Sometimes a tree becomes a hazard This is the time of year I prefer to take down any trees that have died or become a hazard in the garden. I say “prefer” because sometimes you don’t have the luxury of waiting. I experienced this last year when a large tree lodged over as a result of heavy rains...

Nothing in a nursery catalog catches my attention more than the word “new.” This term is usually applied to a plant that is new to the U.S. market, either as a new release from breeders, a wild plant recently brought into cultivation, or a plant already established on the overseas markets. And,...

The itch to garden I’m not there yet, but I know I’ll start getting the planting bug once the garden catalogs start arriving in the mail. I have developed several criteria a plant must have before I even consider acquiring it for my garden though. Cold hardiness Heat tolerance Somewhat...

Unlike the other plants in my garden, turf grass has always struggled to get my attention. Compared to my knowledge of food crops and herbaceous perennials, I know next to nothing about turf grasses…and I would prefer to keep it that way. Some would find that hard to believe, but it’s true....

Evidently every day this summer I deemed too hot to work in the garden was just another day for the weeds to celebrate and use their heat-miser advantage over me to grow and multiply. As a result, I am now spending most of my gardening time attempting to catch up on weeding in an effort to go into...

I admire the knowledge of plant biologists, especially that group of expert botanists who make me feel like a novice in comparison…those are the people I love to hang around with at any given opportunity to improve my own skills and knowledge. Every time I look up a plant description, a little...

When you collect plants, it is rather useful to label and record everything added to the garden. I wish I had started sooner. I did not do this the first few years of starting my current garden, so many of my oldest plants are unknown down to cultivar and remain unlabeled. After a few years, I...

How perfect for Punxsutawney Phil to predict six more weeks of winter on the day when snow was falling heavily in the St Louis Metropolitan. School would have been cancelled when and where I grew up in Indiana on a day like that. But because of COVID-19, snow days for students are coming to be a...

One of my many pleasures from gardening is watching the garden develop and change over the course of a season. It never ceases to amaze me how stark, yet beautiful the landscape is in its winter rest. With the leaves gone, the beautiful bark and limb structure of the trees and shrubs is completely...

Hard to believe but the median date for the first frost is just around the corner, and I still have lots to do in the garden. Last year the first freeze occurred on October 5, so I know it can happen any time now.  Number one on my mind is the overwintering of tender plants I plan to protect...

Past mistakes seem to come back and bite you. When I started planting my garden nearly 19 years ago, I didn’t think to keep a master list of my plants mainly because I didn’t know then how much I would come to rely on it for accurately identified photo images. For the first five years, I just...

It’s not until their dainty little blooms appear that I can more easily differentiate a patch of Dutchman’s breeches (Dicentra cucularia) from a patch of squirrel corn (Dicentra canadensis). The flowers of Dutchman’s breeches are often described as looking like “a pair of white pants hanging by...

My pink dawn viburnum (Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’) took a hit this past February when low temperatures dropped to minus zero for several days, just as it was budding out. I thought for sure all the blooms were toast, but upon inspection, I see some surviving petals still making a show....

When it’s below freezing outside, I have the option of just coming inside where it’s warm. Plants on the other hand can’t, so instead have evolved amazing adaptations over millennia to survive prolonged sub-freezing temperatures. Plants definitely differ in how much cold they can take, so ratings...

Recently I noticed some of my winter-blooming hellebores (Helleborus spp.) are already adorned with flower buds, which is about a month early for my garden site.  I don’t think I have ever had a “Christmas Rose” in bloom by Christmas?  If Mother Nature doesn’t freeze them out, a winter...

What comes to mind when you think of your garden or the landscape in the fall? Not including all the work gardeners do in preparation for the coming winter, sit back and just meditate on all the things you associate with fall. My list was amazingly long and looking at it as a whole, it brought a...

It’s that time of year when eastern white pines (Pinus strobus) start dropping older needles, resulting in a new layer of sound-cancelling padding under trees. The sight of so many browning needles can be alarming though if you are not wise to the true meaning of evergreen. In general,...

Hard to believe it’s just four weeks out from the St Louis area’s first median frost date (~October 10), so prepping outdoor perennial container plants for over-wintering has moved higher up on my priority to-do list.  Some are hardy perennials that I just planted in large containers with the...

I really can’t say enough bad things about mulberryweed, a.k.a. hairy crabweed (Fatoua villosa). For me, it has been a weed nightmare that come in on a load of mulch about 10 years ago, and every year since has been a battle to control because I didn’t recognize it for what it was and take...

There are just some native plants you just don’t want to cultivate near well-traveled paths, and most especially if you have a dog. I ’m talking about native plants that have developed a seed dispersal method that involves hitching a ride on any animal passing by. Just a few that I regularly...

Not all the garden plants in my jungle are polite. Skullcap (Scutellaria spp.), Solomon’s seal (Polygonatum spp.), green dragon (Pinellia tripartite), bell flowers (Campanula spp.), field scabiosa (Knautia arvensis), salvia (Salvia spp.),...

When you have a lot of any one thing, it’s sometimes hard to choose a single favorite, but in the case of tall bearded iris, ‘Edenite’ is the one I most look forward to every season.  Described as sooty red-black with brown beards, this historical 1958 release is still a crowd pleaser. ...

Hellebores with their leathery palmate leaves add a much needed touch of green to the winter garden, but by spring the older leaves are starting to look rather rough around the edges, distracting from the floral display.  As soon as new growth begins to appear in late winter or early spring,...

Who doesn’t recognize a daffodil on sight, even with their myriad of forms and colors?  ‘February Silver’ is always the first to bloom in my jungle, and it never fails to elicit that thrill of excitement that spring is definitely on its way!  I drove by a motivational sign recently that...

Like this time last year, my jungle still has the look of winter sleep, but a few plants are starting to stir, some more than others.  As expected, the buds are swelling on Cornelian cherry dogwood (Cornus mas) and my fragrant dawn viburnum (Viburnum bodnantense ‘Dawn’) has broken bud…more on...

Ever notice how beautiful henbit and purple deadnettle bloom can be when viewed from afar, though much less so when viewed up close in your own garden?  Both are classified as winter annual weeds, meaning they complete their life cycle in one year, but instead of germinating in the early...