Native Notes – Goldenrod
Thars gold in them thar hills (and in the flatlands too)! The rustling of dried corn stalks, stacks of pumpkins at the roadside stand, Halloween costumes at your local general store… all are signs...
Category: In the Garden
How to Pick a Pumpkin and Select the Best Mums
With all those mums and pumpkins at garden centers and farmers markets, how can we select the best and make them last? For an immediate impact, many people choose chrysanthemums (“mums”) in full...
What is it? Wednesday
Fall Webworm Tent Tent Structure Fall webworm caterpillars incorporate leaves, and sometimes entire branches in silken tents spun, typically, at branch tips. (In contrast, eastern tent caterpillar,...
Managing Water in the Home Landscape
The weather events and weather patterns of recent years, like the “1000 year storm” in 2015 associated with Hurricane Joaquin, have left residents grappling with water management in their yards. On...
What is it? Wednesday
Tobacco Hornworm and Braconid Wasps Fast Fact Cotesia congregata are important biological control agents of about a dozen moth species in two families (Sphingidae and Noctuidae). Life Cycle An adult...
Cover Crops for the Fall
Planning to leave the vegetable garden fallow this fall? If you take the time to plant a cover crop instead, you will reap the benefits later. In general, cover crops protect the soil from erosion,...
Tired of eating squash? Consider donating to a local food ministry
If you are anything like me, this is the time of year when you never want to eat another squash or zucchini again. I feel like Bubba from Forrest Gump when describing the many ways I have eaten...
What’s this stuff in my stream!?
“There’s orange water coming up through the ground!” said the homeowner who called me last week, wondering what kind of contaminant had made its way into her yard. If you’ve ever come across this...
Monarda (Bee balm)
Our family now has a new favorite garden perennial plant. Ever since our ‘Jacob Cline’ Monarda (Monarda didyma ‘Jacob Cline’) came into bloom, it has been the most gorgeous flower we have tried in...
Toad Lily
Toad lilies (Tricyrtis hirta) bloom from September to October and have small, lily-like white to pale lilac flowers with heavy purple to maroon spots. They prefer evenly moist, well-drained,...
Somewhere Down in the Pawpaw Patch
When I was growing up in S.C., we kids played outdoors, most days. The weather didn’t matter; I was all about being outside – running, biking, swimming, climbing trees, and exploring. I’ve...
Jumpstart Healthy Behavior Change
If healthy behavior changes were easy, you would not have clicked this post in hopes of finding a quick solution to becoming a better version of yourself. The truth is, making healthy behavior...