If you are looking to identify a plant for yourself or others, here are a few things to keep in mind. It’s now common practice to post photos of plants online and ask “the hive mind” for identification. We see such requests on the Cape Cod Gardening Facebook Group all the time.  People are wonderfully…

In early September the Plantrama Podcast started the Leaf Stack Challenge. The idea is to collect an assortment of foliage that are different shapes, sizes, colors and textures, and pile them up…then take a photo and post it as you wish with the hashtag #leafstackchallenge. Why? Because it’s a fun activity that can open our…

“Is it OK to cut my perennials back and do my garden cleanup now?” “Can I trim my roses back in the fall?” “When is the best time to cut down my ornamental grasses?” These are questions our customers ask at this time of year. Truth be told, in most situations you can get away…

On Cape Cod many of us have pots and window boxes that are still full of flowering annuals in September. Our customers wonder if they can bring these beauties inside before frost. “Is it possible to keep them looking this good through the winter?” they ask, or “Can I save them and put them out…

We’ve known for a few years that monarch butterfly populations have been diminishing. Fortunately, people all across this country and into Canada and Mexico have been working to support remaining monarchs and increase their poulations. On Cape Cod we’ve begun to see the results of these efforts as more butterflies appear in wild areas and our…

Fall is an exciting time in the garden center as new stock floods into the nursery in time for fall planting. When it comes to “fall color” we’re not just talking about how the foliage changes in autumn! I was pleased to find dozens of plants with great foliage colors and textures when I walked…

Let’s start this post off with the truth: sometimes we can’t figure out why a plant has died. And often, a plant dies not just from one cause, but from a combination of “this, then that, and the other thing.” That said, here is how to problem solve if you’ve got a plant that didn’t…

Yes, the heat is on. Time to talk about watering your plants…specifically, why you want to water the area around the plant, not the leaves of the plant and not the stem or trunk. You see, when it’s hot I frequently see people hosing off the tops of their shrubs and trees. I know that…

Most of us live in our backyards, and we tend to place decks, patios and seating areas there. Some are blessed to have farmer’s porches or other front-of-the-house seating, but this isn’t the norm. Yet on many properties, seating in the front yard should be considered. Many of our Cape Cod neighborhoods are attractive, and…

Here’s what’s going on in every yard and garden on Cape Cod: birds light in shrubs and trees, and poop onto the ground below. As they do so, they place seeds for many invasive or wild plants into your garden. Many of those seeds germinate, and before you realize it, your plants are infested with…

The heat is on, and that means that our vegetable gardens should be growing gangbusters. Here’s a checklist of what to do in the veggie garden in mid-July. Weed, weed and weed. Most of us find that the weeds that were tiny over the Fourth of July are now monsters! Pull them quickly and often.…

Ornamental grasses (some of our customers call them “beach grasses”) took a hit this past winter. We’ll never know whether it was the rollercoaster temperatures early in the winter or the very wet conditions we had in March, but many people found that their grasses were dead this spring. Some clumps have a few, feeble…