Ethan Brooks

Noticing fewer hummingbirds at your feeder can feel discouraging, especially when you have put time and care into…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 12

Your hydrangea looked great in spring, and now it is drooping, browning, or dropping leaves in the summer…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 12

Watching your cucumber vines burst with cheerful yellow flowers feels like a promise of crunchy cukes to come.…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 12

Nothing ruins a warm summer evening faster than the whine of mosquitoes circling your ankles. The good news…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 12

Petunias promise months of nonstop color, but a lot of gardeners watch their plants fizzle out by midsummer…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 12

Walk out to your garden mid-July and find your tomato plant sprawled on the ground, its cage tipped…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 12

Is your geranium looking tired, with only a few sad blooms and lots of leggy stems? You are…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 12

Squirrels can turn a tidy garden bed into a dug-up mess almost overnight, snatching bulbs and nibbling tender…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

You cut back your peonies after the flowers faded, the garden looked tidy all summer, and then spring…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

You pull a ripe tomato off the vine and notice a crack running down the side. Before you…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

You water, you weed, you wait all summer for that first ripe tomato, and then you flip it…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

Petunias promise nonstop color, but by midsummer many gardeners watch them turn leggy, faded, and sad instead. The…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

Lantana looks tough, and honestly it is one of the sturdiest bloomers in a hot backyard. But when…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

Petunias promise those overflowing, flower-packed baskets you see hanging on porches all summer. But too often they turn…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

Few things worry a gardener more than walking out to check on the tomatoes and spotting leaves that…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

When July arrives and your garden hose feels like a full-time job, some flowers just give up and…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

Bare spots in your containers can leave summer looking half-finished, and it’s frustrating when a pot that started…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

You set out sugar water and planted a few flowers, so why do the hummingbirds keep zipping right…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

If your petunias started out with a big burst of color but now look tired and spent, you…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

Your Christmas cactus is supposed to be tough, but here it is in July, drooping like it gave…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

If your tomato plants look a little sad even though you water them every single day, you might…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

You bought that hanging basket of calibrachoa hoping for a waterfall of tiny petunia-like flowers, but now it…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

You planted petunias hoping for a mounded, flower-packed display, but instead you’re staring at stringy stems that flop…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

If your hydrangeas keep giving you sad, floppy stems and barely any flowers, the problem might not be…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

If your peonies flop over, get chewed up, or bloom weaker each year, the fix might be sitting…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 11

If your flower beds keep letting you down, nasturtiums might be the fix you didn’t know you needed.…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

On a hot afternoon, your hydrangea flops over like it fainted, and your first instinct is to grab…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

If your petunias look leggy, stretched out, and shy on flowers, they are basically begging you for a…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

Few things are as frustrating as a hydrangea covered in lush green leaves that stubbornly refuses to bloom.…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

Some plants sulk after their first season, but a handful of tough perennials do the opposite, they get…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

When summer heat starts fading, a lot of gardeners think the growing season is winding down. The truth…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

You planted a clematis dreaming of those big, showy blooms climbing up your trellis, and now all you…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

You water your hanging petunias in the morning, and by two o’clock they look like limp noodles hanging…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

Tomato plants have a way of telling you when something is off, and curling leaves are one of…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

There’s nothing quite as heartbreaking as walking out to your garden and finding your tomatoes turning mushy, brown,…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

If your garden looks pretty but feels a little empty, the problem might be the plants themselves. Some…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

Your tomatoes are drooping, your petunias look scorched, and you swear you have been watering them faithfully. Here…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

Peonies put on one of the biggest, most gorgeous shows in the whole garden, but the flowers can…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

Nothing stings quite like watching your gorgeous hydrangea flowers fade from bright blue or pink to a sad,…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

Petunias look tough with all those cheerful blooms, but summer heat can turn them from show-stoppers into sad,…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

If your tomato plants have turned into towering, tangled giants with more leaves than fruit, they might be…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

You planted a hydrangea dreaming of big, showy flowers, but season after season all you get is a…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

Your hydrangeas looked gorgeous this morning, and now by afternoon they’re flopping over like they gave up on…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 10

You walk out to check your cucumber patch, expecting lush green vines, and instead you find leaves fading…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 9

If your tomato leaves are curling, yellowing, or your plants just look tired, you may have heard that…

By Ethan Brooks · Jul 9

When the garden starts waking up after winter, most gardeners focus on cleaning beds, planting seeds, and preparing…

By Ethan Brooks · Mar 13

March is when many gardeners feel the urge to get everything done at once. Warmer days, longer sunlight,…

By Ethan Brooks · Mar 12

Weeding is one of the most time-consuming jobs in the garden. Once weeds get established, they spread quickly…

By Ethan Brooks · Mar 11

12 Seed-Starting Errors That Quietly Ruin Healthy Transplants Starting seeds indoors can give you a big head start…

By Ethan Brooks · Mar 9