Bonnie Kirn Donahue
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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.
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How to cultivate natural dyes from your garden
Growing flowers, vegetables and berries for eating is fun and nourishing, but what about growing them to make colorful dyes?
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Ask a master gardener: How to grow onions
A simple staple in many cuisines and recipes, onions can be a satisfying plant to grow in the garden.
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Ask a master gardener: How to force spring bulbs
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…
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Fall Guide: Sunflowers take the spotlight this season
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.
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How can rain gardens help with stormwater? Ask a master gardener
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…
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Phlox can liven up your property
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…
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Ask a Master Gardener: What is succession planting?
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…
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Ask a master gardener: Why veggie gardens need flowers
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…
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Ask A Master Gardener: The fantastic Chanticleer Gardens
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…
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Ask a master gardener: Using summer-dried herbs and flowers
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…
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Gardening: Plant bulbs now for spring blooms
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…
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Gardening: Tips for harvesting pumpkins and squash
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…
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Gardening: How to rehab a perennial garden
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…
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Gardening: Renovate your berry patch
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…
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Gardening: Making the most of summer basil
If you planted basil in your garden, there are a few things you can do now to ensure a good harvest. Basil is sensitive to drought, so you…