questions, anyone? (or, careful what you ask.)

Are you dreaming of an exotic garden full of flowers with hard to pronounce names that will awe your guests? An understandable dream. But most tropical green life are not meant to grow in the weather conditions that the UK offers.

“As cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University” Blackadder Goes Forth, 1989

Just because our attention is focused on keeping things steady (ahem, alive) in the garden this deep into the summer, it doesn’t mean we should neglect our leafy loved ones who live indoors—especially if you have travel plans! Houseplants have special needs every season, but summer heat and time away come with their own set of challenges. 

Everyone loves falafel—it’s a year-round staple, and the frozen options at Trader Joe’s make it incredibly easy to prepare. But today, you should probably rid your freezer shelves of any Trader Joe’s falafel: In the company’s third food recall this week, on July 28 Trader Joe’s recalled its fan-favorite Fully Cooked Falafel after being informed by the supplier that rocks were found in the food.

Buying new clothing is exciting. So exciting, in fact, that you probably want to put on your new pieces and show them off as soon as possible, right? But when you do, there’s probably a small part of you wondering, “Wait, should I have washed this first?”

Nothing says Christmas more than a poinsettia (Euphorbia pulcherrima). Did you know that December 12th is known as National Poinsettia Day? Plant breeders have developed a wide range of colors in hues of white, purple, orange, and pink, but red poinsettias continue to be the most traditional color of the holiday season.

WE TALKED HOSTAS MONTHS AGO, in the dead of winter, when they were just twinkles in a gardener’s eye, or images pulled from color catalogs and memory.

I’ve stayed put long enough to outgrow my early mishaps, and have some favorite evergreens to share including the weeping Alaska cedar, which I have always known as Chamaecyparis nootkatensis ‘Pendula’ (above, in my far borders to the west of the house). Lately it has been placed in a new genus, Xanthocyparis, but my old habits die hard. Two weeping Alaska cedars grow here now, the first a 40th birthday present from my garden mentor; the other (above) a few years younger. Each one is about 25 feet. Though they are said to reach 60 or even 90 feet in the wild (Alaska to Oregon), half that is the exp

I’ll be roaming the Northeast in the early going, in places as close to home as the Berkshires of Massachusetts and the Hudson Valley of New York, but also across Massachusetts and as far as New Hampshire, Maine, New Jersey and coastal Connecticut. Events here in the garden will begin again in April; stay tuned for a fuller schedule of those, with just the first couple mentioned below.What’s planned already:Saturday, February 19, 2 PM: Lecture to benefit Berkshire Botanical Garden, Monument Mountain Regional High School, Great Barrington, MA.Thursday, March 3, 7 PM: R.J. Ju

SO IS COPPER SULFATE a chemical? I am not a chemist, but a gardener, so here is what I know with help from more expert sources:Pure copper sulfate is an inorganic compound that does occur naturally, but is more

When Katherine Tracey and her husband, Chris, aren’t manning Avant Gardens,  their longtime retail and mail-order nursery in Dartmouth, Massachusetts–which I am proud is a sponsor of A Way to Garden, and a friend—they are out helping others make, and refine, their landscapes. Chris is a master dry-stone artisan, so his work is often one signature of their landscapes.The “sense of place” of the nursery (which is also their home), as Katherine describes it:  “Intimate, but not fussy, with a wide variety of plants, but not one of this and one of that everywhere.”In a Q&A, Katherine and I talked about taking a sharper look at our home landscapes with an eye to enhancements.my garden-design q&a with katherine traceyQ. What are the most common reasons h

I had only ever seen a bottlebrush buckeye (Zone 5-8) once before, at the public garden called Wave Hill in New York City, a giant suckering mound of a thing probably 20 feet across and more than a dozen high. It grew there in the semi-shade of tall trees, as it is does in its natural habitat of the Southeastern United States, specifically rich woodlands in Alabama, Georgia, and northern Florida. I loved its big mountain of a presence right away—and then on that shopping trip to Allen Haskell’s former nursery in New Bedford, there it was. My plant!Though from a distance the flowers appear to be cream-colored, each tiny one on the long wands (technically panicles) is delicately splashed with drops of orangey-red paint–actually the red anthers and pinkish filaments inside the little trumpets. Butterflies and many insect pollinators love to visit them (that’s a silver-spotted skipper sampling the offerings, above).One year, a group of Baltimore orioles explored them enthusiastic