The fence running along your yard could be one of the most powerful pollinator habitats in your neighborhood. Most gardeners spend years perfecting their flower beds while a perfectly good trellis sits empty, a bare arbor collects cobwebs, and the chain-link along the back property line hosts nothing but bindweed. This year, there is a …

There is a shrub sold at nearly every garden center in America, marketed for its cheerful red berries and reputation for attracting birds. What most gardeners don’t know is that an exact plant can kill most birds within the hour. If you have it in your yard right now, this article is the most important …

Some of the plants most commonly sold at garden centers in spring are also the thirstiest. Impatiens, a staple of shady borders, need consistently moist soil and wilt dramatically in heat. Marigolds are sold as tough, no-fuss flowers, but they perform poorly in drought and require regular irrigation to stay full and blooming. Sweet corn …

Your joints ache, your knees protest, and somewhere along the way, someone told you that gardening was a young person’s game. That someone was wrong, and a University of Arkansas study of more than 3,300 women proves it. Researchers found that women over 50 who gardened at least once a week had higher bone density …

Most backyard bird feeders are not bird sanctuaries. They are, by nearly every measure that conservation biologists use, the fast food drive-through of the avian world: convenient for the customer, questionable in its health outcomes, and decidedly more beneficial to the franchise than to anyone it claims to serve. That may sound harsh, especially for …

Most people who say they “can’t garden” have never tried growing the right plants. They started with something fussy like a finicky heirloom tomato or a temperamental pepper and concluded that gardening just wasn’t for them. It wasn’t them. It was the plant. The truth is that a handful of vegetables are almost impossible to …

You have been watering them, deadheading them, dividing them, and replacing them after hard winters for years. And what have they given you in return? A beautiful garden for about six weeks, a stack of empty fertilizer bags, and a water bill that quietly climbs every July. The plants that fill most American yards were …

Most people picture xeriscaping as a gravel pit with one sad cactus gasping in the sun. That image has scared off more would-be converts than any water bill ever could. The truth is that the most stunning xeriscape gardens are dense, colorful, and alive with pollinators, and the plants that create that effect are so …

Every spring, gardeners across the country load their carts with bags of compost at the garden center, spending $15-$30 or more per raised bed without a second thought. It feels like the responsible thing to do. What most of those gardeners don’t realize is that several of the most effective soil amendments available are already …

Every summer, millions of homeowners dump bag after bag of fertilizer onto their lawns, run their sprinklers faithfully, and still watch the grass turn brown. The secret most of them never learn is that their soil pH is off, which means the nutrients are being chemically locked out of the grass roots before they ever …