Category: Presenting “The Curious Gardener”

We're all houseplant gardeners at this time of year. Some of our houseplants are outdoor plants during the warmer months and they're brought indoors when the weather turns frosty or just plain chilly, and some seem happiest indoors all year long. I keep my clivia miniata indoors year round because the one time I put it outdoors on a hot sunny day the leaves got burned and discolored. For the same reason I keep my fiddle leaf fig tree and…

Given an uptick in media attention recently, gardeners may be questioning whether or not they should undertake a full autumn cleanup, particularly when it comes to fallen leaves. Is it better to remove them or keep them? It’s a question that doesn’t have a clear-cut answer. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, there are 40 million acres of lawn in the United States, three times more than any irrigated crop. Many of those lawns are dotted with deciduous trees,…

We consulted with our friend, horticulturist Ruth Rogers Clausen, about pruning shrubs in the fall. There are primarily three reasons to prune a shrub: To get rid of any dead, damaged, diseased or dying wood (The 4 D's), or crossing branches To shape an overgrown or lobsided shrub To encourage more flowering Fall is a good time to prune away dead, damaged, diseased or dying branches. This will improve the health of the plant, and it can be done anytime…

Cinderellas, snowballs, goblins and knuckleheads. Knuckleheads? You know them by their all-encompassing name: pumpkins. With fall arriving just last week, farm fields and farm market tables are groaning with pumpkins, those multi-colored signs of the season from the Cucurbita genus (the Latin word for 'gourd').  While orange sugar pumpkins and big jack-o’-lantern pumpkins are commonly seen in fall displays, there are many more varieties available for eating and decorating. Perhaps one of their most appealing attributes is their names. With…

If your natural surroundings are anything like mine, there is an untapped bounty of plants unrecognized for their nutritional and medicinal benefits. That’s what Sarah Lucas — a farmer, forager and teacher with Harlem Valley Homestead in Wingdale, N.Y. — told me when she visited my home. Almost everything I dismissed as a weed — noxious or benign — has a useful side, we just need to recognize it. Goldenrod, dandelion, garlic mustard, lady's thumb, knot weed, dock, even my…

For some perennials, it is especially difficult to move or divide them. You plant them, they thrive, then you decide to uproot them and they just don’t want to go there. Perennials that would just as soon be left alone include Baptisia, lupine, Oriental poppy, milkweed, Russian sage, goatsbeard, red hot poker, and peony. To learn ways to increase your success, our go-to horticulturist Ruth Clausen provides tips. When you move them and how you do it is critical. Learn…

A tussie mussie or nosegay is a small bouquet of scented herbs and flowers. For centuries, going back to Elizabethan times in England, a nosegay was carried by women to defend against noxious smells from open drains and unwashed bodies, which brought the risk of plague and fever with them. Later tussie mussies were used to convey messages, using the language of flowers to communicate things like loyalty (blue violets) or innocence (white violets). Books about the symbolism of flowers…

Have you ever thought of creating a garden composed of flowers grown with the express purpose of being cut for floral arrangements? That's a cutting garden.  Once cutting gardens have been established, they tend to be low-maintenance projects that require just a little time each week for weeding and watering. How to Create a Cutting Garden Preparing the Site-- Like most successful gardening projects, cutting gardens require a bit of planning.  You can create a cutting garden within a vegetable…

The steps I put in leading down to the pond and stream are made of wood.  I chose to make wood steps because the cost of a stone path would be prohibitively expensive. The stones themselves and the labor to move them into position, given the length of the hillside (40-50') and the inaccessability of the site to a delivery truck, made that approach very expensive. After installing the wood steps I was happy with the choice as I felt…

I've often heard that the showy, sun loving plants we call geraniums, are actually not geraniums but are pelargoniums. It's confusing, so I asked horticulturist Ruth Rogers Clausen for some clarity. Here's what she had to say. Geraniums and pelargoniums belong to the same botanical family: the Geraniaceae. However, the common name “geranium” is often used incorrectly in reference to members of the Pelargonium genus. There are multiple species in each genus, most of which are resistant to browsing deer…