Breaking a 191-year-old tradition—necessitated by the current pandemic but long overdue in this gardener’s opinion—the Philadelphia Flower Show (PFS, shown above) will, this year, be held outside. It would seem natural to hold a flower show outside, but, in the US, it is not the norm. Seattle, Sacramento, Chicago, Boston, and even South Carolina all … Read more
Guest rant by Jack Kramer Guess you could say I started gardening at about age four when I planted onion sets in my sandbox. That means I now have seventy-eight years of gardening under my belt. But I’m still learning. Each year, I buy plants from local nurseries, avoiding the often-drooping stock at big box … Read more
By C.L. Fornari Sparky, a Sato, wonders why he’s being asked to sit next to a Hydrangea, tentatively identified as a H. macrophylla ‘Sandy Summer’ I went to the grocery store recently, and when I checked out, my cart contained the food I needed and a Hydrangea that I didn’t. The store was filled with … Read more
Drew Barrymore Sells Lawn Care Suddenly my social media feeds are showing me videos of Drew Barrymore ecstatically hugging bags of grass seed and telling us to Lawn Differently with “Choose Instead,” Bag-hugging aside, I’m totally open to celebrities being hired to sell products if they’re good ones and the message to consumers is … Read more
It’s better to be outside. That is surely one of the central takeaways from the past year. Rather than simply cancel its annual late winter event, which has been held for 193 years, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society decided to hold its 2021 flower show later, outdoors, at Olmsted-designed FDR Park in South Philly. The show … Read more
I had promised Susan et al. to report on Cultivate a few short hours after attending this huge trade show in Columbus last week – back in person for the first time since COVID changed all our lives. But it turns out that so much social activity after so long on the social distancing wagon … Read more
Since when did annuals become perennials? It sure seems that way. So many in my online gardening group have already filled their windowsills, basements, and (increasingly) greenhouses with coleus, begonias, geraniums, petunias, impatiens—you name it, they’re saving it. On its face, this is admirable. Plants that are normally discarded at the end of the season … Read more
The most famous landscaping company in the world gets its own documentary! It seems so long ago – the November 7, 2020 Rudy Giuliani press conference that gave the Four Seasons Total Landscaping Company in Philadelphia far more than 15 minutes of fame. Now, thanks to the 30-minute “Four Seasons Total Documentary,” you can relive the … Read more
Log into any houseplant group these days and you’ll find brag after brag about how someone scored a rare specimen at Home Depot or Lowe’s. These groups are also flooded with photos of poor, dying plants found languishing in big box greenhouses, accompanied by pleas for group members to come rescue them. Do these people … Read more
This may sound more like a promotion than a rant, but that’s too bad. I must express how much I appreciate good garden centers at this time of the year. There really isn’t too much to occupy me outdoors, which has taken on its usually dreary waiting-for-snow look. (Snow-covered landscapes are our “winter interest” here.) … Read more