Gardenig in New York. Tips & Guides

The Reform Club

WE’RE GOING TO talk about collectibles today, but not the kind you score at a flea market or from an online auction. We’re going to talk about collectible trees. Yes, trees. A new book by Amy Stewart called “The Tree Collectors” introduces us to 50 people whose lives have been transformed by what she calls their “arboreal obsessions.”

On the banks of the Hudson River in Troy, NY, there’s an unassuming forest-green building, tucked between a used-car lot and towing business. This refurbished auto-body shop fits right into the neighborhood of commercial buildings. There are no open fields or garden beds thick with produce. But step inside and everything changes. You’ve found Collar City Mushrooms. 

IT’S ONE of the best-known naturalistic gardens anywhere, and yet it’s perched in the most unnatural spot imaginable, 30 feet high above New York City traffic on an abandoned elevated railway line. The High Line on Manhattan’s West Side is celebrating the 15th anniversary of the opening of its first section, years that have been filled with expert lessons on gardening in this looser, nature-inspired style.

If you've already encountered a few or a group of spotted lanternflies in your yard, you may need to take extra steps to protect your yard since this invasive pest can damage the ecosystem around them.

Some of us eagerly await summer every year, ready for days of sunshine, picnics, ice cream—and, perhaps not so eagerly, an influx of spotted lanternflies. If you live in the Midwest or East Coast of the United States, you’ve likely seen the insect with its spotted wings and red hindwings flying about or just sitting on the pavement. 

Happy Friday GPODers!

INTEREST AND AWARENESS around native plants has been trending in recent years, and it makes them feel almost new. But of course natives are the original plants of an area, and even in certain specialty corners of the nursery industry, they’ve been around far longer than they’ve been making headlines.

There’s exciting news ahead for homeowners who are looking to save money on their electric bills. New York is officially the first US state to implement the new Home Energy Rebates program, part of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

MOST PEOPLE call in an arborist when they think it’s time for a tree to be removed, a costly process both financially and environmentally, since trees are critical drivers of diversity. Today’s guest runs a tree-care company and also a tree-focused nonprofit that emphasize other services instead of removals, advocating for the planting of young trees, for caring for our trees with smart structural pruning, and regular inspections to get to know them better and stay ahead of any problems, and for thoughtful support of dead and dying trees as important forever members of our ecosystems.

We couldn’t have spring here at GPOD without an update from Lee and his fabulous tulips in New York. Lee is a GPOD regular who often shares beautiful and creative photos of his garden (Lee’s Backyard Escape, Back to the Mohawk Valley, and Lee’s Garden Through the Eyes of an Ant, to name a few), but his tulip collection is absolutely impressive every year (Dreaming of Tulips in New York and Flower Close-ups From Lee’s Garden). Lee says:

Julie Soefer

IT’S THAT TIME of year when we gardeners are shopping, shopping, shopping, often in hot pursuit of just the right plant that will make the design of a bed or the larger landscape hang together—that elusive missing ingredient. But what if the answer isn’t a plant sometimes, but a pot or a sculpture or some other non-living elements strategically placed?

This week we’re going to do something a little different on the GPOD: We’re going to be looking back over the years of gardens we have shared and pull out some of our favorites to visit again. And today the posts are all going to be stunning shade gardens. Gardening in shade can feel a bit like a challenge or limitation, but lots of GPOD contributors have turned that challenge into an opportunity and made beautiful gardens.

I CONFESS to something of a weakness for Japanese maples, and I suspect I’m not alone. Now, thanks to breeding work by experts like today’s guests, there are more and more varieties being made available that are suited to a widening range of climate zones and garden conditions, meaning the circle of maple lovers can keep on growing.

Gardeners often find ingenious ways to solve problems. Below you’ll find tips from our readers that repurpose common household items to great effect. Get an edge on gardening and peruse all of our past gardening tips here.

Kevin Winter / Getty Images

Today we’re visiting with Lee, who gardens in central New York State. We’ve visited Lee’s garden before (Early Spring Blooms from the Mohawk Valley).

WHEN SHOPPING the seed catalogs, I realize I’m probably more likely to consider a tomato or pepper I haven’t grown before, or some unusual annual flower, than to try some new-to-me herb. But what a shame. I need to modify that behavior and spice things up a bit.

Left: James Devaney; Right, Rob Kim / Getty Images

wmaster890 / Getty Images

WHAT’S NOT TO LOVE about zinnias? Organic seed farmer and breeder Don Tipping of Siskiyou Seeds and I both vote an emphatic “yes” in favor of making zinnias a part of every garden year.

We’ve been to our fair share of local Manchester parks and gardens, that’s for sure! But which do we recommend?

In their quest for the world’s heavyweight champion, some pumpkin growers will do almost anything.

Jonathan Steinbeck / Getty Images

A giant invasive plant known as “Millennium Madness” sprouted worldwide last year. It was particularly bad in the United States and positively egregious in the New York metropolitan area. And, as if Millennium Madness was not bad enough all by itself, there were rumors that it was infested on a grand scale with the dreaded Y2K Bug. While professionals in a host of countries spent months trying to think of ways to eradicate the Y2K Bug, ordinary people were rumored to be aiding the rapid growth and spread of Millennium Madness by watering local specimens with vast quantities of bottled water that they had stored in their basements.

LIKE EVERYONE around this time of year, I get into a “looking back while looking ahead” combined mindset. Today I want to do just that, but with a sort of ecological filter, taking stock of how things in the garden fared in the bigger environmental picture and what opportunities lie ahead for me to read nature’s signals even more closely and be an ever better steward of the place.

The Haw River cuts through North Carolina’s Piedmont region from its source in Forsyth County. Below Jordan Lake, it joins the Deep River to form the Cape Fear River, which empties into the Atlantic Ocean near the southernmost tip of the state.

Luiz Jiménez, 39, has been working on American dairy farms for 20 years. He is used to working long hours for little pay, fearful of losing a vital source of income for his family. A father of three, Jiménez is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico and came to the United States undocumented. He is one of an estimated 238,000 undocumented agricultural workers in the US. Like many others, he is without a visa, credit or health insurance, making it difficult to safely advocate for better working conditions without putting his livelihood at risk. 

Deck the halls with boughs of holly—or don’t. Decorating for the holidays the traditional way, with lights, wreaths, and a tree full of ornaments, isn’t for everyone.  If you want to bring the seasonal spirit into your home without dragging boxes of holiday knick-knacks out of storage, you’re in luck. There are plenty of ways to get your home feeling festive, and not a single bough of holly is necessary.  To learn how to execute a holiday-inspired home design—one without Santas or stockings—we tapped designer Gideon Mendelson for his expert advice.

Words by Phil Clayton

LET THE seed shopping season begin. The 2024 offerings are being loaded into seed-catalog websites, and the earliest print catalogs are already arriving in our mailboxes, as if to help soften the separation anxiety we may feel if we’ve already put our gardens to bed for the winter.

This holiday season, you might have the urge to get rid of everything you’ve ever owned. Clutter is the enemy, you might think, and having anything around that doesn’t work for a specific purpose is just in the way.

21 of the Best Houseplants for Bright Light

Buying furniture can be an overwhelming process, especially if you know what you need but aren’t quite sure what you want—and the challenges only grow from there. Once you finally figure out your preferences, where do you begin?

I DON’T THINK I’ve read a mystery novel since the “Nancy Drew” books of my long-ago childhood, though I will confess to having watched more than a few who-done-it TV series over the years, most of them from the BBC. But I never noticed how many mystery writers from Edgar Allen Poe to Agatha Christie incorporated elements of the garden into their tales of intrigue.