Gardenig in county Day. Tips & Guides

If you love cartoon characters or want specimens that your kids can relate to easily, then these Spongebob Flowers are a must-have!

From the lone Irish yew tree, first discovered growing in Co Fermanagh in the 18th century, whose countless offspring now flourish in gardens all over the world, to the great Irish gardeners, garden makers, planthunters and plantspeople who have made valuable contributions to the world of horticulture, we have many reasons to be proud of our unique gardening tradition. Here are some suitably horticultural ways to celebrate Ireland’s “40 shades of green”.

Knowing when to plant collard greens is key to their success. They can be grown directly from seeds or the seedlings transplanted into garden beds or containers to get a head start on the harvest. When deciding how and when to plant collard greens, your local climate and the length of your growing season are some of the most important factors to consider. In this article you’ll learn about the importance of timing, when to start collard green seeds indoors, when to direct sow outdoors, when to transplant seedlings, and get tips for growing healthy plants.

We were fortunate to win at Half Moon Bay, California this year. The competition was intense with 80 entries, 10 of which were over 1,000 pounds. The weigh-off is always on Columbus Day. The winner stays until the following weekend to participate in the HMB Pumpkin Festival.

2024 is about to get really romantic—and Anthropologie is here to help. It may feel like Valentine's Day decor is only tasteful for a couple of weeks, but recent design trends show that leaning into heart-themed, dopamine decor is all the rage.

If you were born on the 10th month of the year and always wondered – is there a bloom that has any related significance? Is yes, then you’ll be happy to find out that there are two! Keep reading to know about October Birth Flower Meaning.

Guess what? Prime Day is coming up—again. That’s right, Amazon just announced the Prime Big Deal Days event, taking place on October 10 and 11. So if you missed Prime Day in July, now’s your chance to score some amazing deals on vacuums, gardening tools, air purifiers, and more. And there are so many major deals that you can already shop before the sale even begins. 

The role downunder played in helping track the Apollo 8 mission to the Moon.

World Bee Day seems like a good day to have a bee-related edition of The Hive, my round-up of positive (solarpunk) eco news stories. The UN designated 20 May as World Bee Day in 2017, to raise awareness of the importance of pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development.

ESA’s ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Centre) held their annual open day over the weekend. One of the projects on display was part of the MELiSSA (Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative) project, which is investigating ways to use microbiological cells, chemicals, catalysts, algae, bacteria and plants to process waste and deliver continuous supplies of oxygen, water and food.

Today (May 20th) is Pick Strawberries Day in America. It’s a bit early in the UK – the strawberry season is only just beginning, ramping up to be ready for Wimbledon in June.

Today we celebrate Earth Day for the 46th time since U.S. senator Gaylord Nelson suggested the idea for a national day focusing on the environment. After its first celebration on April 22 1970 in the US, Earth Day has grown into a worldwide environmental movement raising awareness of serious issues such as pollution, global warming, deforestation and the detrimental effect of urbanised societies on the environment.

Bob Dylan knew ‘You don’t need a weatherman. To know which way the wind blows……”

College move-in day can be almost as stressful as it is exciting. It doesn’t matter if it’s your first or your fourth—there are many things to consider and many ways to make your new temporary living place feel like home.

“Laissez les bons temps rouler” is Cajun French for “Let the good times roll.” With the start of Mardi Gras, everyone will begin hearing that phrase quite often. Another favorite Mardi Gras tradition is the King Cake. But what is it, and why do they put plastic babies in there?

I am wild for winter squash, including ‘Jumbo Pink Banana’ (guess which one that is?) and ‘Triamble,’ a blue-skinned three-parted creature of similar endurance to the former. The banana, which can get to 40 pounds or more in a warmer climate, resides in my living room, the gray-blue beauty on my desk. For a year already. Cut flowers, or even a potted orchid? No match. These beauties really last.That’s because they are all in the species of Cucurbita (say: kew-CUR-bit-a) called maxima, the best “keepers” in the squash clan and also some of the finest-grained and thickest-fleshed and to my tongue, tastiest. ‘Blue Hubbard’ is in this species, too, and if you want pies or soup or “pumpkin” bread this winter,

WHEN I REMINDED THEM ABOUT MY SLIDESHOW OF SPRING in all its yellow shades, smart readers over on A Way to Garden’s Facebook page reminded me of Robert Frost’s gleaming line: “Nature’s first green is gold,” he wrote, in “Nothing Gold Can Stay.” See the slideshow of springtime’s favorite color, or click to read the poem first.Slideshow and Etc.Golden Days Spring Slideshow A Way to Garden on Facebook The leaf up top is a golden elm.

