GPOD on the Road: Spring at New York Botanical Garden

With garden openings over for 2024, my ramblings around the garden involve a combination of “this is gorgeous!”, “aren’t we fortunate?”, “thank goodness that’s over” and “how can I improve this?”. Already thoughts have turned to potential ‘tweaks’, nothing major, and ways to improve things I don’t feel have really worked – perhaps I will write a post on them in due course…

SOME OF THE many unusual fruits that Allyson Levy and Scott Serrano grow in their arboretum in the Hudson Valley of New York, like goji berries or maybe Schisandra (above), are ones you’re more likely to see on ingredient labels of health food store products than for sale in nurseries or growing in gardens. But grow them you can.

Edimentals is a new term for growing flowers and vegetables together. Gardens today are often too small to have a separate ‘veg patch.’

Want to grow perennials that have a long blooming period in your garden? Long-lasting perennials add color, height, and texture to the landscape. And equally important, many perennials provide important food sources for beneficial insects and pollinators, such as bees, butterflies, and birds. Perennials can take some time to get established in the garden and the first year, they're typically focused on growing roots. They grow faster in the second and third year and you can enjoy them each year.

In January I visited the world’s largest horticultural show in Essen, Germany, and came away with some great take-aways, but I was especially impressed with the significant trend of pruning, training and grafting certain plants into new and unusual forms.

These brownish-yellow protective layers of rice grains are a natural, toxin-free help in your garden. Our guide will help you uncover their uses and make the most of them.

Hi GPODers! Today we’re in Sharon Holmes’ Dallas garden that faces its fair share of obstacles and challenging conditions. Despite punishing weather, clay soil, and a whole host of wildlife and insects that visit her garden, there are plenty of plants that have survived and even thrived.

Hey GPODers! No preamble from me today, Stephanie included a beautiful description with her submission so we’re jumping right in:

Honeysuckle (Lonicera periclymenum) is one of the easiest plants to find in the wild, since its strong, sweet scent hangs on the air. Native to most of Europe, it is a common sight and smell in our woodlands and hedgerows in summer, twining itself around trees and scrub and luring a wide variety of wildlife. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, Oberon describes Titania's sleeping place as 'quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine'. It is certainly a plant fit for a queen, since each of the flowerheads resembles a crown of cream and gold, formed of a ring of tubular blooms.

The thought of a professional organizer entering your home may send you into a cleaning frenzy. Even if you’re naturally tidy, piles of items can easily stack up, whether due to a lack of storage or a lack of a system.

NOBODY WANTS to get the IRS notice in the mail that they’re being audited, heaven forbid. But when it comes to gardens, Rodney Eason believes that the occasional audit is a very positive process, and encourages us to perform one on our own landscape.

When one thinks about a production garden designed to yield copious amounts of vegetables and flowers, it’s not often one with perfectly manicured rows overflowing with color and paired with thoughtfully organized spaces for gathering. Practicality and function are usually the focus, not a dedication to stunning surroundings. This is where the team behind Oakland-based Pine House Edible Gardens stands out with their impeccable layout and design philosophies, showcasing the ability to implement important functional garden systems with incredible style.