Ask a Master Gardener: What to plant in a shade garden

Think that a shady area can’t have a garden? Think again! Shade gardens can be fantastic places to showcase foliage color, texture and flowers, too.

Growing flowers, vegetables and berries for eating is fun and nourishing, but what about growing them to make colorful dyes?

A simple staple in many cuisines and recipes, onions can be a satisfying plant to grow in the garden.

Watching the first flowering bulbs appear from the thawing ground in spring is one of my favorite times of the year. Luckily we don’t have to wait all winter to have spring blooms. A great way to do this at home is by forcing bulbs. Forcing bulbs means tr … (read more)

Fall is a great time to observe sunflower plantings in your community, to enjoy their beauty and think about how you might like to grow them next season.

Water plays a significant role in the health of our landscapes in more ways than meets the eye.Stormwater is water that collects on the surface during and after a rainstorm or from melting snow. Depending on the permeability and slope of the surface it hi … (read more)

Phlox is a highly versatile perennial with powerful blooms that can extend through much of the season. From spring-flowering, low-growing creeping phlox (Phlox subulata), to its taller, summer relative, garden phlox (Phlox paniculata), there are many cult … (read more)

Do you ever plant your vegetable garden in the spring, and wish that you had more space to plant other crops? With careful succession planting, you can plant more with the same amount of space.Succession planting is a technique where you stagger plantings … (read more)

This season, consider incorporating flowers into your vegetable garden.Flowers can transform vegetable gardens from places of production to places of pleasure. While vegetables have a lovely variety of textures and shades of green, flowers add pops of col … (read more)

Just outside of Philadelphia is a magical garden estate in Wayne, Penn., known as Chanticleer. Built in the early 1900s, the estate’s 35 acres of rolling land and gardens are open to the public to explore for a small fee. What is unique about Chanticleer … (read more)

Do you have herbs and flowers that you dried or preserved last summer still sitting in your cupboard or freezer? If so, now is a great time to pull them out and put them to good use. Dried herbs can be used in many ways depending on their variety and flav … (read more)

Do your future self a favor, and plant spring-blooming bulbs this fall. Depending on where you live, there can be a month or more after the snow recedes in spring until we see flowers. Planting spring-flowering bulbs shortens this window and packs a ton o … (read more)

Fall brings many great things that come in beautiful shades of orange, yellow, red and brown. Pumpkins and winter squash are among the most wonderful of these. Fall’s fluctuating temperatures and the threat of frost bring challenges to growing these in yo … (read more)

As I look out at my perennial garden this time of year, it looks…tired. The Rudbeckia fulgida (Black-eyed Susan) is at its prime, but just about everything else has gone past. The weeds were difficult to contend with this year, even with proper mulching … (read more)

Now that the June-bearing strawberry season has passed, there are things that we can do now to get ready for next year’s crop. If your strawberry patch is two years old or more, after harvesting the last of your strawberries, it’s time to renovate the bed … (read more)