My daughters have been trained killers since the ages of three and four. Weapon of choice? Dish soap. It was fun and made mommy happy. I sound like Joan Crawford in the garden. But a few weeks ago, my oldest, Emma, who will be 18 in a few months, told me it wasn’t until recently…
I was doing a live chat on Instagram a few months ago with my friend Erin, you know her as The Impatient Gardener, and we briefly touched on roses. Our conversation turned to them when I asked her about a plant she was over. She thought for a moment and replied “roses.” Too much work,…
I’ve partnered with the National Wildlife Federation’s Garden for Wildlife program for this post. All thoughts are my own. If you asked me 20 years ago what a native plant was, I probably would have said it was anything I couldn’t kill. Which pretty much summed up my awareness. In the beginning, I was like…
I’m all for a spring garden cleanup that saves me time and money. Toss in the added bonus of increased organic matter and improved soil health and I’m sold. Several years ago while working at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show, I was chatting up my friend Scott Stewart who, at the time, was at…
A few days ago, I was listening to a podcast and the conversation touched on the change of seasons and the way each is marked by the things we associate with them. Winter snow. Spring daffodils. Summer tans. Autumn leaves. While colorful leaves are the quintessential poster children of fall, it is the acorn that…
I discovered perennial hibiscus almost two decades ago when I spotted Lady Baltimore’s enormous pink blooms from across the parking lot of a local home improvement store. I wasn’t looking for her, she just found me as most plants do. That happens a lot. At the time, I knew nothing about perennial hibiscus (Hibiscus moscheutos)…
