Gardening Tips

Late-summer heat can turn a productive zucchini plant into a drooping, yellowed mess almost overnight, and the first…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

If your hydrangeas put out only a handful of flowers each spring, fall is the right time to…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

Those tiny hummingbirds zipping around your feeder look quick enough to dodge almost anything, but plenty of backyard…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

Summer lawn care in Florida and Texas can feel like a guessing game, especially when your grass starts…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

Geraniums put on a show in spring, then seem to give up right when summer gets going. If…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

If you have a shady bed under shrubs or trees and you’re tired of the same imported groundcover…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 30

Late-summer heat can turn your flower beds into crispy brown patches faster than you can drag out the…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

Collard greens have fed North Carolina families for generations, and late summer is the moment many eastern and…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 30

Stepping outside on a hot August morning to find your lawn looking dull, brown, and crunchy underfoot is…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

Watching your geraniums go quiet in the middle of summer is frustrating, especially when the plants look otherwise…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

You head out to check your bean plants in the morning and find ragged holes, missing leaves, or…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

August is when a lot of North Carolina cucumber vines seem to hit a wall, and gardeners are…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 30

Watching your hydrangea blooms go from beautiful to brown in what feels like a day or two is…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

Those so-called weeds popping up across your North Carolina yard might be doing more good than you think.…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 30

Your tomatoes are wilting, a bulb bed looks like something chewed through it underground, and you keep finding…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

Most gardeners in North Carolina pack up their seed trays by midsummer, but one cool-season crop can still…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 30

Gravel paths are supposed to be one of the easier parts of the yard to maintain, but weeds…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

You bought the perfect feeder, filled it with fresh nectar, and waited for the tiny visitors to arrive.…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

Stepping onto your porch and finding a dark snake curled near the steps is startling enough once, but…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 30

A rubber plant that shoots straight up but stays bare and narrow can feel like a plant that…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 30

Waking up to a yard full of small, scattered holes can feel like a puzzle with no obvious…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Borage is a Mediterranean herb with bright blue, star-shaped flowers that most North Carolina gardeners walk right past…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 29

A clematis that bloomed beautifully last season and now limps along with yellowing leaves or sparse flowers can…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Most purple perennials throw a good show in May, then quietly quit when July heat settles in. One…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 29

Petunias are one of the most popular flowering plants in Southern gardens, but many gardeners watch helplessly as…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Watching a cucumber vine explode with flowers while your kitchen stays empty of cucumbers is one of the…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Flipping a nearly ripe tomato and finding a sunken, blackened patch on the bottom is one of the…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Petunias are one of the most cheerful plants you can grow in a Southern yard, but when the…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Most North Carolina homeowners don’t expect to find a deer curled up in the corner of their yard…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 29

Spider plants are supposed to be the easy ones, so finding crispy brown tips and washed-out leaves on…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Something small, fuzzy, and surprisingly dangerous may already be resting on the oak or magnolia in your North…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 29

Walking past a leafy, full-grown hydrangea that hasn’t produced a single new bloom all summer is genuinely frustrating,…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Zucchini has a way of hiding under big leaves and then showing up way too large before you…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Watching your petunias turn into long, bare-stemmed stragglers in the middle of the growing season is genuinely frustrating,…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Walking out to your cucumber patch and finding yellow fruit and a vine that has basically stopped producing…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

You hang a bright feeder, the hummingbirds show up, and then suddenly they vanish. Chances are a hidden…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Pulling back the leaves to find a tomato cracked wide open just days before picking is one of…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Every fall, gardeners pull out their Christmas cactus expecting a burst of color, only to find a plant…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Burning bush looks pretty in fall, but it spreads into North Carolina woods and does almost nothing for…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 29

Watching tomato plants flower all summer without ever producing fruit is one of the most frustrating problems a…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 29

Summer heat has a way of testing every flower bed in North Carolina, but the right plants will…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 29

If your Christmas cactus is sitting there looking soft, floppy, or pale right now, you are not alone…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Few things are more frustrating than watching a healthy Christmas cactus drop its buds or go limp right…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Late summer might feel like the garden is winding down, but for North Carolina yards it’s actually prime…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 28

Autumn in the South can be just as colorful as spring if you plant the right flowers at…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Late summer in Florida and Texas can leave gardeners staring at vines loaded with full-sized green tomatoes that…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Watching a hydrangea droop in a pot you just watered is one of the more confusing problems in…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Raised beds can turn any North Carolina yard into a food-growing machine, but not every vegetable is happy…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 28

That tired soil sitting in your empty containers after a long Southern growing season still has plenty of…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28