Growers gave us garden writers a sneak peek at some of the new plants coming out next year at the recent annual Garden Writers Association conference. Five in particular caught my eye… ‘Mighty ‘Mato.’You’re going to hear a lot about grafted tomatoes and probably this brand of them next spring. Grafted […]
I’m just back from the annual Garden Writers Association conference in Indianapolis, where we plant-communicating geeks got a sneak peek at some of the new gardening stuff just hitting the market. Three interesting new products and five cool new plants particularly caught my eye. Let’s do the products this week and the plants in […]
Plants seem to grow beautifully, effortlessly and trouble-free all throughout Longwood Gardens’ 1,077 acres in Chester County. Don’t be fooled. Plenty of behind-the-scenes, basic, down-and-dirty manpower goes into the jaw-dropping show we all see. Longwood staff gave a sneak peak at some of it during my latest trip in this year’s Lowee’s Group Tours garden […]
Here’s one more reason to invest in a plant-filled landscape – catching crooks. That’s what my well-endowed back yard did last week. While we were in Pittsburgh (visiting our son, daughter-in-law and four granddogs), a drunken miscreant tried to break into one of our neighbor’s houses. Another neighbor was walking her dog around 2 a.m. and […]
Building a great garden in a tiny yard is a whole lot different than landscaping a typical quarter-acre or more suburban yard. No place that I’ve seen gives a better example of how to do it small than Buffalo, N.Y. I’m just back from my second visit to the annual Garden Walk […]
Yeah, that lush, green carpet of a lawn might look pretty good. But when the temperatures park themselves in the 90s day after day and rain shuts off, it’s time to back off of that expectation for awhile. Grass is smart enough to go dormant in a heat wave. By shutting […]
First, too much. Now, not enough. Water is a huge factor in the garden. It’s the magic potion that makes plants grow. Overdo it, though, as was the case this spring, and you’ve got one of the fastest ways to kill a plant. Underdo it, as has been the case lately, […]
We can always use more reasons to plant more plants. I ran into one of the best yet in a talk last Friday by Dr. Michael Raupp at the annual Woody Plant Conference at Scott Arboretum. He says that adding more plants is good for bug control in the yard. Raupp, […]
We’re in the heart of Japanese-beetle season, and I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen that bad of an infestation so far. Some years this imported bug with the shiny coppery body swarms to Biblical proportions and shreds plants throughout the landscape. They’ll feast on 300 varieties – especially roses, grapes, […]
You’re not imagining things if it seems like your plants are more diseased than usual this year. All of that spring rain, followed by a couple of warm and humid spells, is the perfect storm for all kinds of leaf disease. I’m seeing a ton of mildew (whitish powdery look) on such […]