Blog - A Way To Garden

September 26, 2020

starting over: page dickey’s new book ‘uprooted,’ on making a new garden

THE WORD “downsizing” was spoken more than once, when Page Dickey and her husband were making plans a few years back to leave their beloved..

September 19, 2020

178 Comments

faithful houseplants to hunker down with, with marc hachadourian of nybg

WHO ARE YOU going to tuck in with this fall and winter, as the garden starts to rest and we are all indoors more? Do..

September 11, 2020

370 Comments

lessons learned in making a garden: ‘windcliff,’ with dan hinkley

I HAVE A running joke with today’s podcast guest, a joke I suspect thousands of other former customers email him about regularly, too. Every spring..

September 5, 2020

347 Comments

saving (and sowing) seed of biennials, annuals and more, with ken druse

MAYBE YOU CAN feel it where you garden, too: a slight shift in the weather, which combined with shortening days, means summer is loosening its..

August 29, 2020

10 Comments

flowers for drying: which ones, and how-to, with jenny elliott

A READER EMAILED me not long ago, asking if I’d ever written a story or done a podcast about dried flowers—which ones to grow and..

August 22, 2020

289 Comments

unusual flower bulbs to try, with matt mattus

I SUSPECT that you each have several mail-order bulb catalogs on hand, and also that each catalog devotes page after page to gorgeous photos of..

August 15, 2020

486 Comments

turning ‘lawns into meadows,’ with owen wormser

A NEW BOOK came my way recently with a title that just said it all. “Lawns Into Meadows” is what it’s called, and its author,..

August 8, 2020

392 Comments

pinching and propagating, with ken druse

TODAY’S SHOW came out of a phone conversation that Ken Druse and I were having the other day, when I found myself confessing to him..

August 1, 2020

11 Comments

lessons in ecology from mount auburn cemetery, with david barnett

YEARS AGO, a friend who founded a botanic garden in Massachusetts took me to visit a landscape that he had long loved and admired. It..

July 25, 2020

244 Comments

poisonous plants, with dr. michael balick of nybg

A SURPRISING NUMBER of people ask me about whether this plant or that plant in my garden or theirs is poisonous. And so when I..

July 24, 2020

24 Comments

what’s wrong with my tomatoes? with dr. meg mcgrath

THE PURSUIT of perfection in tomatoes can be an elusive goal: The foliage gets spotty or yellow and may even start dropping; fruits may be..

July 18, 2020

409 Comments

leaves first: favorite foliage to unify the garden, with ken druse

KEN DRUSE AND I both love leaves, and so do the naughty furbearing herbivores who have been visiting our gardens with a vengeance this season—but..

July 17, 2020

87 Comments

farm-fresh peaches, frozen to perfection

AFRIEND WITH AN OLD PEACH TREE made me a beneficiary of too many fruits to keep up with one bumper-crop year, and into the freezer..

July 11, 2020

372 Comments

extend your vegetable garden season, with niki jabbour

LONGTIME GARDENER AND FIRST-TIMERS went all out in this craziest of years, bringing the expression “victory garden” back into the headlines. We all planted in..

July 4, 2020

253 Comments

be a discerning shopper for native plants, with uli lorimer

AS MORE GARDENERS shop for native plants each year, more plant descriptions in catalogs and on nursery labels use the blanket phrase “pollinator-friendly” to catch..