The neighbor’s new deck looks straight into your patio. You noticed it in July, stewed about it in August, and now it’s October and you figure you’ve missed your shot until spring. You haven’t. You’re actually standing in the best planting window of the year. Cool air slows the top growth while warm soil keeps … Read more
Every yard has one. The plant that looked incredible at the nursery and now owns your Saturdays. Nobody plants a problem on purpose. You plant a picture — the lavender curtain over the pergola, the privacy screen that fills in fast, the blue mopheads from the catalog. Three years later you’re sawing, spraying, digging, and … Read more
Walk any new subdivision in spring and you’ll see the same trees, the same hedges, the same glossy groundcover creeping over the same bark mulch. It looks finished. It looks nice. It was also chosen for one reason: it was the cheapest thing on the truck. Landscapers work on margins. A plant that’s cheap at … Read more
The $12 flowering tree looks like a steal. The red-leaf shrub is marked down to clear. The flat of glossy groundcover costs less than lunch. Some of them are already illegal to sell in your state. Big box stores buy plants by the truckload from a handful of centralized growers, and they stock whatever moves. … Read more
Walk into any garden center in April and the pretty stuff is up front. Purple wisteria drapes over the pergola display. Butterfly bush hums with bees. A rack of “fast-growing privacy” bamboo sits by the register, priced to move. None of it comes with a warning label. That’s the problem. The plants that sell best … Read more
Most flowering shrubs give you a week. Maybe two. You wait all spring, they explode for a long weekend, and then they’re green lumps until next year. That’s a bad trade. The shrubs on this list work differently. They flower for months — some from late spring straight through the first hard frost — and … Read more
You’ve got a fence problem. Maybe it’s the neighbor’s chain-link. Maybe it’s a weathered wood panel that’s gone gray and splintery. Maybe it’s just plain ugly and you’re tired of looking at it. Good news. A fence is the easiest thing in the yard to fix. Plant the right vine and that eyesore disappears under … Read more
The tree looked perfect at the nursery. Five feet tall, balled and burlapped, a tidy little canopy. The tag promised fast shade or instant privacy or a wall of spring flowers. You dug the hole. You watered it. You waited. Then year three arrived, and the trouble started. A limb came down in a storm. … Read more
Walk into any garden center in spring and the aisles are engineered to make you buy. Bright tags. Full blooms. A plant that looks perfect in a black nursery pot on a sunny Saturday. The person ringing you up knows something you don’t. They know which of those plants they’d never let near their own … Read more
Privacy is one of those things you don’t think about until you really need it. A new neighbor moves in, a treeline comes down, a deck goes up next door — and suddenly the backyard you used to love feels exposed. The instinct is to find something fast. Something that fills in before next summer. … Read more
Sprouts or suckers can pop up out of the ground around the trunks, stumps, and roots of living and dead trees. In time, certain types of stubborn stumps and tree roots might send up new growth. Invasive plants can grow from fresh-cut stumps for many months, and an effective method of sprout removal is needed. … Read more
I have tried out quite a few methods of trunk removal, and each comes with its own issues. I think the one I found to be the most labor-intensive was using only a shovel and a tunneling bar and working at removing the stump for weeks. The method of stump removal I found the most … Read more
Trees are a great addition to every yard, but sometimes they need to come down. Yard damage, landscaping changes, and other circumstances may mean chopping a tree from crown to stump. While a wood chipper will take care of branches that are felled, in most cases, you will still be left with an intimidating stump. … Read more
Citrus trees aren’t typically known for their tolerance to cold temperatures, but some, like the Meyer Lemon, can survive a frost or two. When colder temperatures are approaching, it is essential to pay attention to how cold each of your citrus trees is allowed to get. It takes many years to get a good batch … Read more
Crape myrtles or crepe myrtle are resilient trees that do well across the nation. They are best known for their brilliant blooms that herald in the summer and their low-maintenance demeanor. In most cases, this tree needs only the slightest pruning to keep it producing bountiful blossoms all summer long. Just because these trees are … Read more
