multi-season perennials at allen centennial garden, with ben futa

I SAID IT A FEW WEEKS AGO, when I saw a change of the guard at my feeders a couple of weeks ahead of “normal”–do the birds know something I don’t yet? Seemed to me then that winter’s first teases must be close at hand. And now the National Weather Service says it may drop to 33 one night this week, slightly higher the others (not as scary as parts of Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Minnesota and Iowa, where I see–egads!–winter weather advisories and freeze watches and warnings).

For just $40, plus $10 for lunch, visitors can enjoy Nate and Berta Atwater’s modernist masterpiece, before heading to John Gwynne and Mikel Folcarelli’s rarity-stuffed hidden garden, Sakonnet. Amazing Opus Nursery, the place of master grower Ed Bowen, will be on hand all day for a plant sale that’s every bit as special as the palette of Dixter.For those within a day’s drive, this is a garden party not to be missed. Get glimpses of all the gardens (as well as of Dixter) and the event details in this pdf about the event. Best of all: Each dollar raised will be matched by the UK’s “lottery board” so that Great Dixter may carry on in its colorful, inspirational style.(Anthony Chammond photo of pots at Dixter from Flickr.)

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.

Its native range, says the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, is New York and southern Ontario to Wisconsin, and northeast Iowa to Maryland, also appearing in the mountains from Georgia to Tennessee.  Depending whom you ask, twinleaf is hardy in Zone 4 or 5 to 7 or 8.The New England Wildflower Society’s Garden in the Woods, in Framingham, Massachusetts, was the first place I saw it in profusion, though it is apparently not technically a

Here’s the wrinkle, though: Most of us probably don’t know which ones those are, and in fact have misconceptions about who’s who–often deeply ingrained by fear or a visceral sense of creepiness about insects.In her new book “Good Garden Bugs: Everything You Need to Know About Beneficial Predatory Insects,” Mary Gardiner (above and below) introduces us to a world of garden helpers, and she joined me on my public-radio show and podcast to do just that.Read along as you listen to the June 29, 2015 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You

Lately I have a lot of little fuzzy black and white creatures eating the leaves of my cannas (above), which is what got me started wondering who’s who. Turns out that’s the larval form of a hickory tussock moth, I think, whose usual diet is ash, elm, oak, hickory, maple, willow, and other trees.Though he looks velvety, look but don’t touch, apparently: The long “lashes” of the hickory tussock moth, Lophocampa caryae, are hollow tubes connected to poison glands, and can give susceptible people a stinging nettle-like rash or other reaction. The rest of the bristles, or setae, may also be irritating.This extensive University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee article offers a full portrait of the life of the hickory tussock moth, which apparently will spend the winter in a silk cocoon under tree bark or on the ground, then eventually works its way gradually n

THINKING OF CREATING SOME NEW BEDS next spring? Or as you’re cleaning up this fall, have you noticed that you need to smother some pesky weeds and turn existing beds back to tame? Don’t wait till winter ends; starting now–in autumn–make (or smother) a bed with cardboard, or newsprint. Here’s how to kill weeds and prep new gardens easily and without chemicals–perhaps where lawn grows now–and without having to till.

You cannot tell with certainty who’s related to who botanically by simply glancing, but it will be no surprise after a merely cursory examination of its leaves and branches that Fothergilla is related to witch-hazel (Hamamelis), and also winter-hazel (Corylopsis), in the Hamamelis Family, or Hamamelidaceae. Though I never hear anyone use it, the common name for Fothergilla is witch-alder. As with its botanical cousins, I find Fothergilla, a Southeastern United States native genus, to be basically pest and disease free, and require very little care except occasional light pruning to remove a suckering shoot at the base, or a misplaced or damaged branch. The handsome leaves are good all season long. In the North, I grow Fothergilla in bright shade or full sun; the plants that get more light seem to have the best autumn color, and some cult

I’m feeling daring, so I specifically called Timothy Tilghman, a former colleague at Martha Stewart Living, who is now horticulturist at the much-heralded Untermyer Park and Gardens in Yonkers, New York, just minutes north of New York City. The property has quickly become a destination for gardeners, a getaway where visitors are wowed by bold, contemporary plantings—including ones in containers—in a dramatic, historic setting.A century ago, in 1915, Samuel Untermyer hired William Welles Bosworth, an Ecole des Beaux Arts-trained architect and landscape designer who designed Kykuit for the Rockefellers, to create the “greatest gardens in the world.” Soon after, they began exe

Organic seed commands a premium price, and limits my choices of vegetable varieties, but as regular readers know, I prefer it. I believe seed bred and raised under organic conditions is the best match for my organic garden’s conditions, and also want to vote with my dollars of demand to help create supply.Having the right seed can provide farmers with the genetic tools to confront day-to-day challenges in the field, so to organic farmers, limited selection and higher prices in organic seed represent a far greater obstacle than to a gardener. Despite the phenomenal growth of the org

To get help with that, I spoke to David Mattern, who oversees the vegetable garden at Chanticleer in Pennsylvania (seen above and below). I’ve been lucky to have a series of conversations with various experts there, colleagues of David’s, who combine garden artistry with the soundest horticultural techniques, as he does.Take a critical eye to your own vegetable patch as you tease it apart and put it to bed for the winter, plus consider boosting your soil with cover crops. And this: How about tilling or turning soil less, and instead investing in a broadfork?Read along as you listen to the Sept. 12, 2016 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitche

Brad Herrick is Arboretum Ecologist and Research Program Manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum, where the staff first noticed the destructive handiwork of Asian jumping worms in 2013. He’s been studying them ever since. Though our understanding of these organisms is in the very early stages, we talked about their biology, their impact, and what control tactics are being explored by scientists seeking a solution. (Photo of Brad, below, by Eric Hamilton, UW Communications.)Update: In 2019, a year after this introductory interview, I got updates from Brad on research into the impact of heat on the embryo-filled cocoons that contain next year’s worms-to-be–that may in time help lead to answers in some situations. That newer story includes corrective tactics you can try to reduce the p