May 30 2025
June is when the garden really starts to feel alive. Spring growth has filled in, warm-season vegetables are settling into their beds, flowers are beginning to peak, and weeds seem capable of appearing overnight. It is also a month when small tasks can make a big difference later in summer. A little weeding now can …
May 27 2025
There is something grounding about working with plants. Watering seedlings, pulling weeds, watching tomatoes ripen, or noticing the first flower on a plant you started from seed can provide small moments of focus and satisfaction. Gardening also gets us outdoors, encourages movement, and creates a routine tied to something living and changing. Research has increasingly …
May 24 2025
Companion planting is one of gardening’s most appealing ideas. Plant basil beside your tomatoes and pests disappear. Add marigolds and nematodes supposedly flee. Tuck in a few herbs and your tomatoes will somehow taste better. Some of those claims have been repeated for generations, but not all of them hold up particularly well when researchers …
May 20 2025
A garden full of bees is a garden full of activity. Bumble bees disappear into tubular flowers, tiny native bees gather pollen from blossoms most of us barely notice, and honey bees move methodically from one flower to the next. Those visits aren’t just pleasant signs of summer. Bees are among the world’s most important …
May 20 2025
Saving your morning coffee grounds for your houseplants sounds wonderfully efficient. Instead of throwing them away, you sprinkle them into a pot, give your plant an extra dose of nutrients, and supposedly watch it grow. Unfortunately, it isn’t quite that simple. Spent coffee grounds do contain organic matter and nutrients, including nitrogen, but that doesn’t …
May 19 2025
Growing an avocado tree from the pit left over from lunch is one of those gardening experiments that feels almost too easy to resist. Instead of tossing the seed into the compost, you can watch it split, produce a thick root, send up a green shoot, and gradually turn into a surprisingly attractive houseplant. You …
May 15 2025
Few flowers deliver quite as much drama as dahlias. Their blooms range from neat little pompons to enormous dinner-plate flowers, with colors spanning creamy white, buttery yellow, coral, pink, orange, red, burgundy, lavender, and nearly black. Even better, dahlias don’t give you just one brief show. With good care and regular flower picking, healthy plants …
May 12 2025
You don’t need a garden, potting soil, grow lights, or even much counter space to watch a handful of seeds turn into fresh green sprouts. A glass jar, water, a draining lid, and seeds intended for sprouting are enough to get started. Depending on the variety, many sprouts are ready within just a few days. …
May 11 2025
A bird-friendly yard can be much more than a place to hang a feeder. The most inviting backyards provide the same basic things birds look for in natural habitat: food, fresh water, shelter, safe places to rest, and, for some species, suitable places to nest. You do not need a huge property or an elaborate …
May 10 2025
Growing echinacea from seed takes more patience than bringing home a nursery-grown plant, but it is an inexpensive way to fill a sunny garden with these long-blooming North American perennials. Once established, coneflowers can return year after year, attracting bees and butterflies while their dried seed heads provide food for birds later in the season. …
