Simple Ideas for Better Homes, Gardens & Outdoor Spaces
My porch used to be a pumpkin graveyard by mid-November. Every year I’d buy the same orange gourds, watch them cave in on themselves after two frosty nights, and then scrape moldy squash guts off my steps with a putty knife. Not exactly the cozy autumn welcome I was going for. Then a neighbor gave … Read more
You bought the trees. You picked a sunny spot. And now you’re staring at three bare-root saplings wondering if “orchard” is too generous a word for what’s basically a sad little row of sticks in your backyard. I get it. Ten years ago, my “orchard” was two Honeycrisp trees planted six feet apart because I … Read more
Your neighbor’s porch is covered in fat, gorgeous mounds of orange and burgundy mums, and yours resembles a sad stick with three flowers hanging on for dear life. Sound familiar? I’ve been there. My first attempt at growing mums ended with a pot of crispy brown stems by mid-October, and I couldn’t figure out what … Read more
My neighbor once asked me why her desert rose looked like a sad stick in a pot of dirt. She’d bought it because the picture online showed thick, twisted trunks and clusters of hot pink blooms, and what she got instead was a leggy plant that dropped leaves the second October hit. That’s the thing … Read more
Your clay soil turns into a brick the second August rolls around, and every “easy perennial” you plant dies by October. Sound familiar? I’ve killed enough plants in heavy clay to write a very depressing memoir, so let me save you the trouble. Clay soil holds water like a stubborn toddler holds a toy — … Read more
My water bill used to make me wince every single July. One summer it hit $180, and my lawn still had brown patches shaped like Ohio. That’s when I realized I was doing almost everything wrong. I was watering at the worst times, cutting my grass too short, and dumping water on soil that couldn’t … Read more
Your garden has twelve different flower colors fighting for attention, three “accent” plants that don’t match anything, and somehow it still looks messy even though you spent all weekend weeding. Sound familiar? I used to think more color meant more impressive. My first real garden looked like a paint store exploded in it. Hot pink … Read more
You bought three bags of potting soil, a handful of seed packets, and a stack of terracotta pots from the clearance rack. Now they’re sitting on your patio, and you have no idea where to start. Maybe you’ve already killed a basil plant or two. Maybe your last “garden” was a sad, leggy tomato that … Read more
If your growing season feels like it lasts about eleven and a half minutes, you know the frustration. You finally get your tomatoes in the ground, and two weeks later there’s frost on the windshield again. I’ve gardened in a zone where the “last frost date” is more of a polite suggestion than an actual … Read more
My neighbor asked me last July why her cottage garden looked like a crime scene while mine was still blooming through a stretch of 95-degree days with zero rain. The answer was simple: her garden was gorgeous on paper and completely wrong for the weather we actually get now. Cottage gardens have a reputation problem. … Read more