Home & Garden category, Page 9

You might be surprised to learn that figs (Ficus carica) thrive in Western Pennsylvania, with a little help and winter protection, of course. Though many varieties of this fruit have been selected for improved cold hardiness and early ripening, you’ll want to select a warm location with southern exposure to...

Question: We have a new area to plant along the property line with our neighbors. We’d like to plant some native shrubs that produce berries because we’d like to help feed the birds in the wintertime. Do you have any suggestions of berry shrubs we can include in the border?...

It is a yearly ritual for me to photograph Amy Krut’s dahlia garden at the end of the season. We became friends on Facebook, and after seeing just about every inch of her landscape filled with the late blooming beauties, I knew I had to photograph them. The low angle...

If you grow beans for drying in the garden, harvest time is here. Dried beans are ready for harvest as soon as the pods turn completely dry and begin to crack open. After the dried pods are harvested, you’ll need to thresh and store the beans for later use. Threshing...

It’s not easy to figure out which maples you want on your property. The good ones are the sugar maples, their leaves ablaze each fall in yellow, red and orange. The less desirable ones are the Norway maples, their leaves green well into fall. I don’t hold that lingering greenness...

Question: I have a question about volunteer squash plants in my compost pile. More than likely they are from butternut seeds. A few look true, a couple have narrower crooked necks and one is gigantic! Are they edible? Answer: Some plant families are self-pollinating, including beans, peas and tomatoes. That...

The bright orange flowers of a kerria shrub showed up for a second time at the end of the summer. It was a wonderful surprise as the blooms have a showy, intense color. Kerria is easy to grow in part shade, and it’s underused in the landscape. The flowers are...

Four-legged, fur-covered garden pests are many. From voles and groundhogs to chipmunks and squirrels, sometimes it seems like backyard critters enjoy our gardens more than we do! But, no four-legged garden interloper is as problematic for Western Pennsylvania gardeners as deer. As the white-tailed deer population expands and suburbia continues...

Cut flowers have an intense but brief vase life, lasting generally about a week. Yet they can be preserved as attractive and long-lasting arrangements when properly dried and displayed. Air-drying is the simplest and cheapest way to go about it, but other methods may be better for locking in the...

Question: We had a terrible issue with different plant diseases in this year’s garden. So many of our perennials and vegetables developed spots or mold on the leaves. I know it was a really wet spring and that makes this sort of thing worse, but is there anything we can...

Tony Miga is supervising the installation of tall, three-legged supports for pole beans in the 1-acre plot at Chatham University’s Eden Hall Campus. The director of the farm on the Pittsburgh-area campus is working with three students growing vegetables for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s Green Grocer truck. The...

I grow many herbs in my garden. I use them for cooking and for making my own herbal tea blends. While I do purchase herb plants from the nursery, I also try to save money by propagating my own herb plants. Thankfully, propagating most common herbs is easy. Depending on...

Seems like just about everyone likes the idea of growing figs. Perhaps it’s some primal attraction for this ancient fruit. The rich, sweet flavor of the tree-ripened fruits is definitely part of the reason. Figs can, in fact, be grown over much of the country. Although the plant is subtropical,...

Question: I have two gorgeous, big burning bushes in my yard that are really, really in need of trimming. I don’t want to trim before they put on their autumn show, but I need to know when is the best time to trim and how much can I really cut...

There’s an old saying that goes, “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today.” Fall is the best time to plant trees as the temperatures and day length are conducive to root growth instead of top growth. They can be planted...

While walking through Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, horticulturist Richard Liberto pulled me aside to passionately describe the story he hoped I’d tell. He runs Liberto Designs and works at Best Feeds Garden Center’s Babcock Boulevard location in Ross. After seeing a year of landslides, sinkholes and an early season...

Everybody Gardens editor Doug Oster will discuss “The Magic of Fall Planted Bulbs” during an Oct. 1 luncheon at the Greensburg Country Club. Lunch followed by Oster’s talk will begin at noon, as part of Greensburg Garden Center’s annual meeting. “We are very happy to have Doug joining us for...

Late every summer, I’m amazed at how different my flower garden looks than it did in the spring. While I grow many perennials that produce beautiful blooms, the show-stoppers in my garden are often the annuals I plant. I always make it a point to grow cosmos, sunflowers, marigolds and...

Moving houseplants indoors with the onset of cold weather is not your typical furniture-shifting exercise. It requires planning, since houseplants for the most part are tender tropicals and need time to acclimate to a changed growing environment. “Bring them in over a two-week period,” said Kate Karam, editorial director for...

Everybody Gardens editor Doug Oster gets asked a lot of questions. A lot. And he doesn’t mind offering gardening advice. But rather than just limiting those answers to the person who asked, we thought it might be a good idea to share that wealth of knowledge with everybody. (The questions...

Heather Holm and her husband were exploring Denmark, and as he delved into his family tree, the understanding spouse also knew he’d be spending time with flowers … as Holm’s passion for pollinators transcends international boundaries and vacation time. “I’m always interested in reading landscapes,” she says of the trip....

Question: I know there are three types of clematis. And that the specific type determines when the clematis should be cut down. Can you give some direction as to when each should be cut, and perhaps what some of the most common varieties are? Answer: Clematis is a popular flowering...

While some gardeners still think that any bug in the garden is a bad bug, change is in the air. Most plant-lovers now realize that insects and plants go hand-in-hand and that there are far more beneficial insect species than there are harmful ones. In fact, of Earth’s million insect...

A myth among tomato lovers is that home-grown tomatoes taste best. Not true! The best varieties of tomatoes are what taste best, whether they’re grown on a farm or in a backyard. What about growing conditions? You would think that tomatoes grown on a farm or backyard in a sunny,...