Author: Lee Reich
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Floral aromas a lure for insects
Wave after wave of scent has filled the air since my garden awakened in spring. Most prominent have been the aromas from daffodil blossoms, plum, flowering currant and now dame’s rocket, pinks and roses. Of course, it’s not for us that flowers waft those sometimes delectable aromas. Evolutionarily speaking, we don’t return the favor with…
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Eating organic: Plants like it too
To get the most out of any organic fertilizer, keep in mind how plants feed and how these fertilizers act in the soil. The bulk of a plant’s feeder roots — whether it’s a midget marigold or a mighty oak — lie just beneath the surface, so generally there is no need to dig fertilizer…
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How to turn a rosemary bush into a tree
Picture a little rosemary tree at your kitchen window, standing there upright and green as if in defiance to the wintry scene beyond the panes. This little tree offers more than decoration and winter cheer. Pass your hand lightly over the leaves, close your eyes and the scent will carry you to a sunbaked Mediterranean…
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Help light-starved houseplants get through the dark days of winter
Plants and people can’t help but feel a bit wan this time of year, but things are brightening up already. Every day the sun is gradually moving higher in the sky, burning with increasing intensity and duration. Light is measured in foot-candles – the amount of light cast on a square foot area by a…
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Subhead
If you had driven past my house in recent days, you might have thought you were watching a movie in reverse. There I was, opening trash bags, dumping out leaves and spreading them over the ground. These were bags left curbside for me by neighbors near and far. It does seem crazy, doesn’t it, gathering…
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Hormones help make new plants from cuttings
Take a look at new shoots growing on a favorite shrub or vine and you’ll see that the bases of these shoots may be beginning to toughen up, their once soft, green outer layer turning brown and woody. Such shoots, snipped from the mother plants as so-called half-woody cuttings, can be rooted to make new…
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Gonna go weedless? With work, you can
The first step in creating a ‘weedless ‘ garden is to stop turning over or tilling the ground. Buried in every soil are countless dormant weed seeds waiting to be awakened by exposure to light and/or air. Not tilling – whether with a shovel, garden fork or rototiller – keeps those seeds buried and dormant.…
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Get your planting shovel ready now
Fall planting of trees and shrubs might go against your grain. Fall is when you probably feel like closing down the garden, gathering the final harvests and snuggling plants in for the cold months ahead. Spring is when the urge to plant becomes irresistible, when most of us want to contribute to the symphony of…
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Lingonberry may be preferable to traditional cranberry — at least in the garden
Not to be unpatriotic, but another “cranberry” outshines our traditional Thanksgiving cranberry.This fruit, sometimes called mountain cranberry, partridgeberry or foxberry, is esteemed in other parts of the world. You may know it by its Scandinavian name, lingonberry, because that’s where it is most popular, with many thousands of tons harvested each year from the wild.Lingonberries…
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Lingonberry may be preferable to traditional cranberry — at least in the garden
Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save Not to be unpatriotic, but another “cranberry” outshines our traditional Thanksgiving cranberry.This fruit, sometimes called mountain cranberry, partridgeberry or foxberry, is esteemed in other parts of the world. You may know it by its Scandinavian…