DINNERPLATE DAHLIAS, AND MORE
Flowers are the ephemerals of the garden. The plants vanish without a trace at the end of each season, so you would hardly think them worth pruning during their brief stay. Still, pruning can help make more flowers, as well as either make the plants bushier or increase the size of individual flowers. So grab your hand shears and sharpen your thumbnail and let’s go for a stroll among the flowers.
Dahlia, Kelvin Floodlight
A Single Pinch’ll Do It
Pinching out the tips of growing stems stops, at least temporarily, their growth, in so doing coaxing growth of side shoots. The result: bushier plants. Even though plants Read more
ENOUGH WATER?
Delusion
Although you water your plants with the best of intentions, whether by drowsily spritzing your tomato leaves with spray from a hose or by sloshing buckets of water beneath your roses, your efforts might be ineffective. One way to judge this is to scratch the surface of the ground right after you water. Don’t be surprised if the ground bone dry an eighth of an inch deep.
Because feeder roots of plants are mostly in the top foot of soil, that is the depth of soil to be moist. Read more
WEATHERING CHANGES
Exact Planting Dates . . . Ha!
In my first book, A Northeast Gardener’s Year, published 35 years ago, I described various goings on in my garden month to month. What topics made it to each month’s pages was left to the “whims and vagaries of the weather and the weeds, the unfolding of blossoms and the ripening of fruits, perhaps the cry of a plant begging to be repotted as it pushed its roots through holes in the bottom of its container.”
At that time, with almost 20 years of gardening experience under my belt (as well as graduate degrees and research in agriculture), I figured I had some idea of what was going on beyond the garden gate. Like the weather, for instance, Read more
