at last, a new beginning: first bloom of 2010

Are you the person who every year swears that this is the year they are going to eat healthy and get in shape, but by February you’re back to your old habits? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most Americans give up on this resolution and just choose to come back around to it next year. Don’t let that be you this year! Reaching your health and fitness goals are possible, and you don’t have to give up all your favorite foods to do so. Life is all about balance, and your diet is no different. Here are some tips to help you stick to a healthy diet all year long.

The Asian longhorned beetle (ALB; Anoplophora glabripennis) is not easy to miss – adults of this large, black beetle with white spots, black and white striped antennae, and blueish feet are between 1 and 1 ½” long (Fig. 1). ALB larvae are equally striking as the large, white segmented larvae can be nearly 2” in length (Fig. 2). Established populations in the U.S. are found in Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, and a new infestation was recently found in Charleston County, South Carolina.

I encourage you to come ask and answer gardening questions, of course, but also feel at home (especially in the topic marked “General”) to use it as a place for community-driven discussion about anything reasonable that interests gardeners, and even for socializing about non-garden topics, should some of you wish to do so. Sometimes the discussions in blog comments gets unwieldy, so this is a great place to continue if you like. More on the philosophy and etiquette is here on this page.I also encourage you to get a Gravatar photo icon of some kind, so we can tell one another apart. I am user UGQ (with my hands full of heirloom blue corn seeds, left); Leslie is…Leslie (with the red and white Forum logo as her Gravatar, below). The Urgent Garden Question Forum is part of A Way to Garden, but there is a difference between it and the blog itself. Stated simply:On the blog, I choose the topic and post about it, and readers may wish to comment in response.On the Forum, the subject matter is driven by you. You initiate the conversation, and (hopefully) chime in to help one another and just get acquainted. I will stop in, and so will

Down the road apiece, all the flat, wide-open fields of my farmer neighbors revealed themselves the last few days, but not here. Not yet.Yesterday my beloved old friends from Windy Hill Farm in Great Barrington, MA, came anyway to prune the beloved century-plus-old apple trees, despite having to trudge through all the white stuff. We just couldn’t wait any longe

BEFORE THE APOCALYPSE BLEW IN SATURDAY, with its relentless 50-plus mile-per-hour winds, there was a brief moment of sanity. The snow was finally melting, revealing the first bulbs, and the very best part: I got my knees wet in the process of going to have a closer look.

We’d been to hear another old friend, Dan Hinkley, speak at nearby Berkshire Botanical Garden’s annual lecture with several hundred other winter-weary types, and afterward gone off with Dan and friends to eat.We didn’t really talk plants at the meal; nine crazy gardeners traded pet stories. I know—insane. Either we are getting old and soft, or have spent too much time on Cute Overload. But the next morning my breakfast guest and I shifted from zoology to botany, stirred up by a few of Dan’s slides, including one of Mukdenia rossii ‘Crimson Fans,’ a shade plant Dan’s helped bring to market as

Since 2011, Timothy has worked at Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York, which is becoming a horticultural destination for keen gardeners wanting inspiration–and a getaway for anyone just wanting to be surrounded by bold, contemporary plantings in a dramatic, historic setting. The Untermyer Gardens Conservancy is a non-profit organization collaborating with the City of Yonkers to facilitate the garden’s restoration (details on tours and how to visit otherwise are at the bottom of this page).In case you’re wondering: that garden has many vivid miles to go before it sleeps for winter. I even saw the phrase “floral fireworks” (such as the crape myrtles and hydrangeas in the right-hand photo below) used to describe it at the end of August, and there are plenty of foliage fireworks, too.Timothy and I worked together for years at “Martha Stewart Living” magazine, and he has been a gardener at the famed Wave Hill in New York City, and at the Garden Conservancy project called Rocky Hills

GARDEN CLEANUP HAS ITS REWARDS. There you are poking around with a pruning shears or a rake, cutting some things back and uncovering others, and suddenly you find them: the first brave souls to bloom.  From snowdrops (above) to the bravest shrub of all, a quick rundown of the first heat out of the gate:Helleborus niger, the so-called Christmas rose, is always extra-early.

I confess to having harbored longtime anti-orchid feelings, frankly, and hadn’t even owned an orchid, unless you count the occasional cut Cymbidium I buy from a nearby greenhouse in winter. That is, I hadn’t owned a plant until I moved to my former weekend home way outside the city last winter and got a little lonely for company.I brought a Phalaenopsis home from the local garden center around the holidays on total impulse, and it flowered for four months in my dining room, which astonished even me. The $30 price seemed st

So I can invite guest experts to join me as well as share the program with other public-radio stations, we’re pre-taping “A Way to Garden With Margaret Roach” to stand alone, instead of airing live as part of my local station’s morning show, which it has been since March 2010.You can listen in to the first such standalone show here, right now. This week’s topic: When to sow what seeds, with guest Dave Whitinger of All Things Plants in Texas. Next time (February 4), the topic is why I’m going to grow calendul

EVEN THOUGH WE HAVEN’T LEFT THE HOUSE in a week…winter, you know (and book-editing, and a pile of seed catalogs)…we get around, Jack the Demon Cat and I. In fact, this week we made the scene in Dallas, thanks to our new friend Mariana Greene, garden editor of The Dallas Morning News.