If you’ve walked past a flower bed this week and spotted a cluster of pink or lavender blooms shooting straight…
If you moved your houseplants outside for the summer, congratulations, they probably look amazing right now. Bigger leaves, better color,…
If your bearded irises bloomed sparse and sad this past spring, or if the clump looks like a tangled mess…
Walk into any grocery store, hardware store, or garden center right now and you’ll hit a wall of mums. Rust,…
If your basil plant suddenly looks like it’s trying to become a different species entirely — tall, sparse, with weird little white or purple flower spikes shooting up from every stem — congratulations, it’s bolting. This happens like clockwork in mid-to-late August. Long hot days plus the plant sensing that its life cycle is winding…
Walk out to the garden this week and your zucchini or yellow squash leaves might look like someone came through with a flour sifter. That’s powdery mildew, and mid-August is basically its Super Bowl. Warm days, cooler humid nights, and leaves packed tight enough that airflow can’t get through — it’s a perfect setup, and…
If your bearded irises bloomed less enthusiastically this spring than they did a couple years ago, or if the clump has turned into a solid mat of rhizomes fighting each other for real estate, this is your sign. Late summer, right about now, is the single best window to dig them up and divide them.…
If your crepe myrtle looks like someone dumped a bucket of dark syrup over it, you’re not imagining things, and no, it’s not some weird disease that’s going to kill the tree overnight. What you’re looking at is sooty mold, and it’s basically a symptom, not the actual problem. The real culprit is something much…
If you walked outside this week and did a double-take at your hydrangeas, you’re not imagining things. Those big white or pink mophead blooms are turning a weird antique green, like they’re rusting from the inside out. Before you panic and start googling plant diseases, take a breath. This is almost always completely normal, and…
Every seed packet says lettuce and spinach germinate best between 60 and 75 degrees. Cute. Right now the soil in most backyards is sitting somewhere north of 85, and those little seeds are basically staging a sit-in refusing to sprout. This is the single biggest reason people give up on fall vegetable gardens before they…
