my latest assignment: a series in ‘the new york times’

AN OUT-OF-THE-BLUE email in April 2020 shook me out of my “new normal” routine. It was an invitation from a “New York Times” editor to create a series of how-to garden articles for their readers who are finding themselves at home, in spring, and maybe could use the kind of information you come to my newsletter and my website and podcast for.

The first installment appeared April 20, 2020. On March 31, 2021, the paper ran a Q&A with me to kick off Year 2 of the series.

The topics I’ve covered so far:

• Where to begin your spring cleanup in a chaotic season.
• Bed-prep using cardboard, newsprint and sometimes plastic sheeting.
• Shopping in your own garden for “free” plants.
• How to make a late-start flower garden of “annuals,” including many to direct-sow.
• Pruning Q&A with Jeff Jabco of Swarthmore’s Scott Arboretum.
• Weeding (which was really popular!).
• Success with tomatoes, with High Mowing Organic Seeds’ Tom Stearns.
• Getting started with native plants (and how to make room).
• What went wrong: when seedlings fail, or bulbs don’t bloom well.
• A 101 guide to composting (with Daryl Beyers).
• Succession sowing of vegetables, for summer-into-fall harvests.
• Take a fragrance inventory of your garden, with Ken Druse.
• Creating a garden that welcomes the birds.
• How and when to harvest garlic–and how to grow it (with Filaree Farm).
• Less familiar hydrangeas (with Dan Hinkley and Adam Wheeler).
• Strategic plant placement: How the right plant shapes spaces and forms (or blocks) views, with Bill Noble.
• Time to shop for flower bulbs (yes!), and how to use them creatively, with Chanticleer Garden. 
• Invasive Asian jumping worms are ravaging the soil. What scientists know, and are exploring.
• Chores to do in August for the garden’s longterm benefit, with Untermyer Gardens’ Timothy Tilghman.
• Why, and how, to start saving seeds, with Ken Greene of Hudson Valley Seed and Seedshed.
• Call me the moth gardener: How discovering moths connected me with the after-dark garden.
• Essential natives: asters and goldenrods, with Native Plant Trusts Uli Lorimer.
• Succulents: for pots, centerpieces, even adorning fall pumpkins, with Kathy Tracey, Avant Gardens.
• Houseplants that are real keepers (including easiest orchids), with NYBG’s Marc Hachdourian.
• How to overwinter tropicals and other tender plants, with Dennis Schrader of Landcraft Environments.
• A Cornell vegetable pathologist and a Cornell Lab of Ornithology expert on smarter fall cleanup.
• Birdfeeding: Why, when, what, and how to keep birds safe (and what it means to us), with Julie Zickefoose. 
• Botanical Latin: Why a little offseason self-study might make you a better gardener, with Ross Bayton.
• How to grow microgreens indoors, with organic farmer Kate Spring of Good Heart Farmstead.
• Seed-catalog season 2021: How to shop smart, and a list of catalogs to subscribe to.
• Resolutions: Out with invasive groundcovers, and more to-dos for 2021.
• Growing under cover: The tools of season-extending and pest-preventing with Niki Jabbour.
• The smart way to grow roses (as in: without chemicals), with Peter Kukielski.
• Whose garden is it, anyway? Why you need a wildlife camera, with Sally Naser.
• Why to shop at specialty nurseries (with Issima proprietors Ed Bowen and Taylor Johnston).
• Why to plant oaks, the most powerful plant of all, with Doug Tallamy.
• Those mushrooms and other fungi that pop up? They’re good news (with John Michelotti).
• Science-based companion planting: Why diversity is key in the vegetable garden, with Jessica Walliser.
• Spring garden center shopping? For a better garden, be strategic, not impulsive.
• Spring’s woodland native wildflowers: grow and multiply them, with Carol Gracie.
• Deer! A set of tactics to manage around them, with Ohio State’s Marne Titchenell.
• Poison ivy: the native plants everyone loves to hate, with Dr. Susan Pell.
• Ferns for unexpected uses: for pockets in stone walls, for water gardens, and more, with Mobee Weinstein.
• Can this houseplant be saved? Propagating begonias from leaf cuttings and more, with Darryl Cheng.
• Rain gardens: Use native plans to solve runoff and increase diversity, with North Creek Nurseries’ Carrie Wiles.
