‘the naturalist’s notebook,’ with nathaniel wheelwright

Virginia copperleaf is a tall, branched summer annual that can grow three feet tall. It takes its name from the copper colored leaves of its late summer color. This weed is a North American native that is found from Maine to Georgia and as far west as Texas and north to South Dakota. It is a member of the spurge family and is poisonous, but it does not have the milky sap that is typical of other family members. The simple leaves are oppositely arranged on the stems when the plant is a young seedling, but they change to an alternate arrangement as the weed matures.

Are you frustrated because there are dandelions and other weeds in your lawn? Did you know that dandelion flowers provide one of the first springtime sources of pollen for bees, butterflies, and other pollinating insects?

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

MY GARDENING LIFE STARTED with a hedge—cutting one back hard, specifically. It was the threadbare, tall old privet surrounding my childhood home, and I was determined to “rejuvenate” it, after reading about the process in a book. No artful hedge has ever been created by my hands, though—a fact that feels all the more lamentable after watching Sean Conway’s video tour (above) of designer and nurseryman Piet Oudolf’s garden in the Netherlands. What magic.

BESIDES OUR SOMEWHAT OFFKILTER HUMOR, Andre Jordan and I have another thing in common: We not so long ago each headed for the hills. (Wait, are there even hills in Nebraska?)

I have been known to plant spinach in my mittens, actually, as late as Thanksgiving, and again as early as March if the raised beds have drained out and the soil is workable. Seeds sown from September until the ground freezes up, then topped with a floating row cover, will offer a real headstart of a harvest in the North in April, when much

In the fall of 2016, Dr. Connally won a $1.6 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control to fund a four-year study, in coordination with the University of Rhode Island, to gauge the effectiveness of various tick control methods in the areas around people’s homes. She’ll tell us more about the angles being pursued, and also about self-care topics, from treated clothing to the use of topical repellents and more.Read along as you listen to the Dec. 11, 2017 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).backyard tick research, with dr. neeta connallyQ. A little context first: You’re in the Northeast, where a lot of the cases of Lyme in the United States occur, but there are multiple tick species around the nation. You

FIRST, A LITTLE SCIENCE LESSON: Fungi don’t have chlorophyll, so they cannot make their own food (like plants do), nor can they ingest it (like animals), except through absorption from their surrounding environment. Most fungi are saprophytes, meaning they feed on dead or decaying material, like the leaf litter of the forest floor—or the debris in your compost heap. Their second critical role: Most of the plant kingdom depends on symbiotic fungi called mycorrhizae, which inhabit the plants’ roots, to live. (Thank you for patiently listening to that.)I MADE PIZZA THE OTHER DAY (no, not a mushroom pizza), something I do a lot from scratch, and when the yeast acted oddly I did what any 21st century human does: I looked for an explanation online. I still don’t know what caused my yeast to misbehave, but here’s what I learned: The kind of yeast you bake with (or make beer or champagne with) are unicellular fungi, technically sp

‘Hot Summer’ (a 2010 release, but new to my garden this spring from Klehm’s Song Sparrow Farm) is one of an impressive selection of recent Echinacea hybrids that seem to be getting better and better, almost insisting that I wake up to coneflowers again and make some room.  It was discovered in the nursery of Marco van Noort, a Dutch breeder, in 2007.The most exciting thing about ‘Hot Summer’ (Zone 4-9; 30-36 inches tall) is that yesterday the flower in the top photo was another fiery shade altogether. Each 4 1/2-inch flower opens yellow-orange and passes through an aging process to deep red, so once you have a lot of flowers you can have the whole fiery spectrum on the plant at once (ca

John, whose dramatic and delicious purple ‘Dragon’ carrot is bright orange inside, was reassuring as ever. First, don’t feel bad, he said. “Carrots are one of the harder vegetables to grow,” confirms John (with flowering carrots in an OSA photo, above), and for a few reasons:They’re such small plants when they first sprout (the seed isn’t too big, either; I like to use pelleted, shown below, and there are now pelleted ones that meet organic certification requirements).To get really good quality you need “unchecked growth”—no obstacles either literal (like rocky or otherwise tough soil) or meteorological (extremes of heat, cold or especially dryness). “Succulence and flavor wi

But wreathmaking is serious business at Broken Arrow, the Hamden, Connecticut, rare-plant nursery that had its roots as a Christmas tree farm—and still does a big holiday business in trees. In keeping with Broken Arrow’s take on plants in general, unusual is better. No plain old, plain old wreaths here. I thought sharing some of Andy’s photos might provide all of us gardeners with inspiration to get out into the garden and collect some goodies, and perhaps embellish a basic evergreen wreath ourselves. (Plus, get details of their wreath-making workshops if you’re nearby.)“It’s Broken Arrow’s 68t

Your Urgent Garden Questions have been arriving in blog comments, on Facebook, and in emails, and we’ve rounded up the most representative ones to tackle today, in the monthly Q&A episode of the program. (All past editions of our Q&As together are at this link.)Ken, an award-winning garden photographer and author of more books than I can count, including “The New Shade Garden” and “Making More Plants,” produced his own “Real Dirt” podcast for 10 years, all available on KenDruse dot com (and on iTunes, too).Let’s dig right in:Read along as you listen to the April 24, 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).Oh, an