Those gnarly surface roots snaking through your yard aren’t going anywhere, and cutting them could cost you the entire tree. The good news is that hiding them well is easier than you think, and a few of these fixes will actually make your yard more beautiful than before. Surface roots are one of the most …
Gardening
American lawns cover roughly 40 million acres of land, an area about the size of New England, and the vast majority of that acreage supports almost no wildlife at all. We spend billions maintaining these green monocultures every year, and in ecological terms, they give almost nothing back. If that bothers you even a little, …
Most people spend over $100 on their first container garden and watch everything die within six weeks. Not because they lack a green thumb or because container gardening is hard, but because they make the same three fixable mistakes that no garden center will warn them about before ringing up the sale. These failures feel …
Before you plant a single squash seed, make sure that your garden isn’t missing something important. Squash has been grown in communities for centuries, thanks to the Indigenous farming system known as the Three Sisters: corn, beans, and squash planted together in a living ecosystem where each plant supports the others. What those farmers understood …
The annual gardening cycle is expensive, time-consuming, and, when you step back and look at it, a little absurd. You buy seeds or starts, raise them through a season, and then watch them die. Next spring, you do it all over again. Perennial food plants break that cycle entirely. As Eric Toensmeier writes in Perennial …
Every trip to the nursery carries the same risk: bringing home a problem disguised as a plant. A single infested specimen can introduce spider mites or scale insects to every healthy plant in your garden. A root-bound tree can look fine for two years, then fail slowly and expensively once those circling roots begin to …
Your garden is half empty right now, and every day you leave it that way is costing you money. Most gardeners assume that once July hits, planting season is over. The tomatoes are in, the peppers are growing, and the rest of the beds sit bare until next April. That assumption is the single most …
A popular shade-loving perennial plant, hostas (Hosta spp.) come in multiple cultivars and some spectacular colors. If you love an eye-catching garden foliage plant, you can’t go wrong with planting some hostas. Once you have decided which hostas you will grow, it’s time to determine which plants would be best suited to grow alongside them …
Did you know you can grow nutrient-packed superfoods right outside your door? You might have considered starting a garden for cost savings or fun, but what about all the nutritional benefits of growing produce in your yard? It’s no secret that homegrown produce is more nutritious than store-bought options because it’s harvested at peak ripeness. …
When creepy crawlies find their way into your home, grabbing a shoe or a bottle of bug spray is a natural response. But what should you do if they’re in your garden? Spraying them with a stream of poison may not be the best solution. Even if you’re not a fan of bugs, some insects …