best hydrangeas of now and tomorrow, with dan hinkley

Since I put this list together 7 years ago but I have now started to favour Kings Seeds (Suffolk Herbs) for my vegetables. I also get many more seeds from clubs and organisations rather than merchants.

Red, White and Blue the patriotic colours of the Hydrangea are augmented by pinks and purples like H. Ayeshia above as a variation on those themes. Flowering from mid-summer these shrubs give a magnificent display with very little effort. Did you see Hydrangea maritima on seaside holidays in large displays of sugary pink and sometimes blue.

Culinary herbs are both easy and inexpensive to grow. A fresh, home-grown supply of basil, parsley or thyme will cost much less than shrink-wrapped packs from the supermarket and when harvested just before use will likely have a higher nutritional value, too.

Rob Last reports, “We are progressing well with preparations for strawberry planting. Some plants are due to be delivered this week. Remember, if fumigants have been used, check to ensure the products have dissipated to prevent damage to the transplants. The same is true to make sure planting restrictions on any pre-emergence herbicides applications are observed. Always refer to the label. Finally, remember to check your plants carefully for pest and disease inoculum from the nursery. Planting any disease or pest-infected plants will lead to a more challenging growing season. If you require any help, please reach to Extension Agents.”

WHO VISITED: We met Twitter friends like @GardenGuyKenn (all the way from Michigan) and other blog-commenters like Bobster (all the way from Rhode Island) and Leslie (from Connecticut) and Ailsa and Patti, from Ottawa, Ontario.We met Joyce from Iowa and Michelle from Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania (31 miles from Wilkes-Barre, apparently) and Sandra from Clarks Summit (also Pennsylvania, 8 miles from Scranton) and Julie from Reston, Virginia, and Stephanie from Bainbridge Island, Washington, and Stephanie from Seattle (both Stephanies, both from prime garden country…a coincidence?). Someone signed in as being from Scotland, but can that be so? And all of you, thank you, whether from a mile down the road or a country or ocean away…or whether you just visited our virtual tour yesterday.Some of t

Not so many years ago, most nurseries only carried the old-fashioned classic we call Pee Gee, for H. paniculata ‘Grandiflora’ (above), with giant conical trusses of white flowers in July that fade to pink and tan as autumn approaches. Perhaps you have a tree form?  It’s the kind of plant often “inherited” along with older houses, and I love passing big ones at nearby farms and gardens at this time of year.Lately, though, as with so many other plants, there’s a proliferation of available cultivars of panicle hydrangeas, and I have tried many good ones: ‘Kyushu,’ ‘Pink Diamond,’ ‘Unique,’ ‘Limelight’ (an unusual recent color break with greenish flowers), and more that I cannot even bother to r

This year, I’m late, late, late—and I’m conveniently blaming circumstances beyond my control. After frozen ground in April, no rain for three-plus weeks in May, and a June of incredible deluges, some of my best-laid plans aren’t looking so swell. Maybe you’re in the same situation. With all the upside-down spring weather that made headlines around the nation, I suspect it’s not just me who fell “behind.” There’s still time for a positive outcome.Ken (below, saving tomato seed), founder of Hudson Valley Seed Library catalog and an organic seed farmer, joined me on the public-radio show and podcast to talk about planting for late summer into late fall harvest (think: pea-shoot salad, a succulent fresh batch of basil and more), and about seed saving.Read along as you listen to the July 13, 201

THE FLYER PIQUED MY INTEREST: Dan Benarcik, part of the creative team at Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, Pennsylvania (a must visit!), would be lecturing nearby about “The Art & Craft of the Garden,” and how to personalize a garden using artistic elements, found artifacts, and ornamental containers. I quickly got a ticket—you can, too, for the June 16 event, including garden tours and a garden market, in Spencertown, New York—but also asked Dan to share some of his ideas and images (including the bromeliad-artemisia- urn-and-melianthus moment at Chanticleer, above) with us, no matter whether we can attend. A Q&A with this enormously talented plantsman and garden artist.

Last year I had word that my website was nominated for a “best garden blog” contest, put on by “Better Homes and Gardens” magazine. Curious, I clicked over to the sites of all the other nominees—many of whom I did not know.One, in particular, stood out as a kindred spirit, and then a funny thing happened to seem to say, “Get in touch with that blogger” even more emphatically: A reader of mine emailed wi

Let me admit: I have a soft spot for old apples, and the massive, century-plus-old trees I’m blessed to cohabitate with deliver loads of imperfect but delicious fruit with the occasional soft spot—or at least various marks of character.The venerable trees have taught me an appreciation of botanical history, more than some modern idea of perfection. That lesson was underscored in 1999, when I visited Seed Savers in Decorah, Iowa, where about 10 years earlier founder Kent Whealy had begun the orchard, each tree bearing a name, and a backstory, I’d never heard before. Apples such as the ones up top (clockwise, from top left): ‘Franklin,’ ‘May Queen,’ ‘Woodard,’ and ‘Blue Pearmain.’Dan Bu

Few people have a more practiced eye about ferns than Judith, a.k.a. The Fern Madame, who joined me from Fancy Fronds in the State of Washington to introduce us to some distinctive favorites from among her vast collection: ferns with pink-to-bronze early color, with glossy foliage, with forked, divisifine-textured cresting (like the crested uniform wood fern, above).Read along as you listen to the March 5, 2018 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).fern q&a with fancy fronds’ judith jonesQ. I’ve known about you and your catalo

IT’S ALMOST TIME—for seeds, that is; to delve into catalogs, order, and then try to be patient till it’s time to sow. To that end—the timing part—I’m suddenly taken in bya $4 companion from the all-organic Seattle Seed Company (above) whose job it is to keep me on schedule, and not jumping the gun (or forgetting something till it’s too late). With a low-tech pullout format, you “set” your first and last frost dates and then the “when to sow what” falls into place. At this price, how can I resist the promise of feeling like I finally have it all together?smart birds: recycling butts into nestsYES, BIRDS USE the usual twigs, grasses, and feathers. But apparently they use cigarette butts, too—or so scientists at Scotland’s St. Andrews University have reported after studying house finch and house sparrow nests in Mexico