Tonight we're expecting our first frost at Poison Ivy Acres, so we've spent the past two days picking veggies and flowers, and pulling potted plants inside. I put many of my houseplants out for the summer, so many of these come back indoors, along with tender annuals,...

Most of the time "autumn color" means brilliantly colored trees. Red maples, yellow birches and rust-colored oaks. But the hues of autumn are striking at all levels and in all areas of the landscape. At this time of year we're surrounded with a richness of colors and...

It's interesting how some plants are everywhere and others are hard to find in garden centers. The sad truth is that some very worthy plants just don't make it into the market place. Our native Euonymus americanus, also called Hearts-a-Bustin, is just such a plant. I...

No, you haven't missed the previous 456 posts about planting annuals. The title is a bit whimsical but not untrue...I could undoubtedly make a listing of reasons to plant annuals that would have at least 500 items on it. In additition to listing individual plants from...

Most of the time pots and window boxes don't need to be completely replanted for the fall...they only need tweaking. Each year is different, and the plants that thrived one summer might not have done as well the following season. And when you're putting several plants...

I am tempted to call this post "Dancing With Imperfection." That's what gardeners do, after all. One of the most frequent questions I get, on the Garden Compass App and in other venues, goes something like this: "What's wrong with my summer squash?" or "Why is my...

I recently posted a photo of my weeded patio on Facebook, and mentioned that I'd just spent a few hours working to clear it. This prompted many comments about how I should use this weed killer or that herbicide. Although all of the suggestions were organic products,...

In the spring we had a load of firewood delivered. We were expecting limbs of an oak tree that were between six and eighteen inches in diameter, and my husband was willing to cut, split and stack these for burning this winter. We weren't home when the load was...

I've been going through my photo library for the past few weeks choosing the images that are included in my new book, The Cocktail Hour Garden. As I've scrolled through the files that include ten years of digital images (I made the switch from slides in 2005) I came...

In the middle of summer is no time to ignore the garden. No matter what type of gardens you have, it's important to have a controling hand as the season progresses. Of course there are weeds. But there are also self-seeded annuals, biennials, perennials and shrubs...