Sanguisorba: the best to grow

With seeds to sow and plants to care for, why not garden in comfort and treat your feet to a pair of gardening shoes? Practical and easy to slip on and off, they’re ideal for wearing through the spring, summer and early autumn and are best left by the back door so you can slip them on whenever you need to nip outside. Most are lightweight and made from waterproof materials so they’ll not only keep your feet dry but are durable and easy to clean.

Like honeybees, bumblebees visit flowers to collect pollen and nectar to take back to their colonies to feed the developing brood.

When it comes to garden gear, there is a clear divide among growers: Those who love tomato cages, and those who consider them an absolute useless eyesore. I’m controversially the latter. Aesthetics aside, there are a lot of questions I have about the invention of this particular metal torture device, and I have opinions about how it might not be the best way to grow your tomatoes. In fact, there are a lot of things that can go wrong with your crops due to cage structure—increased pests and lower fruit production to start! 

It’s well known that the housing market is so competitive right now, but prospective home buyers aren’t the only ones hurting—renters are, too. According to personal finance website WalletHub, inflation has impacted rental prices, and 2022 saw the second-highest price growth in decades with a 6.2% year-over-year increase. 

Used for turning, driving and removing screws, a screwdriver is fundamental to most DIYtasks. A screwdriver is a length of shaped metal designed to fit into a specific screw size and shape, attached to a long shank and handle. However, it’s not quite as simple as it may seem. 

Tips for Best Foxgloves

With National Book Lovers Day approaching on Wednesday, 9 August, what better time for avid gardeners to dip their noses into a gardening book for all the inspiration and practical advice for their green spaces?

We aren’t all blessed with acres and acres of land. Most of us have to make do with a smal

No other plant native to South Carolina has such fragrant and beautiful spring blooms and stunning fall color as the witch-alders. Fothergilla was named after Dr. John Fothergill, an English physician and gardener who funded the travels of John Bartram through the Carolinas in the 1700’s. These beautiful shrubs have been planted in both American and English gardens for over 200 years, including gardens of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson.

With all those mums and pumpkins at garden centers and farmers markets, how can we select the best and make them last?

Not so many years ago, most nurseries only carried the old-fashioned classic we call Pee Gee, for H. paniculata ‘Grandiflora’ (above), with giant conical trusses of white flowers in July that fade to pink and tan as autumn approaches. Perhaps you have a tree form?  It’s the kind of plant often “inherited” along with older houses, and I love passing big ones at nearby farms and gardens at this time of year.Lately, though, as with so many other plants, there’s a proliferation of available cultivars of panicle hydrangeas, and I have tried many good ones: ‘Kyushu,’ ‘Pink Diamond,’ ‘Unique,’ ‘Limelight’ (an unusual recent color break with greenish flowers), and more that I cannot even bother to r

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