how plants work, with linda chalker-scott

If you love plants but don’t like the mess of handling the soil they come with, then don’t worry! For people who hate dirt in their homes, these are the best Houseplants that Grow Without Soil!

As Autumn approaches, many gardeners are putting their tools and gloves away in preparation for the long wait until spring. However, greenhouse owners are continuing to diligently tend to their plants in expectation of the harvest still to come.

How to Grow and Care for Braeburn Apple Trees Malus x domestica ‘Braeburn’

If you said Heuchera, you’re right. Perhaps you’re going to reshuffle some shady beds this spring, and know that Heuchera, with their great foliage, can help make garden pictures work–but wonder which ones, and how best to use them. I invited George Coombs, trial garden manager at the must-visit Mt. Cuba Center in Delaware, with 50 acres of native-plant display gardens and 500 acres of natural land, back to the radio show to help make the best choices and grow them to perfection.George knows from Heuchera, having trialed 83 varieties side by side (the exhaustive results are in this pdf). “I say to people, ‘I’m doing Consumer Reports for plants,'” he explains. Though there are countless varieties on the market, many are duplicative in appearance or just not distinctive. “I can honestly say that when it

I invited my favorite fruit expert, Lee Reich, author of many exceptional garden books, including “Grow Fruit Naturally” and “Weedless Gardening” and “The Pruning Book,” to come talk figs on my public-radio show and podcast. (I’m giving away a copy of “Grow Fruit Naturally;” enter by commenting in the box at the very bottom of the page.)I often refer to Lee as “the unusual fruit guy,” because one of his first books I read was “Uncommon Fruits Worthy of Attention.” Lee lives with blueberries and paw paws and medlars and kiwis and of course figs and more not far from me, across the Hudson in New Paltz, New York, on what he calls his farm-den (as in half-farm, half-garden) loaded with unusual fruits.Learn wh

She is an Extension Urban Horticulturist with Washington State University, and an associate professor of horticulture and landscape architecture there—and joined me this week on the radio podcast to talk (and debunk) popular garden myths.You know, like whether you should dig a really big hole for trees and shrubs and amend the soil before backfilling. Or whether gravel in the bottom of a container helps drainage, or bone meal is a must (or a bust) for bulbs. Or whether landscape fabrics are really the miracle they claim to be—that has so many people using them as “weed block.”Linda has been

John, whose dramatic and delicious purple ‘Dragon’ carrot is bright orange inside, was reassuring as ever. First, don’t feel bad, he said. “Carrots are one of the harder vegetables to grow,” confirms John (with flowering carrots in an OSA photo, above), and for a few reasons:They’re such small plants when they first sprout (the seed isn’t too big, either; I like to use pelleted, shown below, and there are now pelleted ones that meet organic certification requirements).To get really good quality you need “unchecked growth”—no obstacles either literal (like rocky or otherwise tough soil) or meteorological (extremes of heat, cold or especially dryness). “Succulence and flavor wi

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

SOME SPECIES MIGRATE to warmer wintering grounds, and oh, how deftly they do fly—whether on their way south, or on the hunt for supper, or perhaps to meet up with that someone special, and mate in mid-air. But I’m not talking about some feathered creature with a mere single set of wings; I’m talking about dragonflies—as I did in a radio segment and podcast with a leading American expert on the subject, zoologist, Princeton Field Guide author and photographer Dennis Paulson. Share in the four-winged wonder.

That means more and more I’m layering native plants into my landscape, but which ones among the ones tagged “native” do the very best job? You’ve probably heard the word “nativar,” as in a cultivar of a native plant, but what does it mean and how effective are these often showier cultivated varieties at supporting wildlife? I asked Doug Tallamy, professor of entomology at University of Delaware and author of “Bringing Nature Home” and “The Living Landscape,” to help me understand more about this important subject.We talked about what a cultivar change–bigger flowers, maybe, or colorful leaves, or smaller overall stature–actually does to a plant from the point of view of insects. And I learned about a beta version of

Spinach has come a long way from its point of origin literally and also genetically, but which of the many varieties available today is for you, and when and how can you plant this nourishing green for best success?I invited Tom Stearns, longtime organic seed farmer and founder of High Mowing Organic Seeds in Vermont, to help me become a better spinach grower—and find my way through the many choices of spinach leaf types, and varieties from heirloom to hybrid. We talked about the oddball reproductive system that makes spinach bolt and other insights, like how among all the vegetable cro

“We would be sad if people shied away from such an iconic garden vegetable,” says Brian, who with Crystine Goldberg farms organic seed, including for beets, in Bellingham, Washington–seed they sell in their online and print Uprising catalog. “What is more beautiful than a bunch of voluptuous bright red beetroots in a harvest basket en route from the garden to the kitchen?”All too often, our only experience with beets means the usual suspects—ubiquitous varieties like ‘Detroit Dark Red’ or ‘Early Wonder,’ or produce sold without their greens and even pre-packaged or canned. Brian confesses he doesn’t have much experience with those, and for a good reason: There are better beets to be had, and grown.my beet-growing q&a with brian campbellQ. When can I