season because that’s when the garden shows sprouted. Not that many years ago, we had the Pennsylvania Garden Expo kicking things off at the Farm Show Building the last week of February, followed by York’s […]
I love public gardens. I’ve seen hundreds of them across America as well as Canada, Europe, the Caribbean, and as far away as the other-worldly Kirstenbosch Botanical Garden in Cape Town, South Africa. Lots of you have gone on our Lowee’s and Collette tours to many of them, so I know I’m not […]
Picking superior varieties is especially important in vegetable gardening since there are so many choices with so much variability in performance. No plant is perfect and bullet-proof in all aspects and all places, but it is possible to breed for specific traits. So what we have is a fairly large and ever-changing […]