i’m on a cornmeal bender (things could be worse!)

Here’s everything you need to know aboutHow Not To Kill Plants In Containers. Follow these handy tips to keep your indoor plants happy and healthy!

Isn’t it funny how even people who don’t like gardening grow tomatoes? What is it about them? Maybe tomato growing is one of those practices passed down from grandparents that just sticks, evoking childhood memories. Growing tomatoes is also one of those rites of passage to becoming a keen gardener. Ask the keenest gardener that you know and there’s a good chance that one of the plants they started out with was the good old tomato.

Home gardeners always seek new and innovative ways to improve their gardens and increase their yields. This is particularly true now, when at-home fruit and vegetable gardening is becoming increasingly popular.

You may like to “put de lime in de coconut” or “pina coladas in the rain”, but these two products (pictured below), while both made from the flesh of the coconut, are NOT the same.

I’m not usually much of an impatiens lover, but ‘Fusion Glow’ and the Fusion series from the giant breeders Ball Horticultural will have a place here again next year for its mounding habit and free-flowering, and of course its lovely color (one of several in the series). Also on my list to be sure to track down for next year: that elusive ‘Terra Cotta’ viola (above) I couldn’t find locally this year and should have ordered in advance. Come to think of it, Viola ‘Blue Bronze’ is on the list, too; I just didn’t love the substitutes I grew this year, as I have complained before. Oh, and that variegated Abutilon I found without a label on it (which I have since ID’d). It’s named

The English-born Capon, a doctor of botany from the University of Chicago who went on to be a professor at California State University, Los Angeles for 30 years, has since retired, leaving time for the revamping of “Botany for Gardeners,” the bestselling title for its publisher, Timber Press, in the U.S. and England.Not only did Capon write it; he illustrated it, too, and even took the plant photographs that further bring the text to life. Capon is also a lifelong gardener, though images of his own place never appear in the pages.“Botany for Gardeners” was born as a textbook out of lecture notes for a botany class Capon taught for many years to non-science students, so it’s thorough—but not the kind of dense, full-fledged botany text that will scare you away.In fact (even 20 years later), it just keeps drawing me back in, especially for tidbits like these. Did you know:That litmus, the dye used to indicate acidity and alkalinity, is

T HERE IS LITTLE CHANCE THAT ANYBODY on this dirt road is stealing my garden-design ideas; they don’t want to go stark raving and have to take care of all this stuff. But our doodling friend Andre’s right: Cookie-cutter gardens all in a row would be no fun, and the garden’s a place for each of us to express our individuality, not try to recreate someone else’s picture or point of view.

The new red-foliage polychroma cultivar, ‘Bonfire,’ seems to stand up better to summer, so I’m not chopping it down. Will I regret it? Don’t know…only my second year with the plant, so it’s all an experiment.Which is what cutbacks are: You observe what is going on, and if it’s not looking good, you consider administering a haircut.The pulmonarias were shorn to the ground after flowering last month, and already have a new set of showy leaves (instead of tattered, about-to-mildew old ones). They would have grown a new set right up and over the old, but I prefer to just shear them, rather than fussily deadheading each flower stem.Perennial salvias, like the popular ‘May Night’ and the nemorosa varieties ‘Snow Hill’ and ‘Caradonna,’ can do with a good, hard cutback when they’re done blooming. A new rosettes of foliage will be emerging down below, and a lower-impact second flush of bloom will eventu

OKAY, I WILL ADMIT TO A BIT OF A COMPULSION about edging. It is my contention that even a mediocre garden can look pretty swell with a clean edge on it (or at least you’ll impress people with your mastery of edging in and of itself).

1. That all the mail-order providers I have used send me my “slips” (pieces of vine sprouted off their stock sweet potatoes) much too early. Yes, I may have few hard frosts after late April or early May…but the weather is by no means as settled nor the soil as warm as a sweet potato would ideally have it. I want my slips to arrive a month later than some stupid automated calculation at the growers is apparently indicating, triggering my too-soon shipment. Just say no to early delivery; hurrying doesn’t help.D.I.Y. for Starters?2. If I had healthy, firm stock left from the previous year—and no sign of any disease or troubles last growing season—I could technically sprout my own slips, and it may just come to that. I’d need to get some of the stored potatoes to begin to sprout in

EXPLODING Eremurus, why vulnerability is good for us, and the answer to why bird poop is white—all, and more, in the latest collections of links I’ve loved lately while staring into my computer screen (which I alternately do between long gazes out the window). Five links worth exploring:

Hoard cardboard: I’ve stopped putting my corrugated boxes from packaging and other plain cardboard out for recycling. I’ll stockpile all that arrives from now onward, breaking down the boxes and stashing the resulting panels as future weed-smothering, under-mulch control. Learn how it works.Order asparagus: There are some weak stretches in my long row of asparagus, spots where for some reason the old plants just aren’t performing any longer. Time to order more, and maybe plan for another row. Asparagus is an investment crop that pays back for years to c