Category: The Plant Lady
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Vines, the Good and the Bad - The Plant Lady
With summer’s arrival, the garden bulks up. It may seem like new growth has surpassed the gardener’s ability to maintain. This is especially so with vines,…
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Spring Catalogs - The Plant Lady
As the seed catalogs arrive the gardener highlights or folds over pages of interest. While the garden is in its brown phase, colorful pages take us into the…
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New Gardeners Surge - The Plant Lady
The Corona virus has been a horrible event but a good thing for the gardening world. There may have been toilet paper and hand sanitizer shortages, but there…
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Summer Symphony - The Plant Lady
Dependent on humidity and recent rain, my tree frogs are loudest at night, joined by the katydid who repeats katydid, Katy didn’t. Summer nights can be…
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Some Like It Hot - The Plant Lady
It’s solstice time, the longest day of the year. With the sun at its highest, we enter the so-called dog days of summer when the dog star or Sirius rises at…
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Themed Gardens - The Plant Lady
My garden book library is extensive on two oak bookshelves my husband built. Winnowed down many times, there are some I’ve given away and regretted. Barbara…
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May Flowers - The Plant Lady
May is the floral explosion month with roses, iris, clematis, and baptisia, all coming into flower. The work of general weeding turns to staking and…
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Vegetable Gardening - The Plant Lady
Maybe all the gardener grows is a vegetable garden, but this is undoubtedly the year to consider growing your own food if you haven’t been inclined to do so…
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Fall is a Time for Sowing - The Plant Lady
Maybe contrary to your notion of a timeline for seed sowing, fall is the best and perfect time to sow seeds of winter annuals and biennials. This exercise is…
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The Carrot Family - The Plant Lady
The highly diverse carrot family offers many plants that are aromatic and useful as herbs or spices. When flowering they are described as umbelliferous, the…
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Witch Hazel - The Plant Lady
Witch hazels are large shrubs that flower in fall or winter. Their name is derived from the old English word “wice” which means pliant or bendable, also the…
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Big Trees - The Plant Lady
V irginia is a state with lots of champion trees and a big advantage; it’s home to the two most famous big tree hunters in the country. They form a tag team,…
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Little Bluestem - The Plant Lady
Our local fields often contain a native grass that has a winter presence which is hard to miss. I have seen it turn a rich rusty red, although this winter it’s…
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The seasonal flowers of Christmas, Florist Cyclamen - The Plant Lady
The seasonal flowers of Christmas are few. Nothing like the countless options for Mother’s Day or Easter. It boils down to forced flowers that are best grown…
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Rethinking Fall Clean-up - The Plant Lady
It’s always been said that the gardener should get a physical in summer or fall when they are at the peak of their health. All of that dead heading, cutting…
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The Plant Lady: Partners for Fall Flowering Bulbs
The most exuberant, fresh plant in our October gardens are the newly arrived fall flowering bulbs. After a deep summer slumber, they awake and push out of the…
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Asters for Fall - The Plant Lady
The gardener is generally in a state of overload by fall. We’ve fought weeds, tangled with the hose a few too many times, and deadheaded flowers since spring.…
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Spring Observations - The Plant Lady
Three years ago I began a very unscientific study of flowers per square foot in spring. My targeted plants were peonies versus iris, particularly bearded iris.…