• Radicchio! A beautiful diversity to sow now for fall harvest, with Uprising Seeds and Culinary Breeding Network.
• Ticks: How gardeners can stay safer with a vigilant approach, with Rick Ostfeld and Neeta Connally.
• ‘It’s ‘Throw in the Trowel Week” as spring fades. How to get past it and keep the garden looking good and producing.
• What can you do about Japanese beetles? I asked a U. of Kentucky scientist who’s studied them for 40 years.
• Seeing spots? Disfigured fruit (or none at all)? A 101 in Tomato Troubles, with Rutgers University.
• Horticultural vinegar — and how to read an herbicide label, with Montana State University weed scientists.
• Questions about tree care (or any plant, for that matter)? The Morton Arboretum Plant Clinic will answer them free.
• Ecologically sound landscaping, with the longtime master of it, Darrel Morrison.
• Success with bulbs, with Old House Gardens’ Vanessa Elms. Outsmarting animals, great heirlooms, and more.
• Echinacea: Are all the showy new cultivars what bees, butterflies and goldfinches want?
• Why to do your spring planting in fall: Ecological horticulture, with Rebecca McMackin
• How to grow native meadow perennials from seed this fall and winter, with Wild Seed Project’s Heather McCargo.
• In praise of native trees: garden-worthy, garden-size choices that are often overlooked, with Mountain Top Arboretum’s Marc Wolf.
• Some favorite houseplants to tuck in with for company this winter, with Steve’s Leaves tropical plant specialists.
• Growing figs in cold climates (and getting fruit), with Lee Reich.
• What garden-improving tips you can harvest from a fall walk in the yard, with designer David Culp.
• Lichens! Neither plant nor animal, they are fascinating, and beautiful.
• Terrariums: Creating little worlds of moss, tropicals or even carnivorous plants.
• Tools worth waiting for: my professional-quality favorites for most every garden job.
• Newer organic seed companies with a mission: Experimental Farm Network and more.
• Quitting peat: How to reduce use of this non-renewable resource, with Dr. Brian Jackson.
• Tomatoes! How to have an epic crop, with help from Craig LeHoullier and Joe Lamp’l.
• Gravel gardens: Beautiful, water-wise, and resilient, including complete how-to.
• How the garden sustains and transforms us psychologically, with Dr. Sue Stuart-Smith.
• Beyond the same-old kale–plus other unusual greens beyond kale, with Adaptive Seeds.
• How gardeners can help conservation by “birding with a purpose.” The Breeding Bird Atlas.
• Expand your pollinator garden to welcome wasps (and benefit from their pest-control services), with Heather Holm.
• Federal Twist: How James Golden made an exceptional garden on an impossible site.
• How books about nature can provide refuge from a landscape of invasive headlines.
• The power of mulch: How it grows soil when the right material is used right.
• The new public-TV show “GardenFit” offers an Rx for smarter gardening with less aches and pain.
• Trilliums are in trouble. Why, and all about how their ant-supported life history.
• In the face of pests and diseases, the best way to care for your beloved boxwoods.
• The invasive annual called stiltgrass, and understanding (and fighting) its weedy ways.
• Rethinking the great American lawn, one ecological step at a time (with Daniel J. Wilder).
• Those curious aroids, from jack-in-the-pulpit to callas and elephant ears, with Tony Avent.
• Lawn followup: Does mowing less mean more ticks? How to deal with homeowners’ association restrictions. And resources for more info on native alternatives.
• Gardening around trees, and how we need to exert more caution sometimes, with arborist Chris Roddick.
• The critical (and beautiful) role of native annuals, with Alan Branhagen of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum.
• Slow down and appreciate nature’s tiny marvels, with Andrew Brand of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.
• Crevice gardening: Rock gardens that are even heavier on the rocks, with Kenton Seth and Paul Spriggs.
• The art of making garden rooms, with Sakonnet Garden’s creators, in coastal Rhode Island.
• The Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University turns 150 years old. What the trees can teach us.
• Creating a fall flower garden with staying power, with Jenny Rose Carey.
