Cleanup Time Re-Starts in Veggie Garden Warmer weather, even if it’s not all that warm, makes me feel like spring is just around the corner. The ground — in my vegetable beds, at least — isn’t even frozen, no doubt because water doesn’t linger long in the well-drained soil and because the dark-colored compost blanket […]
Flower, You Hoya I probably shouldn’t admit this, but some plants suffer much neglect in my hands. My aloe, for example, has occasionally gone a whole year without a drop of water. Hoya, also known as wax plant or Hindu rope plant, is another of my neglected plants. This plant is about 25 years old […]
Breaking (Pruning) Rules Snow squall or not, I just had to get outside. Not enough snow for a cross-country ski, but, after too much time indoors, I had to do something outside. I was driven to break a fundamental rule of the garden. I pruned, and that’s a no-no. Pruning is best delayed until at […]
Scale Attack Beginning! As if to ring in the new year, scale insects are starting to make their presence known. These insects crawl around as babies, find nourishing spots on leaves or stems, insert their feeding tubes, and then spend their days sucking plant juice. Carbohydrates and sugars are what result when sunlight and chlorophyll […]
An Easy Orchid Orchids are one group of plants I’ve regularly sidestepped. It seemed to me that if you grew orchids, you became crazed over orchids, to the exclusion of other plants. You then fill your home with as many of the over 20,000 species as you can cram onto your windowsills. I feared being […]
Learn about a way of watering that increases productivity, saves water, lessens diseases, and is easily automated. I’ll be holding a DRIP IRRIGATION WORKSHOP in Philadelphia on January 19, 2017 @ 6pm at PHS Town Hall, 100 North 20th Street (20th and Arch streets), first floor. The workshop is free.
Figs (Cuttings) Galore!! Cold weather and short days have put a not totally unwelcome lull in the gardening year. Nonetheless, I wander into the greenhouse occasionally just to drink in the sight and smell of lush greenery suffused in warmth and humidity, and to pull some weeds. The figs in there could use some pruning; they are […]
A Good Harvest, But . . . The black walnut harvest was abundant this past fall. Back in October, we gathered about a dozen 5-gallon buckets of of unhusked nuts, and, after husking, cleaning and drying them, set them in the cool, dry, squirrel-proof loft of our garage/barn (gabarn?). The nuts are now sufficiently […]
I Grow A Ponytail A friend gave me a ponytail palm (Beaucarnea recurvata) decades ago, and up to this summer it looked something like a palm tree sitting atop a large onion. Or a long-leafed dracena plant whose stem, near ground level, had swollen almost to the size of a bowling ball. The plant looked […]
Not Green Enough I’m looking up at my green roof, my evergreen roof, and it’s not green enough. Literally. I had expected that by now the roof would be solid green. It’s not. The green of this roof was supposed to come from the plants growing on it. Because conditions up on the roof are […]
