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The scent! The sight! The color! Everything about that experience was magical, and you’d better believe I stopped to smell the flowers. Several times. Since then, I’ve helped people in my family cultivate rose gardens, and I’m here to help you, too. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. How do you start? Do you have to create something as lofty as the archway that I saw at the Butchart Gardens, or the carefully cultivated garden space in your local botanic garden?...

Named for the unique, shapely leaves that resemble those of an oak tree, Oak Leaf holly (Ilex x ‘Conaf’) reaches a mature height of 10-15 feet with a spread of seven to nine feet. So if you love the shape of oak leaves but don’t want to plant a giant tree in your yard, just as there exists a holly oak, which is an oak tree with holly-like leaves, you’ll be pleased to discover there is also an Oak Leaf holly!...

Eastern bluebell, Virginia cowslip, or Roanoke bells. Phew, it is a plant. Exactly what you came to learn about, right? Don’t worry, we’ve covered the basics of everything you could ever want or need to know about how to grow, propagate, and care for the shade loving, blue bloomed North American native also known as blue and pink ladies, smooth lungwort, or chiming bells… We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....

While it is true that rosemary is particularly challenging to grow from seed, it can be propagated easily from stem cuttings and by root layering. And starting from seed is not impossible, it just takes a bit of patience and extra care. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. Here’s what I’ll cover: Why is it useful to know how to propagate rosemary?...

Its greatest feature – the ability to quickly cover a patch of bare earth where nothing else will grow – is also its greatest liability, for it grows and grows and grows, and before you know it, it’s taken over half your lawn and is steadily marching toward the neighbor’s. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission....

That’s a shame, because they also happen to be one of those veggies that are incomparable to the store-bought kind. The flavor is richer, nuttier, and more intense when you grow them yourself. One of the challenges in growing sprouts is knowing when and how to prune them. There’s so much information available out there that it’s hard to know what’s right. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....

If you are like me, however, and tend to completely forget about your houseplants for weeks or – I’ll admit it – sometimes months on end, you may find yourself faced with a wilting spider plant. Lucky for folks like me, this issue is not hard to recover from. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission....

Now, this shouldn’t imply that there are zero issues that you have to watch out for. There are several pests and diseases that may attack coneflowers. Echinacea purpurea is more susceptible than other species to most of these. Luckily, it’s unlikely that you’ll have to deal with most issues since coneflowers are so darn tough. Even the pests and diseases that do attack will rarely kill your plant off entirely....

A long-season crop that is started early in the spring to accommodate its 100-day maturation period, and one of the more challenging vegetables to grow, its flavor peaks after several light frosts, and it can be wintered over for an early spring harvest. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. Our article on parsnip harvesting has information on when and how to bring in a flavorful crop....

The tops grew to an impressive size and looked picture perfect. Everything seemed to be going well – until I pulled them up and found only teeny-tiny roots. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. It turns out the culprit was my soil. I lived in an area with heavy, clay soil which is the primary reason the roots didn’t form....

But to ensure their vibrant health with plentiful spathes, they need to be fertilized throughout the growing season. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. But feeding them requires a measured touch. Applying too much fertilizer can be just as bad as too little, and creates its own set of problems. To ensure your plants stay strong with plenty of “flowers,” join us now for a look at how to fertilize peace lilies....

Many growers are perfectly happy to produce the magnificent blossoms and then just move on. But the vast majority of Passiflora species produce edible fruits – though some are more flavorful than others. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. It’s possible for your vine to produce flowers but fail to fruit. And when that happens, it’s a matter of troubleshooting to figure out the cause and find a solution....

But what if you spend time planting crocuses in the fall and wait eagerly all winter… only to see a blank field staring back at you in February, March, April, and well into May? Or maybe your crocuses bloomed perfectly the first year, but now they’re struggling to bud and flower. Even worse, perhaps the corms pushed spiky green leaves out of the ground but buds never joined them. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....

“Creamy or crunchy?” “Denim or khaki?” “Do I tell them how I feel or wonder ‘What if…’ forever?” The strain of constantly choosing things adds up, and the last thing you want to deal with at the end of a tough workweek is a difficult gardening choice. Your garden is your zen space, for crying out loud! It should take away your stress, not add to it. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....

Companion plants are those that share similar cultural requirements for sunlight, soil, and water, and that can live together in a non-competitive, harmonious environment. They may complement one another in a variety of ways, such as attracting beneficial insects, deterring insect pests, and promoting soil health. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. A host of additional articles cover topics including common diseases, harvesting, and heading challenges....

For the most part, they aren’t as showy as their cousins, the zonal or garden geraniums. But what they lack in pizzazz, they make up for in gloriously scented foliage and flowers. That’s not to say they aren’t pretty. Though the blooms and leaves are a bit more petite and less dramatic, they’re still beautiful flowers to have in the garden. And oh yeah, did I forget to mention that you can eat them?...

Equally at home in containers, cottage, cutting and perennial gardens, many species also make a striking statement in naturalized meadows and woodland fringes. These perennial, flowering bulbs multiply readily and are easy to care for in the garden. And breeders continue to develop new hybrids every year, improving performance and delivering an abundance of vivid colors, fragrance, and form. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission....

Broccoli and rhubarb are not good companion plants, if you squish them close together. I had read somewhere that they were great companions, so I stuck a rhubarb seedling in between two of my broccoli plants. I don’t like math, so I didn’t measure anything. Besides, I’m a greedy gardener. I tend to overcrowd plants in an effort to grow all the things. The point of companion planting is that one companion benefits the other in some way....

I’d grow peace lilies even if they didn’t bloom – those glossy, elegant green leaves are pretty irresistible. That is, unless the foliage starts to look less than stellar, which can happen when the tips of the leaves turn brown, a fairly common occurrence. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products. If you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. Here’s what we’ll discuss: Peace lilies are tropical plants that hail from warm, humid areas of Mexico, South America, and Southeast Asia....

And the caper bush fits this bill to a T. Edible flower buds that can be grown for food or beauty? I’m in! The tragic dichotomy of growing this plant, however, is that in order to harvest its delicious fruit, you rob the plant of its equally spectacular fragrant and white to light pink blooms, which are 2 to 3 inches across and feature numerous, dramatically long purple-pink stamens. We link to vendors to help you find relevant products....