Are you one of those gardeners who already has buzzed everything to the ground and packed away the trowels for the season? Not so fast. As the sage philosopher Yogi Berra once pointed out, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” And in the garden, it ain’t over until it’s really cold […]
I planted a small meadow on a bank in my back yard for two main reasons: 1.) I was looking for a low-care, low-cost way to cover a tough site that’s not easy to work. 2.) I liked the idea of adding diversity to encourage pollinators and beneficial insects. That’s why I […]
I’m generally a believer in following what research reveals, especially if it’s solid research and backed up by multiple sources. But the one bit of gardening advice that I still just can’t buy is the one about not improving the soil before planting. This fairly widespread guidance comes from findings that plant […]
It occurred to me one day while inspecting the butt hairs of a lawn grub that gardeners are not normal people. We gardeners tend to pay attention to things that “regular” people don’t, we don’t notice odors that regular people do, and we often engage in activities that would curl the skin of […]
The only thing certain about gardening is that things change. Don’t ever think you’ve got gardening figured out because this is a moving target if ever there was one. The environment around us changes. New bugs show up. New plants come and others go. The weather changes – sometimes […]
Had enough of yanking weeds this season? No matter how good or bad a growing season turns out, weeds always seem to thrive. But that’s one of the traits that makes weeds such survivors – they’re pretty good at rolling with whatever punches nature (and gardeners) throw at them. Rather than […]
Two reasons explain why non-gardeners are non-gardeners (or ex-gardeners). One is lack of time, the reason behind most every non-something. The other is lack of confidence. Soil rookies either tried and failed, or they didn’t bother in the first place because they were pretty sure they’d fail if they did try. (Homer […]
Since the prolific spotted lanternfly first showed up in America nearly 10 years ago, it’s been causing near panic as it spreads from one area to the next. Some people go crazy when these inch-long flying bugs and their spotted nymphs show up en masse, fearing they’re going to kill the whole landscape […]
You’ve probably heard of the kids book “The Little Engine That Could” in which a never-give-up little locomotive pulls a long train over a tall mountain by believing, “I think I can, I think I can.” It was one of our kids’ favorite bedtime books. It seems I have a plant with […]
Like most gardeners who have moved, I’ve had to deal with starting all over in a new landscape after spending years parenting an old one. My case was probably a bit more extreme than most. My wife and I spent 32 years at our previous home – a third-of-an-acre yard in suburban Cumberland […]