• Explore beyond the big, puffy pink and white herbaceous peonies for a month of bloom and cut flowers, with Kathleen Gagan. 
• All about spongy moths (the former gypsy moth) and its very hungry caterpillars, with Cornell’s Ann Hajek.
• The fascinating world of leaf mines and galls and the creatures who make them, with Charley Eiseman.
• My beloved Japanese umbrella pine, first plant I ever planted.
• Fall cleanup: a time to critique and plan to improve your garden’s design. With Peter Bevacqua. 
• Reading the trees leaves: Why a little dose of botany can help a gardener succeed, and understand.
• Slow birding: Learning about the lives of our most familiar birds by really watching, with Joan Strassmann.
• Standout annual flowers and how to grow them like a pro from seeds, with Andrew Schuyler of Untermyer Gardens.
• Southern seed-grown favorites, and the “godmother” of some traditional varieties, Ira Wallace of Southern Exposure Seed.
• Houseplants needn’t be boring to be durable: exceptional varieties and how to care for them, with Longwood’s Karl Gercens.
• Showy tropicals that are also edibles: gingers, turmerics, lemongrass and more, with Marianne Willburn.
• Save work, defeat weeds, support the soil: No-dig gardening, with Charles Dowding.
• Is it a cucumber or a melon? It’s a cucumber melon, ancient Cucurbits you’ll want to grow.
• The wild edibles you can grow (not forage): ramps, fiddleheads and more, with Wild Ridge Plants’ Jared Rosenbaum.
• Container gardens: design inspirations and practical tips from Bob Hyland of Contained Exuberance.
• No flower has captured the heart of ceramic artist Frances Palmer more than the dahlia (and she grows hundreds).
• Going wilder, or maybe making a meadow? Two new books show us the way.
• “Compost happens:” Common-sense advice to make your composting easier and more productive.
• Naturalistic, but not nature: Artful, wildish gardens with designer Piet Oudolf.
• Quiet, please: Can we stop disrupting nature by gardening more gently? With Nancy Lawson. 
• The garden as a place of not just work, but worship, and mindfulness, with author Marc Hamer.
• My collection of music to garden by–or that brings the garden to mind.
• Look carefully: Learning to diagnose ailing plants, with the Purdue Plant Doctor.
• Want Clematis flowers all growing season long? Dan Long of Brushwood Nursery tells how.
• Native plants in a formal setting: Stoneleigh, a historic estate in Pennsylvania; with Ethan Kauffman.
• Trough gardens: tiny rock gardens in hypertufa containers. With Lori Chips of Oliver Nurseries.
• How about a mini food forest where that lawn is now? Pawpaws and more with Michael Judd.
• At Innisfree in Millbrook, N.Y., the light is a key ingredient of the garden’s design (and can be of yours).
• Achieving the immersive, ecologically rich designs of Thomas Rainer and Claudia West of Phyto Studio.
• Pressed plants: For crafting, or for the 500-year-old scientific tradition of making herbarium specimens.
• Freezing herbs and tomatoes: make the harvest last.
• Jennifer Jewell’s seed journey: Why we all need to know our seed better.
• Forcing bulbs indoors for winter color, with Page Dickey.
• In his latest book, “The Book of (More) Delights,” writer Ross Gay’s garden plays a starring role. 
• What a year! From spongy moths and a late freeze to jumping worms and deluges, 2023 was a challenge.
• The Cornell native lawn project: an alternative to all that mown, fertilized grass.
• If you plant milkweed, they will come (and not just monarch butterflies), with Eric Lee-Mader.
• Getting started with bromeliads, easy-care houseplants. With Angel Lara of Marie Selby Botanical Gardens.
• From Turtle Tree Seed, the basics of biodynamics, plus distinctive seed with the feel of the artisanal, not agribusiness. 
• How Matt Mattus’s passion for annual vines transforms his Massachusetts garden.
• How to grow onions from seed, with organic seed farmer Don Tipping of Siskiyou Seeds.
• For a gardener in the Ukraine, Clematis flowers (and seeds) offer a path forward.
• Versatile willow for winter color, living structures and pollinator support, with Vermont Willow Nursery.
• Growing citrus as houseplants, with Byron Martin of Logee’s Greenhouses.
• Japanese maples, choice small garden trees, with Tim and Matt Nichols of MrMaple.
