I’m always happy to get amaryllis bulbs as Christmas gifts. In January and February, when there’s not much a Midwesterner can do in the way of gardening, it’s a joy to have something to water. It’s even more joyful to see the first green sprouts. Paperwhite narcissus bulbs are another popular gift. So are bulb […]
This time of year is all about anticipation. As we shop and wrap, we’re building up to a single magic moment when all will be revealed. We’re re-creating the delightful agony we remember from childhood, when we waited day after day for that special moment when we could find out if our presents lived up […]
The other day I finally got to the bottom of something that had nagged at me for a long time: the compost bin. I hadn’t gotten around to actually harvesting finished compost from that bin for months. That’s an absurd waste in at least two ways: If it’s still in the bin, the compost isn’t […]
A Michigan cottage I often visited as a child had an old deer head over the door known as George. He’d been there for decades and his antlers were used as a hat rack. But he had an ancient, moth-eaten dignity about him, and I always think of George when I see a grand staghorn […]
What would September be without dahlias? Oh, there would still be flowers in the garden—anemones, turtlehead, asters, goldenrod, even some hostas—but none of them packs a punch of color like dahlias. Red, purple, white, pink, yellow, orange, every color but blue can be found in dahlias. They stand on stiff, hollow stems that can be […]
Gardeners have a different perspective on the weather than most people. We are cheered by July downpours and winter storms that spread insulating snow. We love cool, wet springs that lengthen bloom time, while other people are anxiously waiting for the year’s first shorts-and-T-shirt day. Stretches of hot summer days may delight children and beachgoers, […]
People rejoice in the summer sun and plants respond with lush growth. But there can be too much of a good thing. I’ve recently been reminded of that. My houseplants spend the summer every summer in the fresh air and sweet breezes of my yard, in the shade of buildings and trees. This year, I […]
Spring has finally sprung and the plants are springing out of the soil. Some will spring farther than others, so this is the time when I’m thinking about tying and support. Inside the conservatory, climbing plants are relatively easy to deal with. They’re in pots, so you can stick a little trellis right in the […]
The lovely thing about sowing annual flowers from seed is that there’s such as wide choice of colors and varieties. The sad thing is that in my Chicago climate, seeds sowed after the last average frost date, while the soil is still cool, will take weeks to sprout and get going. There isn’t enough time […]
What in the world is as weird and wonderful as carnivorous plants? At first, it seems so odd and wrong that some plants can eat animals. Yet seems to me that bug eating is a remarkable and inspiring adaptation to the tough circumstances in which these species eke out a living. The weirdness is what […]
One of the biggest trends in indoor gardening nowadays is hydroponics—growing plants indoors, usually under lights, with their roots in water that is enriched with fertilizer. This technique (fine-tuned in the last decades of the 20th century for the discreet production of marijuana) is now developing into a small but significant sector of agriculture. If […]
I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my gardening life. One of the biggest isn’t about plants; it’s about pots. I brood on this mistake every year about this time, as I nurse sore muscles from hauling 35 or 40 terra-cotta pots down the basement stairs. Years ago, I decided I liked the look of terra-cotta […]
