Author: Dean Fosdick
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Fun, incentives can encourage kids to be gardeners
If you think it’s hard getting kids to eat their vegetables, wait until you try recruiting them for garden work. But the challenge is worth it: Children just might add more healthy foods to their diet if they’ve grown them themselves. “If a child grows herbs or vegetables, they will try them at least once,”…
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Learning to read nature’s cues can help a gardener
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Phenology is the science of appearances, or knowing which plants can tell you when to start weeding, planting, fighting insects or tackling any other gardening priority. Once the forsythia begins to bloom, for instance, it’s…
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Learning to read nature’s cues can help a gardener
Phenology is the science of appearances, or knowing which plants can tell you when to start weeding, planting, fighting insects or tackling any other gardening priority. Once the forsythia begins to bloom, for instance, it’s time to renew your war against crabgrass. When to fertilize the lawn? Think apple blossoms falling. Time to set out…
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Foundation means everything in a rock garden
Choosing the right rocks can be as much fun as selecting plants when you’re building a rock garden.Stones create protective wind and sun barriers, and pockets of moisture for small, low-growing alpine flowers. Meanwhile, they are contributing tones and textures all their own.”The first line in the ‘Sakuteiki,’ the oldest and most respected treatise on…
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Vegetables take center stage in fall decorating
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Fall is a busy time for decorating, second only to Christmas, and the period when vegetables are valued more for their beauty than their flavor.Back when America was largely rural, bringing in the harvest was…
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Vegetables take center stage in fall decorating
Fall is a busy time for decorating, second only to Christmas, and the period when vegetables are valued more for their beauty than their flavor.Back when America was largely rural, bringing in the harvest was cause for celebration. Corn stalks were bundled into “fodder shocks” — stalks, ears, tassels and all — and stacked upright…
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Flower bulbs make ‘box lunch’ for garden pests
Bulbs are perfect, self-contained packages for gardeners. They’re equipped with everything necessary to make flowers grow and bloom.Problem is, that makes them a prize for predators, too.“The perfect lunch box,” said Leonard Perry, an extension professor with the University of Vermont. “Put them in the ground this fall and I guarantee you the plant pests…
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Flower bulbs make a ‘box lunch’ for garden pests
Bulbs are perfect, self-contained packages for gardeners. They’re equipped with everything necessary to make flowers grow and bloom. Problem is, that makes them a prize for predators, too. “The perfect lunch box,” said Leonard Perry, an extension professor with the University of Vermont. “Put them in the ground this fall and I guarantee you the…
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Shrubs work well as ‘furniture’ for the yard
Blooms may be losing some luster among cash-strapped gardeners weeding out nonessential spending. A practical option is investing in an assortment of low-risk, high-return shrubs.Few plants can return so much for so little attention as shrubs, which are long-lasting, colorful, cold-hardy, fast-growing, drought-tolerant, pest-resistant and utilitarian, and also deliver multi-season interest.“They’re really great green furniture…
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History and horticulture mix in garden cemeteries
Part history, part horticulture. That’s the allure of thousands of garden cemeteries across America that were designed to serve the spiritual needs of the living as well as keep alive memories of the dead.Mixing monuments with attractive landscapes, they may include ponds, walkways, woodlands and wildlife. Family plots encircled by ironwork rest snugly against paupers’…