• How monumental pots or other large sculptural elements transform a garden design, with ceramist Stephen Procter.
• Potted topiary (even from Coleus!), with topiary artist Ken Selody of Atlock Farm.
• Horticulture professor Jared Barnes’s must-read ecological gardening newsletters to keep us informed.
• Regenerative landscaping: turning “urban decay” into gardens, with Apiary Studio.
• Even dead and dying trees have a critical ecological role; why to stop cutting down trees, with Basil Camu.
• Beyond purple coneflower: Longtime native plant expert Neil Diboll of Prairie Nursery shares some favorites.
• Learning to read a landscape: clues in trees, soil, and more, with Noah Charney.
• These perennials are edible (and often beautiful, too), with “The Heirloom Gardener” John Forti.
• The Open Days equation: Grow as a gardener by visiting gardens (or opening yours to visitors).
• Unusual fruits from around the globe, with Hortus Arboretum, a Hudson Valley backyard turned 21-acre public garden.
• The High Line in NYC, at 15 years old: lots of lessons for naturalistic gardeners.
• At New England Botanic Garden at Tower Hill in Massachusetts, restoring an heirloom apple collection and replanting a chestnut forest.
• Novelist Amy Tan’s passion for her backyard birds (the subject of her latest book).
• Why your garden needs a mission statement, with Nicole Juday and Rob Cardillo.
• What’s an herb? The medieval-inspired gardens at the Cloisters in Manhattan has many answers.
• How to manage a garden in increasing weather extremes? Cornell’s Daniel Weitoish has some advice.
• What first-time gardener Matthew Axe learned in creating his Sea Cliff, N.Y., landscape.
• Managing a historic landscape into the unpredictable future: Wethersfield estate, in Dutchess County, N.Y.
• Not your average collectible: collecting trees (and with them, hope), with Amy Stewart.
• Native plant advice (and downloadable garden designs) from Wild Ones membership organization and landscape architect Preston Montague.
• One couple’s adventure transforming their yard into a meadow, with Sara Weaner Cooper.
• Not just natives: Mixing “cosmopolitan” plants into his naturalistic designs, with Donald Pell.
• Captivated by nature: The Maryland garden of Matt Cohen and Elizabeth Hargrave.
• “The Exchange,” an online seed swap that was the start of Seed Savers Exchange 50 years ago, offers 14,000+ heirlooms.
• How birds survive winter: their hard-earned behavioral and physical survival strategies, with David Sibley.
• Not just any old snake plant: the incredible diversity of Sansevieria, with Chad Husby of Fairchild garden.
• Consider soil blocking for your seed-starting this year: vigorous seedlings, and less plastic waste. With Johnny’s Selected Seeds.
• Is it spring yet? How to be an “everyday phenologist” and track the clues, while helping science. With Theresa Crimmins.
• Coleus of many colors, shapes, textures, with longtime breeder Chris Baker of Baker’s Acres Greenhouse.
• Ecological gardening advice from ecologist and entomologist Doug Tallamy, author of the new book “How Can I Help?”.
• Lilacs and their care, with Melissa Finley of New York Botanical Garden.
• Creating abundance, both aesthetic and functional, in the ecological landscape, with Kelly Norris.
• Grow a garden of dye plants, with James Young of Grand Prismatic Seed. 
• A “protection-first” mindset to safeguard the garden’s creatures, with Sarah Jayne.
• With invasives, thinking proactively about prevention, not just eradication, with NYBG’s Evelyn Beaury.

I WAS FLATTERED to be asked, of course, but most of all, I’m pleased that a media outlet as widely read as “The New York Times” understood that the garden is a place of refuge—but can also be a little daunting!—and committed to offer their readers support in these dystopian times since the pandemic began.

The more happy garden moments that happen around the nation, and world, the better, I figure.

I’m also pleased that I get to write again for the place of my start as a journalist all those years ago. A mini-homecoming.

Go say hello; if you are a “New York Times” subscriber or haven’t used your quota of free articles this month, you should be able to click through. Comments are open to subscribers, who are even invited to ask questions. Uh-oh, I guess I know what I’ll be doing even more of than ever …