Truth be told, I cannot even usually recall its name at those moments, an embarrassing thing when you are hosting garden tours. Nor did I know that it had a “common” name, let along two (the other being pink cow parsnip, apparently).I’d never gotten up close and personal enough with this lovely plant all these years to notice if it’s really apple-scented the way the references all say it is. (I just went out and took a whiff, and I say no. Smells to this nose like parsley, or something else green; no apples here.)What this little umbellifer of about 2 feet tall in bloom does have is good ferny foliage (not unlike its namesake chervil

Easy does it: You don’t need a flat of cherry tomato plants; one or two is plenty for most households. Give the majority of space to paste tomatoes for making sauce, and others for eating fresh in salads and sliced.Hybrids or heirlooms? A mix is better, probably, as hybrids sometimes fare better under duress than heirlooms, which don’t have the benefit of bred-in disease resistance. (That’s‘Juliet,’ a delicious and prolific hybrid small plum, up top, for instance.)At planting-out time, rotate the crop to minimize the chance of soil-borne troubles. A th

If you mark down observations about nature year to year—what blooms when, what the weather is doing at the time, what birds or other animals and insects appear or depart on certain dates—and compare them, then you are at least informally practicing phenology. Phenology is the study of recurring life-cycle stages among plants and animals, and also of their timing and relationships with weather and climate, according to the USA National Phenology Network, which also calls this system of interactions “nature’s calendar.”It’s not the actual dates on a calendar, of course—not things like “plant peas at St. Patrick’s Day,” or “sow tomatoes indoors at tax time” that I use as approximate guidelines when writing my monthly chores lists—but factors including daylength, temperature, and rainfall that affect what happens when year to year, and can serve as cues for the gardener. Nature doesn’t read the printed calendar like we do; I’m not sure what the hellebores and snowdrops (top photo) are trying to tell me out back t

There is also an Open Day in nearby Litchfield County, Connecticut that day and in Dutchess County, New York (the other adjacent area to me). Be sure to check for those listings, too, and make a day of it.Can’t make it? How about coming June 2, or August 18? (Or come back; always something different going on.) On the August date, Broken Arrow will be here again doing a sale in time for fall planting, and garden writer and old friend Ken Druse will deliver a morning lecture on plant combinations and do a smaller afternoon workshop on propagation.All the details on those other days, including links to follow for the Ken Druse events, are on my events page.  Ken’s talk and workshop require prior

Garden open from 10-4; $5 suggested donation to the Garden Conservancy, no reservations required. Broken Arrow Nursery plant sale in my driveway, 10-4. 11 AM lecture just down the road on “Backyard Fruit Simplified” by Lee Reich (reserve tickets here); 2 PM grafting workshop by Lee Reich (tickets here). (Plus: one other Garden Conservancy property open nearby.)saturday, june 1Garden open from 10-4; $5 suggested donation to the Garden Conservancy, no reservations required. Broken Arrow Nursery plant sale in my driveway, 10-4. (Plus: three other Garden Conservancy properties open nearby.)saturday, august 17Garden open from 10-4; $5 suggested donation to be shared by the Garden Conservancy and Friends of Taconic State Park, no reservations required. My Open Day in August is part of a townwide celebration called Copake Falls Day. Broken Arrow Nursery plant sale in my driveway, 10-4. 11 AM lecture on “The Heirloom Life” by The Fabulous Beekman Boys, Josh Kilmer-Pu

If I hadn’t signed with the same publisher, I doubt I’d have met Katrina–our lives and stories appear so different, and she lives a few states away (though, as if by magic, one of her sons is just minutes down the road from me at school). Hers is “a mother’s memoir,” as the cover subhead reveals, co-starring a husband and teen-age boys; mine the tale of a single woman setting off to a rural life of solitude. But when we both participated in a booksellers trade show in October, we learned the meaning of that old saying, “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” Or a life.“I was reading your book on the way here,” she told me excitedly as I shook her hand at the show, bumping into her words with my, “I just finished your book last night.”I had known about Katrina—many authors do, because her book video (above) became a YouTube sensation, the second-most-watched book “trailer” out there, apparently, at more than 1.5 million views. But even after viewing it, I wasn’t prepared for the strong identification I’d feel with “Gift of an Ordinary Day,” or Katrina herself. I had to read the book.Turns out ours are both

