You don’t need “no mow” to help pollinators
Now that “No Mow May” is half over, I want to support Susan in her recent critique of the “no mow” movement. I totally agree with her that if you’re [...]
Elizabeth Licata
An ode to mulch
It was serendipitous. For a few weeks in mid-spring, my garden is the tidiest it has ever looked, thanks to an application of mulch/compost that gets put down at the [...]
My plan for lush tropical impact
Years ago, I started dragging alocasia and musa in and out of the garden every late spring and fall, but those 3-4 plants have always been incidental music in the [...]
There’s a gathering of gardeners in Madison and you’re invited
Here I am with another call-to-action post. This time, it’s for the Garden Bloggers Fling, held this year in Madison, Wisconsin, June 23–26. (Check out the link; there's plenty of [...]
A free garden festival with talks from experts in every area? Sign me up!
Be quick about it if you want access to Great Grow Along, which starts tomorrow, March 11, with a welcome “happy hour” featuring Marcus Bridgewater (Garden Marcus). Then, the ambitious [...]
Houseplants are just fine—they don’t need to clean the air
So just stop with the claims. I thought this—well, let’s call it an exaggeration rather than a myth—had died down, but no. It cropped up in a recent enewsletter from [...]
Gardeners make terrariums; plants laugh
Then (left) and now The wonderful terrarium I had planted by a local shop last year is still wonderful; it’s just different. The large fishbowl had been the [...]
I don’t hate Valentine’s Day, but I have a problem with Valentine’s Day roses
A day devoted to spoiling people you love is okay with me, regardless of its Hallmark stigma and general aura of cliché. Just like the extra information at the public [...]
In defense of palms
Recently, Ranter Allen Bush drew our attention to an NPR segment on the problem with palm trees in Florida. In Miami Beach, they make up almost 60% of the tree [...]
More gardening-adjacent occupations
Neither of these are really hobbies, in my view. One is something almost everyone does on a regular basis and the other is used routinely by professional growers and others [...]
Closing the gap
Last week someone commented that I—well, the whole site—was crotchety and out of date. I didn’t really mind; we do voice strong opinions and when people don’t agree they can [...]
Let there be light
Thank you, cannabis growers and houseplant collectors. I’m going to assume that it must be in part due to the increasing popularity—well, explosion— of this type of gardening that we [...]