the best of the sedges, and how to use them (even mown!), with sam hoadley

The spotted lanternfly (Lycorma delicatula) (SLF) is the latest non-native species to take hold in the U.S. This planthopper is large (about a half-inch long) and originally from several countries in the Far East. It was first found in Pennsylvania in 2014, and active infestations are now established in Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, and as of just last week, North Carolina. SLF has not been detected in South Carolina, but it is an insect for which we need to be on the lookout.

Tom Stearns is founder of High Mowing Organic Seeds in Vermont, with more than 20 years specializing in breeding, selecting and marketing of organic varieties. From microgreens indoors to baby-leaf to mini-heads and up to full-sized heads in the garden, we talked about timing, spacing and making lettuce happy—even which types hold up best in the heat (and ways to help all lettuce do better when summer arrives).Read along as you listen to the Jan. 14, 2019 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).success with lettuce, with tom stearnsQ. Over the years on the show you and I have talked about tomato h

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

Brushwood Nursery, aka gardenvines [dot] com, was founded in 1998 in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, out of a Lord and Burnham greenhouse Dan rented for $5 a year plus upkeep. (Such a deal!) Dan, a University of Delaware horticulture graduate, used to teach at nearby Longwood Gardens and worked with Conard-Pyle, where he got fluent in the propagation of Clematis, which most nurseries call “a nuisance crop,” he says, with their particular trimming schedules and rambunctious intertwining tendencies.Enter a business opportunity: a high dollar-per-square-foot greenhouse crop, and one that not everyone is good at–enter Brushwood. He started selling vines over eBay, eventually launching his own website, and recently outgrew the climate and space in Pennsylvania and moved to Athens, Georgia.The Brushwood collection now numbers more than 500 climbers, with Clematis as the main event—including ‘Omoshiro,’ top photo, which may be the first large-flowered one I ever buy (it’s more than 7 inches across, and fragrant). There are climbing roses, jasmines, passionflowers and more–but let Dan tell

IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR: Everybody’s got an Urgent Garden Question (or 20!). What better place to ask them than in person at one of my upcoming events? The car and I start another run starting tomorrow morning with an appearance at my favorite plant sale, Trade Secrets in Sharon, Connecticut, before we head north for Manchester Center, Vermont, for an evening lecture (whoosh)! And there many other stops in the weeks ahead, too—including a much-overdue one at the historic home of The Fabulous Beekman Boys and their adorable goats:Saturday, May 14, 9-11 AM: Garden Q&A’s and book signing at Trade Secrets, Sharon, CT.

A little about Michael:“That’s Michael Dodge,” I say, when I show people around the fall garden, as we pass a large group of show-offy, yellow-fruited Viburnum I enjoy all fall into winter. V. dilatatum ‘Michael Dodge’ is truly a standout plant.But the original Michael Dodge, the one that great shrub was named to honor, is a well-

Kate Spring, and her husband, Edge Fuentes, founded Good Heart Farmstead in Vermont in 2013, which serves up to 100 customers each season who subscribe to their CSA share program. Their farm is a hybrid business structure called an L3C, a low-profit, limited-liability company, where part of the mission is to support Vermonters in need of food access.Kate’s also a writer and the only person I know with her very own brand new yurt, which I couldn’t wait to hear about after having seen it be constructed on her Instagram.Read along as you listen to the December 14, 2020 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).mastering microgree

FEBRUARYMonday, February 13, 11:30 AM: lecture for Farmington Garden Club Founders’ Fund Celebration meeting, at Hill-Stead Museum Makeshift Theater, 35 Mountain Road, Farmington, CT; free admission.Saturday, February 25, 1 PM: lecture for Germantown Public Library, Germantown, NY, at 31 Palatine Park Road.MARCHThursday, March 1, 9:30 AM: lecture for Pleasantville Garden Club, in the social hall at Presbyterian Church, 400 Bedford Road, Pleasantville, NY.We

In the early 1990s, when I was working on a book called “The Natural Habitat Garden” with my friend Ken Druse, we traveled the country interviewing native-plant enthusiasts and photographing their gardens. One memorable stop was the home of Mrs. Lammot du Pont Copeland, outside Wilmington, which today is the botanic garden called Mt. Cuba Center, with more than 50 acres of display gardens on more than 500 acres of natural land.I’d never seen native terrestrial orchids before, or the vivid red and yellow wildflower called Spigelia marilandica anywhere, and that day I learned that some discerning and forward-thinking experts such as Mt. Cuba’s first horticulture director, the great Dick Lighty, were already busy selecting “better” forms of native plants for garden use–a trend that has accelerated and become one of the hottest areas of contemp

WITH A NEW BOOK TO SHARE, my traditional winter event season kicks off with extra vigor—just as I hope the garden will in its time. I’ll be in Darien, Connecticut (January 8th); Madison, Connecticut (the 19th); Millerton, New York (the 20th); Manchester, Vermont (the 26th); Cohasset, Massachusetts (the 27th) and Newton Highlands, Massachusetts (the 30th).

Read along as you listen to the June 26, 2107 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).evaluating monarda with george coombs of mt. cubaQ. We’ve talked before on the show about your past trials of other native plants like Baptisia and Heuchera—and native plants are the mission of Mt. Cuba, which is both a garden for visiting and a research center, right?A. Mt. Cuba Center is actually a former du Pont family estate, the Copeland family estate, and they left their estate to become a public garden. What kind of sets us apart from others in the area is that we focus on native plants. We broadly define our nativity region as the Eastern United States.We do a lot of work promoting plants in a display capacity in the gardens itself, and then we also do research like what I do, trying to help

Jeff is Director of Grounds and Coordinator of Horticulture at Scott and Swarthmore, where among the extensive and diverse plantings is a whole Tree Peony Garden area, one of the first collections established after Scott was founded in 1929 and now including more than 80 varieties of tree peonies. He is also vice-president of the Mid-Atlantic Peony Society.Why consider these plants? Tree peonies are deer-resistant, extremely cold-tolerant, long-lived and really don’t require a lot of complicated pruning. And oh, those flowers (that’s one of Jeff’s favorites, ‘Nike,’ up top.).Read along as you listen to the April 10, 2107 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Spotify or St