Get all the latest insight into the world of plants, from experts.
Last week we starting this topic off with some basic principles of water and plants, and some tips on watering in your garden. If you stumbled on this blog without seeing that one,…
Some of the most common gardening questions revolve around watering. We might think nothing could be easier that pouring some water on your plants, but it doesn’t work out that way. In the…
Growing edible plants in your flower garden is a hot trend right now, and everyone is planting everything from zucchini to potatoes in their beds. We have been doing this for years with…
When they come into our gardens, some plants stay pretty much the same as they are in the wild, but others are changed dramatically by keen growers, who see some potential and go…
If you have ever seen a cat lost in the ecstasy of rolling around in a plant of catmint, you will know just how attractive these plants are to them. You might then…
So you want to grow some lavender, but when you Google for some more information you start seeing this word ‘Lavandin’. Ah, you think, maybe it’s the French name for it? Hm, nice…
The prairies are deeply embedded in the American psyche, even for people who live a thousand miles from them. Accounts of settlement and Native American hardship can complicate things, but one thing remains…
The old-fashioned orange daylily, with its tall stems and narrow orange trumpets, has been grown in gardens for many, many, years. It is often seen in old, neglected ones, or growing along roadsides,…
When you first start gardening, one of the most difficult things is to keep your garden interesting all year round. For most of us that means blooms, although of course fruits, fall color…
Perennial plants add an extra dimension of beauty to any garden, and ones that are pest-free, long-blooming and low-maintenance are the best ones of all. Add in weeks and weeks of summer blooming,…
There is nothing new or unique about botanists and ordinary folk having different names for plants. If you look at the plants gardeners call ‘cypress’ you find a whole host of very different…
If you want to know the secret to creating an attractive garden, there is a one-word answer – ‘structure’. I don’t mean pergolas and gazebos, but structure from shrubs and small tree. A…
Who doesn’t love peaches? Melt-in-the-mouth, buttery, sweet and fragrant – nothing beats that bite into a ripe peach, and no ripe peach tastes like one you grew yourself and just picked, still warm…
Plant breeding is one of the few areas where amateur, hobby gardeners have made at least as much of a contribution to the plants we grow as professionals – and sometimes even more….
When you start growing plants – indoors or outdoors – it doesn’t take long before you see a few creepy-crawlies on them. That isn’t reason to panic, because most insects on plants are…
Everyone loves blueberries – they are America’s #2 berry (after strawberries) – and we just love them in muffins and pancakes, in pies and smoothies, scattered over cereal or just popped straight into…
A couple of weeks back we started this two-parter on choosing plants that will grow well for you if you have alkaline soil. If you are looking for some suitable trees, or are…
It doesn’t take long, once you start gardening, to start thinking about color. Yes, it is very important to arrange your beds using interesting shapes – a blend of vertical, rounded and horizontal…
The Right Plant in the Right Place is a slogan that you will often hear from professional landscape designers and horticulturists. It’s a simple principle, but one often ignored in the rush to…
In today’s global world we can easily make the mistake of thinking that international trade is something new and exciting, that ‘we’ recently discovered. How wrong we would be! The volume may be…
As the year winds down – and what a year it has been – this is the time to bring things to an end, and also to make new beginnings. We have said…
I’m fortunate. I spent years living in zone 3, but today when I look out my window I see golden balls hanging from a green tree in my small yard. No, I haven’t…
Who can forget the fires in California? Nature is telling us something, and we need to listen. If the future turns out as dry as it looks now, for big parts of the…
There are two schools of thought among gardeners about November. One group – perhaps the majority – see it as a time to gaze out on a fading landscape, relishing the special beauty…