Gardening

When was the last time you took a good look at your landscaping? If it’s been a few years, you might be wondering how well your landscaping has aged. Here …

Who doesn’t love hydrangeas? With their giant mopheads of icy blue, soft mauve or creamy white flowers, it’s no wonder they’re one of the most popular flowering shrubs out there. …

Growing lavender means happy buzzing bees and patches of fragrant blossoms in dusky purple. Not to mention glasses of lavender lemonade. But if your lavender is looking lush and leafy …

Your tomatoes are doing great! They’re filling out and growing sturdy and strong, and you’ve got blossom clusters popping up. It won’t be long until you’re enjoying fresh tomatoes. But …

RoundUp is a bad word in our house. Thankfully, this sentiment is spreading. More people are becoming aware of the dangers of using long-lasting chemicals, such as glyphosate, that have …

Okay, I admit that headline is a bit much, but it’s true. Buzzing your tomatoes at noon will lead to a larger harvest of fruit. You may have even heard …

Irises are often the first flower to kick off the summer perennial season. So it can be incredibly frustrating when that tall crop of sword-shaped leaves ends up being just …

Indeterminate tomatoes are like that friend who runs marathons. They just keep going. Once they finish one marathon, they’re already training for the other. From the time you pick that …

Peonies always make me think of weddings. They’re such a romantic flower, so frilly and beautiful in shades of creamy white, soft pink or magenta. What bride wouldn’t want a …

June is a bit like coming up to the top of the first drop of a roller coaster ride. It’s that slow and steady rise above the daffodils and crocus, …

Last weekend, my friend and I were at Home Depot picking up bags of Quikrete. He was helping me reinstall my clothesline after a tornado went through my yard in …

I could spend hours at my local garden store. I find it infinitely relaxing to look at what plants they have in store and imagine the possibilities, the layouts, the …

Determinate tomatoes are the scrappy, short guys of the tomato world. These compact, bushy varieties have been bred to grow to a certain height, set all their fruit within a …

There comes a moment every spring when my garden threatens to run away from me. One minute, everything is barely waking up, and then I blink, and I’ve got a …

There’s nothing quite like the taste of the first strawberry picked straight from the vine. Reaching under those scratchy leaves to pick a ruby-red berry, warmed by the sun. With …

One of my plant-buying pet peeves is when plants come with labels that do more harm than good. Most of the time, it’s just confusing or incomplete information. (Such as …

If you’re tired of flavorless mesclun mixes that spoil the day after you bring them home from the store, you’ll want to keep reading. Even if, like me, you’re a …

I love gardening. But I like sitting on the porch admiring my garden a whole heck of a lot more, especially when the mercury starts to climb. As summer cranks …

If asked to sum up zucchini in one word, I would say “prolific.” It seems as though once it takes off, it doesn’t stop until that first frost at the …

I have two indoor cats whose favorite TV show is watching the bird feeders right outside the dining room window. I don’t know who enjoys watching the birds more, me …

Creating new garden beds doesn’t require you to dig up the turf and turn over the soil. That is, most certainly, the hardest way to do it. Cutting out the …

I’ve been eating mini cucumbers from the grocery store all winter long. But I ate my very first homegrown cucumber of the season the other day, and it stopped me …

We humans have been growing food for a hot minute. Roughly 10,000 – 12,000 years, depending on who you ask, but who’s counting? We’ve gotten pretty good at it, too. …

Don’t get me wrong, part of the appeal of Russian sage is the gorgeous color of the stems and leaves. That silvery green looks as though it belongs to another …