I had the pleasure of visiting a local community garden this morning – the East End Veterans Memorial Garden. There I met with my friend Cindy Schrader and some folks from Cincinnati Magazine to do a photo-shoot for an upcoming article I’ll be writing about growing a cutting garden. Cindy’s is one of several gardens [...]

Another month, another Gardener’s Bloom Day! On the 15th of each month, gardeners from around the blogosphere tell us what’s blooming in their gardens. Here are a few things that are blooming in my Cincinnati-area garden. I’ve decided to feature annuals this month. These plants live for only one growing season, but they bloom their [...]

On the 15th of every month, Garden Bloggers everywhere post pictures of the plants that are blooming in their garden. Here are a few from mine. The above picture shows purple coneflower, Echinacea ‘Magnus’, with white-flowering Echinacea ‘Avalanche’ in front. ‘Avalanche’ is a new cultivar that is shorter – to about 18 inches – and very [...]

In my daughter Kara’s garden, we are growing mostly fruits that are her favorites, like strawberries and blackberries. Since the blackberries haven’t grown much yet, we are using some of that garden space for other useful plants. We put our potato bags in that area. We planted pumpkin and watermelon vines. And we filled in [...]

During a recent visit to my brother’s house, he confessed that he might have killed some new Salvia ‘May Night’ plants that he had transplanted to the garden a few weeks before. Despite carefully burying the roots and watering the plants in, the plants had slowly turned brown. I took a look, and the plants [...]

Whew, it’s been a busy spring! I never got around to planting seeds for some of the summer crops in my vegetable garden, which I normally would have planted a week or two ago, so I tackled that job this weekend between thunderstorms. Here’s what I planted: Pole Beans: ‘Scarlet Runner’ from saved seeds and [...]

A former student from my herbaceous plant I.D. course at U.C. wrote to ask: What were some of my favorite spring blooming annuals and perennials? We had covered the summer bloomers in some detail in the class that runs from mid-June through August. So what did we miss? I thought it would be interesting to [...]

Wow, it seems like spring all of the sudden in Cincinnati! Of course, it is still March and we have plenty of cold and frosty weather ahead. But the warmth and sunshine are really invigorating – I can’t wait to get out and do stuff! I always think of March as the start of the [...]

Winter is the perfect time to begin planning your edible garden, using the onslaught of seed and plant catalogs that arrive in the mail and the inbox this time of year. There’s more time to plan in the winter, before the big spring gardening rush. Popular and new varieties often sell out fast, so you [...]

I love getting out in the cool, crisp autumn air after the first few frosts of the season to do some fall cleanup. The garden looks more attractive in winter without the tattered stalks and dead leaves, and removing plant debris helps reduce insect pest and plant disease problems later on.  So here is what [...]