One of the best things about gardening is that it’s such a basic antidote to our complicated, fast-paced digital world. That’s a reason I wasn’t sure I was going to like Nightscape – Longwood Gardens’ 2015 exhibit that brings high-tech, cutting-edge projection lighting and New-Age music to my all-time favorite horticultural haven. But rather than […]
I thought I was familiar with most every vegetable worth growing around here, but York County Master Gardener and edible-grower extraordinaire Dennis Mawhinney stumped me a few weeks ago with the cucamelon. Dennis got ahold of some seed and tried this vining crop, which produces gobs of grape-sized fruits that look exactly like miniature watermelons. […]
I already told you about my Top 10 Small Trees and my Top 10 Shade Trees, so it’s only fair that I weigh in on my Bottom 10 Trees. These aren’t trees that I “hate” or that I’m saying no one should ever plant (at least for most of them). But the following all have […]
The 250-acre New York Botanical Garden is on my top-5 short list of best U.S. public gardens that I’ve ever seen. Wave Hill in the Bronx has great plants, stunning views and cracks my top-dozen public-gardens list. You’ll have a chance to see both places in one day – without fighting New York traffic either […]
Disease in the landscape is a tough issue for gardeners. The good news is that most diseases are plant-specific (i.e. they won’t kill off the whole landscape), and many of them are cosmetic and ignorable.
Heirloom tomatoes are supposed to be even more disease-prone than hybrid ones. Yet Heng Lim grows perfectly healthy heirlooms without spraying. How does he do it?
The New Jersey Grounds for Sculpture near Princeton isn’t that well known of a place. I had never heard of it until a few years ago when some of my garden-traveler friends mentioned it would be a good place to run a bus trip. From the pictures I saw, it looked to be a nice […]
Here’s the last installment of my three-part mini-series on favorite plants… this one on 10 shade trees worth giving a look. Make sure you have the space because all of these grow 30 feet tall and up. If you’re gardening in a smaller space, you might want to check out my earlier post on Top […]
Continuing my mini-series on favorite plants, here’s my current list of top 10 flowering shrubs. For more of my favorites (and not-so-favorites), check out my George’s Favorite Stuff page. 1.) Spirea Mellow Yellow (Spirea japonica ‘Ogon’). Texture, color, multi-season interest, low care, durability… this shrub has it all. Mellow Yellow starts the season by nearly […]
So many good plants and so little space to plant them all… Almost all of us are limited in what we can grow, so it helps to start with the best. That’s pretty subjective, but I have my short list of favorites. For your plant-picking consideration, here are my picks of top 10 perennial flowers […]