our first 100-comment post (thank you!)

Courgettes

Yellow can be a difficult colour in the garden and I know of one keen gardener that tries to avoid all Yellow flowers. However this Potentilla or cinqufoil grabbed my attention hence the yowser headline. No wonder the Potentilla is also known as the Buttercup shrub as the strong yellow is reminiscent of the field buttercup.

Grasses give a rich combination of autumnal colours

In 2008 a google search for sunflowers would have found gardeners tips in the top 3 results. Now it would be luck to be found in the top 3 million. We are number 115th for the more specific ‘sunflowers gardeners tips’ as Tips for Easy Sunflowers from 2015.

As gardeners mature they enter a purple patch in their life and potentially in the garden. Some of the best plants with purple or coppery coloured leaves take several years to mature like the notional gardener. Amongst the favourites must be the copper beech and the many Acers with reddish leaves.

After my first baby was born, I came to realize that with parenting comes advice. A lot of it. Advice on how to get the baby to sleep. Advice on how to give the baby a bath. And CONSTANTLY – advice on how to feed the baby. It comes from every direction, most often from your mother-in-law and frequently from complete strangers without children. Sometimes this well-intended advice is good and is followed by “because the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends it”. But sometimes it is not so good and is supported with rationale like “because I fed it to you, and you turned out just fine”.

Down the road apiece, all the flat, wide-open fields of my farmer neighbors revealed themselves the last few days, but not here. Not yet.Yesterday my beloved old friends from Windy Hill Farm in Great Barrington, MA, came anyway to prune the beloved century-plus-old apple trees, despite having to trudge through all the white stuff. We just couldn’t wait any longe

We’d been to hear another old friend, Dan Hinkley, speak at nearby Berkshire Botanical Garden’s annual lecture with several hundred other winter-weary types, and afterward gone off with Dan and friends to eat.We didn’t really talk plants at the meal; nine crazy gardeners traded pet stories. I know—insane. Either we are getting old and soft, or have spent too much time on Cute Overload. But the next morning my breakfast guest and I shifted from zoology to botany, stirred up by a few of Dan’s slides, including one of Mukdenia rossii ‘Crimson Fans,’ a shade plant Dan’s helped bring to market as

THE FIRST REAL SNOW CAME SATURDAY NIGHT, December 5, depositing 4 or 5 inches of heavy stuff on an evening followed by the most brilliant day, the kind where the sun and moon were both in the sky. But all I could see at first when I looked outside: the pots that hadn’t made it into the safety of the shed or barn yet.

AGIANT FLOCK OF REDPOLLS–BIRDS I NEVER SEE HERE–landed on the newly revealed patio outside my window, looking for nibbles in the cracks and crevices just hours after a little snow finally melted. Only hours after the white stuff gave way on the stones by the frogpond, out climbed three friends, looking no worse for the winter wear.

ANOTHER POST IS NEAR THE CENTURY MARK, our second in 7 months here on A Way to Garden. The first was Garden No-No’s; now here comes ‘Why Do You Garden?’ to challenge its lead.

UNDERPLANTING: The antidote to boring masses of pachysandra or ivy: underplanting in complex mosaics. I showed my method, at the request of various commenters on a previous story. You asked for it, you got it.TO THE WOODS WITH ME: I published a favorite “doodle” by offbeat English illustrator Andre Jordan, which apparently you loved (and I got to “meet” this idol of mine as a result, thank you all very much).THE COMPLAINT DEPT: We opened the doors on Memorial Day weekend, and the gripes are still pouring in. Got a “garden no-no” you want to add to the list? (Does dyed mulch or bad staking, or maybe garden gnomes or white-gravel mulch get you all worked up?)NO DULL EDGES HERE: Who knew you were all OCD like I am about edging your garden beds? This how-to was another popular post.PESTO FEST: The kickoff event in our summer-long cross-blog food series with Dinner Tonight was a spicy favorite, featuring my recipe for Garlic