Reblooming hydrangeas flower on old wood and new wood, so a late frost or a heavy pruning session does not wipe out the season’s display. These remontant bigleaf hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla) start blooming in early summer and repeat through fall, giving cold-climate gardeners a show that traditional bigleaf types cannot match. Hardy to USDA zone […]
The London planetree (Platanus × acerifolia), also called the London plane or maple leaved plane tree, is a large deciduous tree that became the default street tree of the modern city. It shrugs off pollution, compacted soil, and temperatures down to -20°F, and once established it adds several feet of height every year. Before you
Chinese silver grass (Miscanthus sinensis) is a clump-forming ornamental grass that adds motion, texture, and late-season color to gardens of nearly every size. Native to eastern Asia, it sends up feathery plumes from late summer into fall and keeps its arching blades standing through winter, when the seed heads catch frost and low sun. Cultivars
A garden trellis is a framed support that trains climbing plants to grow upward instead of spreading across the ground. Builders and gardeners make them from wood, wire, wrought iron, copper, or PVC, and the same structure that holds a tomato plant can also screen a utility meter, shade a patio, or mark the entrance
Leggy houseplants are among the most common problems indoor gardeners face, and the cause is usually simple: the plant is stretching toward light it cannot reach. Stems grow long, leaves spread far apart, and the whole plant looks thin and unbalanced. The fix follows a familiar sequence: diagnose the cause, change the inputs, and let
Spring planting may feel distant in the middle of winter, but unseasonably warm days create real opportunities to work in the garden. How much you can do depends on your climate and the condition of your beds, yet five tasks pay off almost everywhere: clearing debris, pruning at the right time, discouraging rodent pests, working
Voles are small rodents that can chew through a yard in a season, leaving surface runways, gnawed tree bark, and spongy turf where their tunnels collapse. They are often mistaken for moles, but the damage pattern is different, and so is the control strategy. A vole problem is also a soil problem: burrows and runways
When the seed catalogs land in the mailbox after New Year, placing an early order makes sense, especially for unusual varieties that sell out fast. Starting the seeds themselves is a different matter. Gardening pros point out that sowing heat-loving crops indoors in the dead of winter, or direct-seeding them into cold ground, sets them
Snow resting on tree branches is one of winter’s best shows, but the same accumulation can snap limbs and damage the tree when it gets heavy. Wet snow and ice add weight fast, and a falling branch can injure people, crush a car, or tear down utility lines. Removing snow from trees is not always
When snow finally melts in late winter, many lawns reveal something unexpected: discolored, matted patches of grass that were green and healthy in the fall. The culprit is snow mold, a fungal disease that develops when turf stays covered by snow for weeks at a time. The damage looks alarming, but snow mold is not
