Why You Shouldn't Buy Ladybugs for Natural Pest Control in Your Garden

Sometimes, we want to refresh our clothes and linens beyond just setting a normal washing machine cycle.

Have you ever thought about installing a pond in your garden? A pond can offer numerous advantages and serves more purposes than just being a decorative feature. Whether you have a spacious garden or a modest area, a pond can be a valuable addition. Here are five reasons why your garden might benefit from having a pond:

Even if you aren't fortunate enough to live next to a meadow of wildflowers, you can still capture their untamed beauty in a container or garden this summer by planting cosmos. Cosmos come in various colors, from burgundy to pink to white. Mix them up for a more natural look, like a wildflower meadow. Bonus: this colorful flower, native to tropical America, attracts birds and butterflies with its cheery blooms. Because of their wildflower characteristics, cosmo flowers are considered invasive in some environments. Cosmos are prime not only for containers but for creating a mass of color in borders or backgrounds or as a filler among shrubs.

How to Establish a Monarch Waystation in Your Garden Help monarch butterflies by providing essential nectar and host plants in your own Monarch Waystation. The amazing monarch butterfly journey

Given how pricey they are in the market, growing this fruit may seem challenging! But with attention to a few details, it’s fairly easy and super rewarding! Homegrown fresh blueberries are a delight, especially when you have endless buckets to relish. Follow these tricks to double your blueberry harvest in containers or your garden!

Header image: Cilantro seedlings grown in 100% recycled glass material. Image credit: Andrea Quezada

Ladybugs, or lady beetles, are insects in the beetle family. There are about 5,000 species of these tiny insects, and most of them are quite helpful. Although best known as a red insect with black spots, ladybugs come in a variety of colors, and some have stripes or no markings at all.

There is no way to sugarcoat the challenges many of us in the Mid-Atlantic region have faced this summer. The inconsistency of rainfall and the extreme high temperatures have greatly impacted our efforts to garden successfully. Even with valiant efforts to apply supplemental irrigation, I have witnessed a wide range of plant material showing signs of drought stress that I have rarely witnessed in my 15-plus years of gardening in this region. To say it is cause for concern would be an understatement. As a result, in the last few months I have been repeatedly asked how we can prepare our beloved gardens to reduce heat and moisture stress for future growing seasons. One answer to this conundrum is to add organic matter to the soil in the form of compost.

Growers in cold climates often utilize various approaches to extend the growing season or boost their crops, including cold frames, hoop houses, and greenhouses. Greenhouses—typically glazed structures— are often expensive to construct and heat throughout the winter. But, they have their benefits, which is why underground greenhouses can be viable alternatives.

Native plants, as the name indicates, grow naturally in an area or region. There is a growing shift among many people away from a manicured garden with non-local species in support of more natural areas, and especially, for embracing native plants.

Happy Monday GPODers!

The best ground covers are multi-purpose workhorses, suppressing weeds, preventing soil erosion, and adding another level of interest to garden beds. Naturally, we’d prefer them not to be invasive, and to look good over a long season. But why do so many gardeners seem to fall back on the same few choices? In this episode, Danielle, Carol, and expert guest Amanda Thomsen cover new ground in their quest to expand the definition of what a ground cover can be. Whether it’s a tough but underused North American native, a cheeky little annual, or an unusual self-seeding edible, we hope you will find something unexpected but garden-worthy in this episode.