I spent an idyllic weekend in far northern Vermont this past Memorial day, one afternoon of which was occupied in helping my friend Christina and her son Julian put in their vegetable garden. As part of the process, we stopped by a local nursery, where I was forced, FORCED, I tell you, to acquire several [...]
Every spring, I marvel at the crowds of people buying flats and flats of expensive annual and vegetable seedlings at nurseries and box stores. For expediency’s sake, that’s fine; but for better economy, and for better gardening, you can save a tremendous amount of money, and grow a much wider variety of plants, if you [...]
I was down in the greenhouse this morning, and noticed as I was watering the Confederate Jasmine that the leaves had shiny, sticky spots on them, normally a sign that scale was present. Sure enough, a flip of the leaves revealed quite an infestation of these sucking insects. Years ago, this would have been a [...]
During my last lecture stop in Denver, I received many questions from the audience about how long seeds could be stored, so I thought I would post a small chart listing the number of years seed can be reasonably kept, if properly held, i.e. if kept in airtight bags in the refrigerator, not left out [...]
My love affair with clivias started long before I ever owned one, a case of transference from my childhood gardening hero, Thalassa Cruso. I’ve written about Thalassa before (and in fact, I’m working with WGBH to get her programs back on the air, more on that later – stay tuned!) but for the moment all [...]