September/October 2019

Horticulture

Horticulture Magazine

Horticulture2 min read
Editor’s Note
“No one gardens alone.” Do I blaspheme in admitting that sometimes this lovely, beloved Elizabeth Lawrence quote feels like a curse? I garden in my front yard and at the entrance of my kids’ school. I’ve never been outgoing, and sometimes there’s not
Horticulture3 min read
The Dirt on Potting Soil
AS THE GROWING season begins to taper, you may be starting to select some tender or tropical garden plants to bring indoors for the winter. Perhaps you’re looking ahead to starting seeds inside come the New Year. You may be tempted to dig up some gar
Horticulture3 min read
Framed!
I’VE BEEN A COLD-FRAME gardener for more than 15 years, using my simple polycarbonate-topped wood frames to harvest a variety of vegetables all winter long. A cold frame is just a box with a clear, sloped top, which should face south to capture as mu
Horticulture1 min readCooking, Food & Wine
Fall Checklist
Clean! Inspect season-extending structures, making repairs and giving them a good cleaning prior to the arrival of winter. I clean the tops of cold frames, the polyethylene sheeting that covers mini hoop tunnels and the cover of my polytunnel to perm
Horticulture4 min read
Sonoma’s Bloom
WILDFIRES SCOURGED our part of northern California in 2017 and 2018. Whole neighborhoods—hell, whole towns—went up in flames. Fields, meadows and woodlands, tinder-dry from five successive years of drought, burned as hurricane-force winds drove fires
Horticulture1 min read
Bok Tower Gardens
Florida privet offers fruit for wildlife and food for a diversity of pollinating insects when in flower. It is a good alternative to the invasive Ligustrum species in adverse soils, and it can be maintained as a thick hedging that offers natural scre
Horticulture2 min read
Spicebush
IF YOU LIVE in the eastern United States, you’ve probably seen spicebush (Lindera benzoin; USDA Zones 4–9). Its native range is wide, from Michigan and Vermont in the north to Florida and Texas in the south. To human eyes, it’s quiet for much of the
Horticulture6 min read
Garden Miscellanea
“MISCELLANEA” sounds so much more professional than “ramblings,” though I do have a tendency toward the latter. With seven decades of gardening behind me, I find I have good tips that don’t always fit into neat categories, yet nonetheless they are wo
Horticulture4 min read
Paradise Made
Corfu, the most northerly of the seven Greek Ionian islands, is situated nearer to the coast of Albania than that of Greece. Liberally scattered with silver-leaved olive groves and punctuated with soaring spires of pencil cypress trees (Cupressus sem
Horticulture5 min read
Fall Planting Guide
When rainfall and temperatures begin to moderate at the end of summer, it’s time to start thinking about fall planting. Fall is a good time to plant many different kinds of trees and shrubs and even perennials. Fall-planted specimens often settle int
Horticulture1 min readGardening
It’s Peony (planting) Season
When you’re purchasing bulbs to plant this fall, pick up a few bare-root peonies, too. Peonies can be planted in fall or spring, but there are a few reasons why fall is the better choice for these long-lived perennials. Fall planting of peonies can o
Horticulture2 min read
Annuals From Seed
In many modern-day gardens, annuals are planted in uniform beds of one species, usually a low-growing selection. Think petunias, begonias, pansies, dwarf marigolds, vinca. This is a good look in many situations, but it can be a bit boring, and it’s c
Horticulture5 min read
Golden Roads
Each fall for more than a decade, members of the Lewisboro Garden Club in Lewisboro, N.Y., and community volunteers have spent a late-October Saturday morning planting thousands of daffodil bulbs. They’ve planted daffodils along town roads, in triang
Horticulture1 min read
DAFFODILS for DAYS
1. ‘February Gold’ Among the first daffodils to bloom in spring, this heirloom dates to the 1920s. It is solid yellow with reflexed petals. USDA Zones 4–9. 2. ‘Ice Follies’ This favorite is beloved for its vigor as well as it frilled yellow crown th
Horticulture4 min readEarth Sciences
Colorful Fall
In the fall, the lush greenness of summer will give way to the drab brown of winter as annual plants die off and deciduous perennials lose their leaves. But for many trees and even some shrubs, summer will end with a burst of color. For these trees a
Horticulture4 min read
FUN with BULBS
A lot of people have already written articles on the best ways to plant bulbs, full of instructions on how to get the most flowers or recommendations on the best varieties. This article is something different. I’m not going to give you any actual pra
Horticulture7 min read
Plants We Love
Doublefile viburnumn boasts showy spring flowers and red to purple fall foliage. This beautiful garden shrub also has a very nice branch structure, which gives it some year-round appeal as an architectural element in the garden. White flowers appear
Horticulture2 min read
The Garden’s God
NOT LONG AGO, I was driving to Home Depot to buy a toilet seat. I was feeling fat and kind of depressed, because I had just broken a toilet seat. But soon enough I turned my mental state around. Talked myself up, saying, “Hey, you can lose weight. Ju

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