Azaleas, once scorned, are welcome again in my garden
These chairs I painted last fall just HAPPEN to match the azaleas behind them. Believe me, I didn't even consider the azaleas when I chose the paint color. [...]
Susan Harris
Susan’s a garden writer, teacher and activist in the Washington, D.C. area. Co-founder of GardenRant, she also wrote for national gardening magazines and independent garden centers before retiring in 2014. Now she has time for these projects:
- Founding the pro-science educational nonprofit Good Gardening Videos that finds and promotes the best videos on YouTube for teaching people to garden.
- Creating DC Gardens, the nonprofit campaign to promote the public gardens of the Washington, D.C. area, and gardening by locals.
- Creating and editing the nonprofit website Greenbelt Online to serve her adopted hometown of Greenbelt, Maryland (a “New Deal Utopia” founded in 1937).
Susan rants about anything that misinforms or discourages gardeners – from old-school quacks to mistaken do-gooders to local laws that mandate conformity.
Contact Susan via email or by leaving a comment on one of her articles.
Lyme Disease Update for Gardeners
Tick-repelling clothing I lamented over in a post from 2020. Last summer I asked if gardeners were remembering to worry about Lyme Disease while we're all freaking out [...]
In White House Garden News, it’s Dandeliongate!
I'm blaming Twitter. My feed of pundits and reporters pointed me to this clip on Newsmax, a channel I've never dared look at. It shows a host mocking Joe Biden [...]
Katie Couric and Drew Barrymore make money off gardening products. As gardening experts do.
Drew Barrymore Sells Lawn Care Suddenly my social media feeds are showing me videos of Drew Barrymore ecstatically hugging bags of grass seed and telling us to Lawn Differently [...]
Huge Rift at American Hort Society over Sale of River Farm
I reported here last October that the American Horticultural Society had decided to sell its historic River Farm headquarters, and mentioned some blowback from the community. Well! Since then the [...]
Wow’d by Orange Tulips in the Smithsonian’s Ripley Garden
This week I cycled around downtown Washington and stopped to see my favorite garden there - the Smithsonian's Ripley Garden, created and maintained by Janet Draper. (Janet's profiled and mentioned [...]
Weeding and mulching are satisfying, but we need ground covers to eliminate those chores
The Goal is Super-Low-Maintenance Here's a 21 by 11-foot island bed around the entrance sign to my co-op community. It's very prominent and as of yesterday morning, half-full of weeds.And [...]
Praising and *Defending* the ‘Ogon’ Spirea
I've grown several spirea shrubs over the years but it wasn't until I found the 'Ogon' variety that I became thoroughly smitten, recommending it to the dozens of people who've [...]
White House Grounds, with Magnolias and Dogs
Thanks to the official White House Facebook page, we're seeing glimpses of spring flowers on the grounds, with these magnolia shots posted March 21 and today. Nice! Please post more! [...]
The other shot in the arm we all need – spring color!
Yes, it's spring but I'm still waiting for the big emotional lift I get from BLOOMS, the great masses of them that thrill me every spring and I know will [...]
Cornell on Lawn Care: Do Less!
Because it's early spring and ads telling us to "green up" our lawns are starting to proliferate, it's time for some expert lawn-care advice from people who give a damn [...]
U.S. Botanic Garden now Part of the U.S. Capitol Fortress
This is as close as I could get to the U.S. Botanic Garden today, with all of it now fenced in and heavily guarded. You can barely see the white [...]