Home & Garden category, Page 6

Question: I’m looking to add some more bee-friendly perennial plants to my flower garden this summer. Can you make some recommendations? It would be a bonus if the deer don’t eat them, but I know that’s a tough request! Answer: Kudos to you for wanting to provide more nectar-foraging plants...

When Rich Gebrosky noticed grafted tomato plants in a seed catalog, it piqued his interest. “But they were so expensive,” he says, “I decided to look into it and see if I could make my own grafted plants.” Grafting tomatoes starts with two sets of plants. There’s the rootstock, which...

I’m not sure when I first noticed the late afternoon sun illuminating the orange bark of a tall, beautiful Scotch pine that overlooked the vegetable garden, probably about 20 years ago. There’s a chair in the corner of the garden that I would use at the end of the day....

Over the next few weeks, gardeners everywhere will take on the challenge of starting their own seeds. Whether it’s sowing seeds of your favorite heirloom tomato variety, planting herb seeds, or starting a collection of annuals like sunflowers, cosmos, or marigolds, it’s one of our most favorite times of the...

Dr. Peter Zale became fascinated with trees as a child growing up in Olmstead Falls, Ohio, near Cleveland. One day his parents took him to Holden Arboretum in Lake County wanting to encourage his interests in plants. While visiting he picked up a flyer that had a beautiful ink drawing...

Roxanne Swan methodically searches hundreds of drawers filled with seeds of native plants. Each small drawer is labeled with the Latin name of the seeds stored inside. She’s in a small room, adjacent to a greenhouse in the Audubon Center for Native Plants at Beechwood Farms in Fox Chapel, where...

You can receive free tickets to see Everybody Garden’s Doug Oster appear at the Duquesne Light Home and Garden Show held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center from March 6-15. You must email Oster at doster@535media.com or otherwise contact him with the names of the people attending, what day...

Homegrown tomatoes are one of the garden’s greatest gifts. And for those of us who make and preserve our own tomato sauce and soup, paste tomatoes are particularly special. Also known as sauce tomatoes, these elongated varieties have flesh that is very dry and meaty with few seeds. This, combined...

Chemicals are routinely applied around residential landscapes to kill insect pests and troublesome weeds, but many are indiscriminate and devastate pollinators in the process. Over the past 30-plus years, pollinator populations have crashed worldwide due to a variety of reasons, including pesticide and herbicide exposure, invasive pests and diseases, loss...

Question: I just found out that geraniums aren’t actually geraniums! I’ve been growing them in a porch pot for years and didn’t realize there’s also a perennial called a geranium. What’s the difference between them and are the perennial ones worth growing? Answer: When most gardeners read the name “geranium,”...

The ebbs and flows of gardening parallel the fashion world. One year plant breeders turn everything lime green, and the next it’s deep red. Seed sales slump some years, then return with a vengeance for various reasons, often in times of economic uncertainty. I sometimes feel like a sort of...

For many gardeners, cauliflower is a challenging vegetable to grow. Not only do cabbage worms find it irresistible, but it can be persnickety to grow, requiring just the right weather and soil conditions to thrive. Today, I’d like to offer you some cauliflower- growing tips to help increase your chances of...

A long greenhouse bench is filled with an array of succulents at Soergel’s Garden Center in Wexford. These varieties are indoor plants that have become increasingly popular over the past several seasons. Randy Potter is a general manager here and wears many hats at the nursery. One of his jobs...

Question: Everyone in my family takes elderberry syrup in the winter because there’s evidence that it is antiviral and helps fight against the flu. We’d like to start growing our own elderberries and making our own syrup. Are there particular varieties we should grow? Answer: Elderberry (Sambucus spp.) plants have...

Purple coneflowers are a favorite among many gardeners. Known botanically as Echinacea purpurea, this North American native perennial produces colorful magenta blooms in late summer and is a butterfly and bee magnet. While the straight species of this plant is my personal favorite, there are many cultivars and varieties that...

Looking for an easy plant to care for? Try a succulent. Any plant with fleshy stems or leaves is called a succulent. Aside from cacti, only a few other plant families have succulent members. All these succulents, cactus or not, are low-maintenance. Some non-cactus succulents One family of noncactus succulents...

Question: We always have spider mites on our flowering garden phlox and a few other perennials in the summer. The leaves look speckled with tiny pin-pricks of white, and we can see their webs on the undersides of the leaves. We’ve read that spraying can lead to other problems (and...

Sue Gilmore’s love of gardening began at an early age. “I started when I was 7 years old,” Gilmore says. “I just wanted so much to grow food. I think I have a little farmer heart.” The parents in her neighborhood started a 4-H group, and Gilmore was the youngest...

Winter is a rest period for the garden (and the gardener), but it’s also a time when we get to enjoy the fruits of our labors. I’m not talking about biting into a freshly picked tomato or a sweet, ripe strawberry; instead, I’m talking about enjoying winter storage vegetables. These...

We would love to grow a redbud in our backyard, but we’ve heard that their life spans aren’t very long. Are they still worth growing? If so, can you give us any tips for success? One of my favorite harbingers of spring is the redbud tree. Though we’re a few...

The last time I saw Michael Marriott, he was showing off beautiful David Austin Roses at the Chelsea Flower Show in England. The technical manager and senior rosarian for the company was surrounded by a stunning variety of flowers. Filled with enthusiasm, he deftly described the fragrances and disease resistance...

Michael Marriott is an organic gardener and says roses can easily be grown that way. The technical manager and senior rosarian has been growing roses without chemicals for more than three decades. “People don’t want to spray roses anymore, and it’s something I’ve never ever done to roses in my...

If you are eager to start a new vegetable garden this spring, but you don’t want to fuss with removing sod, building fancy wooden raised beds or tilling up the ground, consider stepping outside the box and getting creative. There are several alternative ways to start a new vegetable garden...