Though I love my vegetable garden, as a horticulturist my first “plant love” was perennials. I spent ten years in my early career tending 35 different perennial gardens in and around the city of Pittsburgh. That’s where I developed a great appreciation for these wonderful plants. Seeing them return to those gardens year after year, bigger and better than the season before, was a great confidence booster, especially for a young gardener. Perennials are among the most reliable and low-maintenance plants, and if you mix and match the right selections, you’ll have a beautiful show of blooms all season long. Among my most favorite perennials is the Shasta daisy, a hardy, rabbit- and deer-resistant perennial with a long bloom time and very few pest troubles.
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The best tomatoes for containers and 7 strategies for growing them in pots
Tomatoes are the most popular vegetable grown in gardens, but even small or no-space gardeners can enjoy a harvest of homegrown tomatoes when they plant in containers. Tomatoes are a vegetable that thrives when grown in pots and you can help ensure success when you pick the best varieties for containers and pair them with my seven strategies for growing a bumper crop of delicious tomatoes in pots.
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Grub worm control: Organic solutions to safely get rid of lawn grubs
Though most of the insects you find in your garden won’t cause harm to your plants, there are certainly some that do, especially if their population grows out of control. For homeowners who have lawns, the grub worm is one such pest. Also commonly called grubs, lawn grubs, white grubs, or turf grubs, these critters feed on the roots of lawn grass and can cause significant damage if there are a lot of them infesting a lawn. Before learning how to control grub worms, it’s important to know how to properly identify them and determine how many is too many for your lawn to handle.
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Fertilizer numbers: What they mean and how to use them to grow better
Garden centers and nurseries are beautiful places, but they can also be very confusing, especially for new gardeners. Shelves filled with fertilizer choices are enough to make your head spin. What’s in all of those bags and bottles of fertilizer anyway? What do the fertilizer numbers on the package mean? And does it really matter which one you choose for your garden? Let’s take a close look at plant fertilizer numbers and how they can help you grow your best garden ever.
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The Fish Pepper: How to grow this fascinating heirloom vegetable
The first time I ate a fish pepper, I fell in love. Fish peppers are medium-hot with a fiery bite that falls somewhere between a jalapeño and a cayenne. They’re very easy to grow in gardens and containers and the plants are not only productive, but also ornamental with pretty variegated leaves and fruits.
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The best early spring flowering shrubs for your garden
Light up the spring garden with easy-to-grow early spring flowering shrubs like azaleas, lilacs, forsythia, and fothergilla. These spring stunners provide eye-catching flowers for you as well as pollen and nectar for the early bees and beneficial insects. While certain spring shrubs can grow quite large, many of newer cultivars are extremely compact, making them perfect for small space gardens or tucking between perennials.
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