from the forum: domestic flaps, winter shrubs

When it comes to overall enhancement of your garden on a more strategic level, your best solution will arguably be a landscaping one. Sure, throwing in some pretty plants in the back yard is certainly necessary, but you can hardly beat the blend of emotions, sizes and shapes that a fully executed landscaping project gives to the home-owners.

Whether you like to use your homegrown green beans in a good old-fashioned green bean casserole or in modern stir-fries, learning how to freeze green beans for later use is important, especially when the garden is producing them like crazy. Thankfully, freezing green beans from the garden is an easy process, but there are some essential steps to follow for success. In this article, I offer simple step-by-step instructions so you can enjoy the fruits of your garden for many months to come.

The ancient Chinese have cultivated Tree Peonies for over 1500 years. Prized specimens are and were grown for medicinal purposes as they contain glucocides and alkolides. The  imperial palace gardens had many specimens that became quite valuable.

READER TERRYK HAS ME STUMPED THIS WEEK with the Urgent Garden Question forum question she posed: whether a doublefile viburnum or a Kousa dogwood rated being granted the limited garden space available.

(first published in 1989; proof positive how long I have been at this garden writing thing, friends)LIKE A GRADUATING SENIOR in that pointless last week of school, I have lost all ability to concentrate. I hadn’t been sure, until I sat down to write this, exactly what was on my mind, but it is full, so very annoyingly full that I awaken every morning when it is still dark to the tape playing in my head. It is a droning, relentless list, with lots of static punctuating entry after entry of musts, to-do’s, and did-I-remember-to’s.Probably it is partly the disease of gardening that does this to a person come June. At this time of year i

I LOVE THE FORUM POSTS THAT START with “somebody ate my…” (Actually, I hate these stories, but feel better knowing that I am not alone in the Case of the Disappearing Crop.) This week in the Urgent Garden Question Forum, there was one I really loved: from member NYGardeningGal who titled her question,“Somebody Ate My Plant From Underneath the Ground?” Oh, dear.

I have grown a lot of viburnums over the years, and have pruned them at various times of year for one reason or another. Usually viburnums need relatively little pruning, assuming you planted the right cultivar in the right-sized space (for example, not ‘Mariesii’ among the doublefiles, shown, but ‘Watanabei’ if you only had a smallish area). Even the lightest form of pruning, the removal of spent flowers called deadheading, isn’t needed with most viburnums, since what you want is fruit after the flowers (unlike all that deadheading with lilacs, for instance, to prevent messiness).POOR PLANNING TO BLAMEMost of the pruning I’ve had to do on viburnums was because I didn’t leave enough room for the plant to reach its eventual size, and poor planning (meaning my impatience to have a filled-in garden) caught up with me in time. I have cut several viburnums to the ground or the

IT’S A QUESTION I DON’T HAVE AN ANSWER FOR, but maybe you can help: What’s the best way to keep track of gardening records—a format or tactic that can grow with the garden? Is it index cards; spreadsheets on the computer; a series of actual journals, such as the popular moleskine notebooks? Forum member KK asked the other day, and maybe you have the secret to record-keeping success.

WHAT FLOWERS DO YOU PLANT in the vegetable garden to encourage good pollination of your food crops? That was the great question raised the other day in the Urgent Garden Question Forum by member NanZ.

FORUM MEMBER ANN HAD a good question this week: Ever eaten pea tendrils or flowers or any of the bits other than the peas themselves? Well, yes I have, I replied, offering the best variety to grow for this gourmet salad ingredient or garnish, and I wonder what you think? Do tell. Or if you have nothing to report on that score, what about this: Have you lost seedlings you started to the (dreaded fungal disease called) damping off? Let us know (or just hear our horror stories).

THIS SUBJECT ALWAYS RATTLES ME A BIT: When to move flower bulbs that you want to relocate, or divide? There are proponents of the “in the green” tactic, meaning to move them when they have their foliage on, and others who say no, no, never–do it once they ripen, or even in fall.

WHAT’S YOUR TACTIC FOR KILLING WEEDS WITHOUT CHEMICALS? That’s what member Megansgreen asked recently in the Urgent Garden Question Forum, because her driveway gets infested with grass (so does mine, and the front pathway, too). Got any tactics for chemical-free weed control? We’d love to hear.