You can order the plan, a pdf, from Wave Hill’s shop. My pairs were adapted from there–made in cedar, not pine; the arms slightly longer; the wood slightly thicker and so on–and a savvy carpenter can adjust the angle of the seat and back before screwing everything together, to be more upright or less so. Follow the plans to the letter…or have some fun with them. Order the Wave Hill chair plan by calling the Wave Hill Shop at 718.549.3200 x 249, or email jenahb at wavehill dot org.Want them painted? My expert woodworking neighbor recommends using Benjamin Moore Aura exterior on top of an oil-based primer to help stop any tannin bleed (assuming that the material is cedar, which is the best choice if you plant for long life of the chairs, or to leave them outdoors in winter). If there are knots, use oil-based Binz primer on the knots only.You may recall my recent interview

Bob was VP of Horticulture at Brooklyn Botanic Garden before opening Loomis Creek Nursery a few minutes’ drive from me about 10 years ago.  He has since relocated to Portland, Oregon, and debuted a new container-garden business in 2013 in South Portland. It’s a 4,500-square-foot indoor-outdoor pop-up shop specializing in great containers, ready-to-go pot designs, and plants for containers, too, in collaboration with the until-now-wholesale-only growers at Xera Plants. (Bob still designs gardens, too–in a pot or not!)‘keep it simple’ doesn’t mean boringLET GO OF THE “IDEAL” that is so often seen in books, magazines, catalogs—the notion that you can have 7 or 9 or 10 kinds of plants in one container “all perfectly blooming in unison and perfectly coiffed,” as Bob describes this semi-fantasy.Let go of the notion, too, that annuals are exclusively what belong in pots.

Carol, who was a longtime educator at the New York Botanical Garden and also worked for the Nature Conservancy, has looked beyond the obvious beauty of native plants and studied their life histories, lore, and even cultural uses. I knew she’d be able to answer my questions:our spring-wildflower q&aQ. I have easily and fairly quickly propagated a good number of wakerobin or Trillium erectum asexually (by division, as in the photo above) from three lonely refugees I found under my front porch 25-plus years ago. Some of the plants self-sowing, too now, Carol. How does the reproductive life cycle of a Trillium work?A. Trilliums are a favorite of many wildflower fanciers, so much so that in Europe, where there are no native trilliums, they are sometimes stolen from botanical-garden dis

My normal container plan is this: pansies and violas in big low bowls for 6 or so weeks, from early April through Memorial Day or so. (That’s an example from a past year, below; the bigger of two bowls in the foreground, of which I have several, is 36 inches in diameter.) Then I compost the pansies and replace them with warm-season stuff, true annuals or tropical things, for the duration.Sometimes the raccoons (or skunks, or both) have other plants for my pansies and violas, as below in another past year. This year it basically snowed through pansy season here, so I never dared buy any—my first year in decades going viola-less. Just bef

Craig, a.k.a. the NC Tomato Man, a retired chemist and author of the great book “Epic Tomatoes.” He has been showing his Instagram and Facebook followers each variety and progress from seed to fruit on his social-media streams this year. It’s such fun and so informative, and I wanted to know more.I learned about his outstanding varieties, both large- and small-fruited, along with lots of tomato history, and also about why things go wrong: blossoms drop off without forming fruit, or no blossoms happen at all, or fruit is cracked or misshapen, and other issues.Read

ingredients:olive oil for sautéing 1 large head of garlic, whole cloves peeled 3 chopped quarts of plum tomatoes fresh basil, chiffonaded (as much or little as you like) generous handful of fresh parsley, chopped (salt and pepper to taste, if desired) steps: Sauté all the peeled whole cloves from one head of garlic slowly in olive oil till they are really soft and almost caramelized. I leave the cover on the pan, and use low heat so they don’t get crispy (later, the cloves will sort of melt into the sauce).To the soft garlic, add a mixing bowl full of choppe

Here are Different Rose Color Meanings and Symbolism! Whether you’re planning a bouquet for a loved one, contemplating a garden redesign, or simply curious about the hidden language of roses, understanding these will help you.

…lovin’ the abundance of the garden and the opportunity to cut generously for my Monday vase!

You will never go back to a boring sidewalk after seeing what I do with a stencil and my power washer! You can see more of my crazy creations here

December 17, 2009.