Simple Ideas for Better Homes, Gardens & Outdoor Spaces
From planting cool-season crops in the crisp spring air to preparing your perennial beds for winter hibernation, every season brings unique opportunities for your landscape. Welcome to our Seasonal Gardening category, your ultimate guide and supply hub for year-round horticultural success. Whether you are ramping up your spring planting schedule, protecting tender blooms from summer heat, or harvesting autumn crops, we provide the expert insights and specialized products you need to keep your garden thriving through every shift in the weather.
A pot of mums bought in full bloom on a Saturday can look finished by the end of the month. The pumpkin beside it develops a soft spot by mid-October. The sweet potato vine blackens after the first frost, and what looked like a styled entryway now looks like leftovers. Fall containers tend to fail … Read more
A hydrangea that looks like a bundle of brown sticks in October is one of the most tempting things in the garden to cut down. For some hydrangeas that’s the right call. For others it removes next summer’s flowers before they’ve had a chance to open. The same split runs through the rest of the … Read more
The first hard frost does less to garden pests than most people expect. Squash bugs, codling moth larvae, slug eggs, aphid eggs, and bagworm eggs all wait out winter in a handful of predictable places. Most of those places look like ordinary fall scenery: a drift of leaves under a rose, a ring of mulch, … Read more
By late September, many gardens have the same gap. The summer perennials finished in August, the annuals are worn out from heat, and the only color left is a few pots of mums bought the weekend before. Those mums look good for three weeks. Then a hard freeze arrives and the bed goes brown all … Read more
By the time most gardeners think about winter prep, the first frost warning has already gone out and half the to-do list is suddenly urgent instead of optional. Tender plants get moved indoors in a rush. Hoses freeze solid because nobody drained them. A shrub that could have been wrapped in twenty minutes ends up … Read more
By the time the first hard frost is on the forecast, most gardens are already sending signals. Tomato leaves go from green to black overnight. Hosta foliage collapses into a wet, yellow puddle. Perennial beds that looked tidy in August start to look like they need attention, and it’s easy to either panic and clear-cut … Read more
Ever watch a sudden autumn frost turn your prized perennial bed into limp, blackened toast overnight? I have, and it still stings. The year my favorite coneflowers and bleeding hearts turned to mush because I waited until November to think about insulation was the year I finally smartened up. Fall mulching isn’t just about making … Read more
Are you staring out at a patch of tired, crusty dirt that used to be a thriving garden, wondering how it all went so wrong by late August? I get it. The summer heat bakes our soil into a brick, weeds throw seeds everywhere like confetti, and by the time autumn rolls around, the last … Read more
My garden looked like a total disaster area every single spring, and I used to blame the weather, bad luck, or angry garden gnomes. It turns out the real culprit was my own laziness from the previous October. The summer my zucchini took over the entire ZIP code, I was so burnt out by September … Read more
You raked, you bagged, you hauled six trash cans of leaves to the curb, and you patted yourself on the back for a job well done. Then April rolls around and your hostas are lace, your tomato seedlings have aphids before they even hit six inches, and there’s a vole tunnel running straight through what … Read more