When petunias had scent
Sure, I know there isn’t much buy-in for common annuals these days. Now we can add to the historic disdain - from many longtime gardeners, though certainly not all - [...]
Elizabeth Licata
Planned obsolescence attacks in the garden
Being on a garden tour is great for many reasons. One of the benefits I seldom mention is that I often hear interesting gardening industry news from some of the [...]
Getting ready for garden judgment
Over the past couple months, I’ve been more of a garden gawker than usual. In June, I was one of a group of garden communicators touring private gardens in Madison, [...]
Report from Madison: green as far as the eye can see
It took a while for me to realize that almost all the gardens we were visiting in and around Madison, Wisconsin, had one feature in common. It finally sunk in [...]
Lilacs in the darkness
Photo by Yiulia Narmuntseva Flowers can bring consolation sometimes. It depends on the situation. Recently we were sent a number of pictures from an organization that we support: [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]