Dahlias have been showing off all summer, and if yours are anything like mine, they’re still going strong right now.…
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…
If you planted garlic last fall, mid-July is probably when you’re standing in the garden holding a fistful of bulbs, feeling pretty proud of yourself. Good. You should. But here’s the part nobody warns you about: pulling the garlic is the easy 20% of the job. The other 80% happens over the next several weeks,…
You’ve been babying these tomato plants since May. Then one morning you go out to check on that first big beefsteak and the bottom of it looks like it’s been through something. Sunken, leathery, dark brown or black, sometimes with a weird flat spot that’s almost caving in. Your first instinct is probably “blight” or…
If your rose leaves suddenly look like lace doilies and there’s a metallic green beetle orgy happening on every bloom, congratulations, you’ve hit peak Japanese beetle season. Mid-July through early August is their prime time to absolutely wreck roses, grapevines, linden trees, and anything else with tender, sun-warmed leaves. They skeletonize foliage, chew flowers to…
You fed the fish Saturday morning and the water was clear-ish. By Wednesday it looks like you could stand a spoon up in it. Welcome to peak algae season, courtesy of the same heat wave that’s been wilting your tomatoes. It’s Not One Kind of Algae, It’s Two People say “algae” like it’s a single…
You watered this morning. You know you did. And yet by lunchtime your porch pots look like they haven’t seen a drop of water in a week, leaves drooping like they’ve given up on the whole photosynthesis thing. Before you dump more water on them (please don’t, we’ll get to that), let’s talk about what’s…
If you’ve got a crape myrtle in the yard, you’ve probably noticed strips of bark curling off the trunk right about now, mid-July, peak bloom season, sitting there looking like the tree is shedding its skin. First instinct for a lot of people is panic. Second instinct is to go Google “tree disease bark falling…
