A Shrub Do-over Involves a Makeover

Outdoor Christmas trees can be stopped from blowing over through various means, like planning the tree’s location to securing it in its position. Keeping the tree as stationary as possible without it toppling over will help it remain pristine and gorgeous throughout the holiday season. 

Pamper your plants by all means but resist the urge to over feed.

My mother very successfully grew Geraniums (pelargoniums) as indoor pot plants for many years. For the majority of gardeners the zonal geraniums are an outdoor feature of brightly coloured flowers that are often treated as annuals.

If you’re well-versed in TikTok food trends—cottage cheese, rat snacks, or boozy pineapple spears, anyone?—you may already know about the recent sushi-related food trend that influencers are trying their hand at: the sushi bake. This riff on the super popular Japanese dish is quick and easy to prepare, making the flavors of sushi much more accessible from home.

While native grasses and forbs are my favorite lazy gardener plants, native shrubs rank as must-haves for an easy and attractive landscape. All native or introduced shrubs are generally carefree when they are well-chosen, thoughtfully placed, and planted correctly. Unhealthy plants have problems. Well, duh!, you might say! Any silly person could tell me that. But often, the solutions are obvious.

During pollinator week (June 20 -24), I spent time hunting for native bees in the South Carolina Botanical Garden. Native bees are powerhouse pollinators and of critical importance to plant life and our food supply. Over 4000 species are native to North America, with perhaps a thousand active in the Southeast, still a rather daunting number! But you must begin somewhere, so I set out with my camera to see who was in the garden!

Farmhouse sinks have been a favorite of interior designers and homeowners alike for years. When renovating a kitchen, one of the most important features is the sink, and the classic aesthetic, depth, and variation of materials that farmhouse sinks offer often make them a winning choice.

Whilst photographing and writing for my EOMV post yesterday, I was struck by how quickly and seamlessly the woodland had morphed from the whites of snowdrops to the pinks of fritillaries and the early rhododendron and then suddenly into the blues and whites of bluebells and wild garlic – all in the blink of an eye! Nature continues to bowl me over with her subtle trickery…

I HAVE SAID IT BEFORE (BUT AM INCLINED TO REPEAT MYSELF): I prefer white Hydrangea to blue ones. And in this hottest, driest summer I know another reason why: The clean white blooms of my various Hydrangea paniculata freshen the place up a bit.

I PUT MY BEANS UP ON A PEDESTAL because they are one of the crops that’s finally producing here in the Year of Big Rains. In fact, I just planted another whole row of bush beans, along with more collards and kale, among many things. Welcome to Week 3 of the cross-blog Summer Fest 2009: Beans and Greens Week, a perfect time (if you hurry) to fine-tune the vegetable garden and eke out some produce for late summer, fall—and beyond.

Once they have dropped their leaves and gone dormant, after a good hard freeze or so, I get out the hand cart and engage a brave friend. We say our prayers, then wheel them one by one over my hilly garden, down to the unheated barn.I will certainly meet my end someday under one of these big pots, when I am manning the downhill side of this hauling operation.I make sure that they are well-watered during the fall, so that they go into storage well-hydrated—and therefore less prone to dessication while in there.  No water is offered in the coldest months, when the soil and the trees inside the building are mostly frozen, but I start checking around February, once the

Hoard cardboard: I’ve stopped putting my corrugated boxes from packaging and other plain cardboard out for recycling. I’ll stockpile all that arrives from now onward, breaking down the boxes and stashing the resulting panels as future weed-smothering, under-mulch control. Learn how it works.Order asparagus: There are some weak stretches in my long row of asparagus, spots where for some reason the old plants just aren’t performing any longer. Time to order more, and maybe plan for another row. Asparagus is an investment crop that pays back for years to c