I love feeding and watching the birds. It's one of my year-round joys. I’m not alone. Nearly half of all U.S. households, 52.5 million, buy wild bird seed, according to a 2015 ...
No space or time? Natural alternatives for holiday cheer
Sometimes, there’s no space for a Christmas tree, or no time to put one up and take one down. Or, maybe you’ll be away during the holidays and you just don’t want the ...
Garden- and nature-related gift ideas for everyone on your list
Gift-giving season is with us and here are some ideas for some of those on your list. What gardener doesn't like comfort? You can’t beat Duluth Trading Co.’s ...
Trial tomatoes provide tasty treats from the garden
I only grew trial tomato plants this year and the results were fantastic. This was probably one of the best tomato years I’ve had. By far, the top performer was Gladiator, a ...
Indy’s All-America Selections Display Garden wins 1st place
Since 2013, Marion County Master Gardeners and other volunteers have designed, planted, tended and harvested the All-America Selections Display Garden on the grounds of the Indiana ...
Hardy cyclamen and a tough Bidens brighten the landscape
You know how forgetful we can be. Forget what we planted and when, for instance. Mother Nature pulls through for us, though. A few weeks ago ...
Whack ’em back or let ’em stand
When it comes to fall tasks with perennials, how and what you do is pretty much up to you. Unlike the trees and shrubs we talked about last week in this column, perennials are ...
What shrubs to cut back and what to leave upright for winter
The fall hustle has begun… rake leaves, fertilizer the lawn and plant spring bulbs, just to name a few seasonal steps. People like to prune trees and shrubs now, too, but before ...
Recent rainfall relieves drought, but concern remains
Of course, when I wrote and filed this column, it had not rained for weeks. See what good luck created? --- Not that many weeks ago, I wrote at least three columns on how ...
Trial peppers yield tasty flavors
So far, it's been a pretty good year for growing peppers. Fortunately, the breeders and hybridizers are keeping up with our desire to explore pepper flavors and forms. This ...