Author: Amy
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Did I Lift My Dahlia Tubers too Early?
It’s midnight and I just got an email from Firefox with the subject “Keep that Weird Thing You Searched for Private.” Their bots must have detected my “weird” searches for “Did I lift my dahlia tubers too early,” “How do I find the eyes on my dahlia tubers,” “I think…
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Plant Profile: White Snakeroot
In mid-to-late October, you might see some ubiquitous tiny, white pompom flowers in a lot of part-shade woodland spots. It has probably popped up in your own garden. This is white snakeroot (Ageratina altissima) in the aster family. It was previously classified in the genus Eupatorium rugosum because of its…
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Late October: Time to Plant the Garlic!
Halloween always seems to come too early. I’m never ready for the orange and black dollar store trinkets when they start snarling up the landscape. But it is a harbinger of the all hallowed garlic planting season! Garlic is a pretty reliable and fun thing to plant. Someone I spoke…
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Plant Profile: Bronze Fennel
I have always been confused about fennel. I had it growing in a border years ago and watched it grow all summer to 6′ tall. I searched the base for the edible bulb, but it didn’t look at all as substantial as the fennel at the farmer’s market. I then…
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Building a Pollinator Corridor: Time Sink or Carbon Sink?
Often, when I am gardening in my front yard, I get a few comments from passersby and mail carriers about how much manual labor I have to do to keep my garden from exploding into a lethal liability. I get comments like, “You know, you could just mow it all…
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National Wildlife Federation: Get Certified
A while ago, we registered our yard for certification by the National Wildlife Federation. I did this for three reasons: 1) I wanted to normalize the act of conservation for my children. 2) I wanted to give my neighbors a visual statement that offered some explanation why my garden might…
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Comfrey: Chop and Drop or Liquefy
I inherited a yard with comfrey popping up everywhere. I knew you could chop and drop comfrey leaves as a mulch to surpress weeds, retain moisture, and add NPK to the garden soil, but Monty Don (England’s most revered gahdnah) informed me that you can make a comfrey tea in…
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Aster Yellows
I recently realized that all of my echinacea was infected with aster yellows. An odd-sounding bacterial(ish) disease spread by leaf hoppers! (And even more frustrating, the name is inexplicably plural). The bacterium causes the flower petals to lose their color and turn from pink to green. This greening is very…
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Fall is Seed Collecting Season
My garden is a leggy mess. The bee balm has powdery mildew. The irises, long spent, are prostrate on the ground like a haircut gone wrong. The hostas have died back to reveal every terrible thing I threw in that patch thinking they would dissolve or decay unnoticed (like that…
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Daffodil Goodie Bags for Fall Birthdays
I am always trying to figure out how to avoid the Dollar Store whenever I’m tasked with filling up the compulsory goodie bags for the endless school celebrations in the Fall. Birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving. It seems like we’re constantly throwing plastic trinkets at kids as a treat or reward. I…
Heart of the Garden 