Early March is about when I ought to be perking up and getting out in the garden a little. I should be cutting back the dead hosta flower stalks and all the other debris I didn’t get cleared away in fall. I should be chopping ornamental grasses off at a couple of inches to make […]
It’s time to plan for seed starting, whether you have a greenhouse or an indoor light setup. And it looks like this year, once again, I will be starting my own tomatoes instead of buying grafted plants. I have looked on longingly over the last couple of years as the developing technique of grafting has […]
The first time I tramped a trail in a Costa Rican rain forest, while being buzzed by hummingbirds as thick as mosquitoes in Michigan, I looked at a vine clambering over a nearby tree and realized: Hey, that’s a philodendron. It was the same plant with heart-shaped leaves that can be found in greenhouses, fern […]
Winter has raged into Chicago. It was down in the teens a week before Thanksgiving, the kind of weather that freezes the soil like concrete and drives even diehard gardeners like me to the shelter of a greenhouse. I can’t quit gardening yet, though, because I have a problem: Some 300 bulbs I didn’t manage […]
The trees are abandoning their leaves, the perennials are giving up on their leaves and stems and I’m dumping out my pots of annuals. And all the abandoned plant debris from the yard, garden or greenhouse ends up in the compost. I’m amazed every March to find a bounty of compost in bins that started […]
Now is the time I have to steel myself against the autumn gardener’s worst enemy: complacency. We’re having lovely weather at the beginning of October, with clear blue skies, low humidity and days in the upper 70s or low 80s. Though most flowers except the toad lilies, the last anemones, turtlehead and a few unwary […]
Summer’s ending. Tomatoes are still on the vine, but they take longer to ripen now, as the days grow shorter. I’ve pinched off the blossoms so my plants can concentrate on ripening the fruits they already have and not setting new ones. Basil still puts on new leaves but not with the abundance of July […]
I just got back from a week in southwestern Michigan, which is to Chicago what Cape Cod is to Boston. Sandy beaches with freshwater waves to splash in and spectacular sunsets are the main attractions, but they come with all the accessories of beach towns everywhere: ice cream stands, art galleries, antique shops. There are […]
Last year in July, the upper Midwest was in the grip of a historic drought. What a difference a year makes: So far this year, we’ve had about 10 inches more rain than normal. The spring that came with the cool, wet weather was glorious (at least, for those of us whose yards and basements […]
The lush rains this spring have invited every last weed seed in my yard to sprout, right when I’d rather be planting. But this is also the most important time for weeding. At least weeds are easier to pull from moist soil. The key to garden sanity is to win the early battles. It’s essential […]
I’m being forced out of my comfort zone this year. Like many shade gardeners, I’ve been over-dependent on impatiens for color, and I’ve been planting the same arrangement of white, pink, lavender-blue and violet impatiens in a bed at the end of a long walkway in my shady garden for a decade or more. But […]
Ah, what a difference a year makes. Last year, during a freakishly warm spring, flowering trees and shrubs all over the Midwest were in bloom by the end of March. This year, only witch hazels are blooming, all the other trees and shrubs are still dormant. The average temperature in Illinois for March 2012 was […]
