Practical guidance on soil, watering, pruning, seasonal work, pests, and keeping plants healthy in real garden conditions.
By October, the visible garden starts behaving as if the year is almost filed away. Leaves thin out. Annuals lose their nerve. The tomato vines look tired, the border gets looser at the edges, and the first serious leaf rake begins to sound reasonable. But the garden has a poor sense of human endings. Above ground, many plants are slowing…
A spotless October garden has excellent public relations. The stems are gone. The leaves are bagged. The beds are shaved down to mulch and labels. From the sidewalk, it looks responsible, almost moral, as if the gardener has defeated decay itself and sent it away in kraft paper sacks. Here is the irritating truth: a garden that clean is often…
Read more about Your spotless fall garden is not the virtue you think it is
Slice an apple from stem to blossom end and it behaves the way apples usually behave in kitchens: two shoulders, a pale core, a neat place for the knife to pass. Slice it across the middle instead, and the fruit shows a different map. In the center is a small star, five little rooms arranged around a point, each one…
There is a particular kind of September energy that makes gardeners dangerous. The tomatoes are tired. The borders are shaggy. The paths are disappearing under late growth. Suddenly the pruners feel like a reasonable answer to everything. Then comes the satisfying cut. A lilac gets rounded. A forsythia gets shortened. A bigleaf hydrangea is made tidy for fall. The shrub…
Read more about The September pruning mistake that can erase next spring’s flowers
By August, a pepper plant can look as if it has misplaced its calendar. The fruit is full sized. The shoulders are glossy. The plant has done the hard work of flowering, setting fruit, and swelling those green walls into something that already feels like a harvest. Then the gardener waits for red, and the pepper seems to consider the…
In late May, a foxglove spike can look as though it is keeping two calendars at once. The lowest bells are open, freckled, and deep enough for a bumblebee to disappear into. Halfway up the stem, the flowers are still folded tubes. At the tip, a queue of green buds waits, as if the plant is saving tomorrow’s color for…
In the soft weather of May, ferns can make a shaded bed look as if it has invented a new kind of spring. One week there is only leaf litter, damp soil, and the brown remains of last year’s stems. Then little green scrolls rise from the crown, tucked inward like the heads of violins, each one holding a whole…
Read more about Why fern fiddleheads unroll instead of unfolding
In late April, a bed of young greens can look perfect at breakfast and peppered by lunch. The arugula leaves are still bright and tender. The mustard seedlings are standing. The radish tops look cheerful. But every leaf has acquired tiny round holes, as if someone spent the morning tapping them with a miniature paper punch. The damage is so…
Late April is when spring bulbs start to lose the argument with taste. A daffodil that looked almost heroic two weeks ago now has a collapsed flower head, a papery stem, and a thick fountain of leaves leaning over the path. Tulips drop their petals and leave behind cups of green foliage that seem to take up more space than…
A good spring radish should feel almost impossible for something so quick: crisp, juicy, sharp enough to wake up a salad, and gone from seed to harvest before slower vegetables have settled into their stride. Then, some years, the first bite is a disappointment. The root looks fine from the outside, but inside it is dry, spongy, woody, or hollow.…
