Cucumbers can learn a new direction late in the growing season, and a fence can make a surprisingly useful trellis. The trick involves guiding the vines gently rather than treating them like unruly garden spaghetti that needs immediate discipline. If the plants still look healthy and continue producing new growth, redirecting the vines can help…
5 Plants That Can Fill Gaps Left by Tired Annuals
By late summer, some annuals look less like garden stars and more like they need a vacation. Petunias stretch, marigolds lose their swagger, and once-lush containers can develop suspicious-looking bare spots that seem to appear overnight. Instead of automatically buying another flat of annuals, gardeners can tuck in plants that offer lasting foliage, flowers, texture,…
Why Are Gardeners Pairing Roses With Drought-Tolerant Grasses?
Roses bring the drama, and drought-tolerant grasses bring the cool confidence. Put them together, and a garden bed suddenly looks less like a collection of individual plants and more like a thoughtfully designed landscape, with lush flowers rising above ribbons of foliage that move when the breeze wanders through. There is a practical reason for…
Should You Allow Volunteer Tomatoes to Keep Growing This Late?
Volunteer tomatoes have a funny habit of showing up without an invitation, planting themselves in the garden and then acting as though they own the place. By late summer, that once-cute surprise can turn into a serious question: should the plant keep growing, or should it get pulled before it becomes a tangled mess? The…
6 Ways to Reuse Bamboo Stakes Before Putting Them Away
Bamboo stakes rarely deserve a one-season retirement. Before tossing a bundle into the shed until next spring, gardeners can put those slender poles to work supporting plants, protecting seedlings, organizing garden spaces, and even helping with small outdoor projects. That matters because a bamboo stake can do far more than prop up a tomato. Its…
What Is the Best Way to Clean a Birdbath Without Harming Wildlife?
A clean birdbath gives backyard birds something far more valuable than a fancy garden accessory: dependable fresh water. The best cleaning method removes algae, droppings, grime, and potentially harmful germs without leaving behind soap, chemicals, or other residues that birds can ingest or spread through their feathers. The trick involves less chemistry and more consistency….
Can You Store Seed Potatoes From This Year’s Harvest?
Gardeners can store potatoes from this year’s harvest and plant them next season, but that does not make every potato in the harvest a good seed potato. The temptation makes perfect sense: a basket of beautiful homegrown tubers sits on the counter, and suddenly the grocery-store seed potato purchase looks completely unnecessary. The catch involves…
8 Crops That Can Be Harvested Well Into Chilly Weather
Summer does not get the final word in the vegetable garden. Several crops actually prefer the cooler conditions of fall, allowing gardeners to keep snipping, pulling, digging, and harvesting long after heat-loving tomatoes and peppers have called it a season. This involves choosing crops that tolerate cold and timing them so they reach useful size…
Why Are Your Leeks Thinner Than Pencils?
When leeks come out of the garden looking more like green drinking straws than sturdy vegetables, something has gone sideways. Those skinny stalks usually point to a growing problem involving timing, spacing, moisture, sunlight, soil, or some combination of the usual suspects. Thin leeks rarely require some mysterious gardener-only trick involving moon phases and a…
Are Ornamental Grasses Becoming the Backbone of Climate-Ready Gardens?
Are ornamental grasses becoming the backbone of climate-ready gardens? In many landscapes, the answer looks increasingly like a graceful clump of grass waving in the breeze while everything around it complains about heat, dry soil, or a sudden deluge. Tough ornamental grasses can handle a remarkable range of conditions, offer structure long after summer flowers…