Gardening Tips

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

A lumpy lawn is more than an eyesore – it can turn a simple walk across the yard…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Somewhere between the end of summer and the first cold snap, a native shrub quietly puts on one…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 28

Plenty of Southern gardeners have stared at a stunted tomato or a cucumber that just refuses to take…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Crabgrass has a talent for coming back stronger every summer, no matter how many treatments you throw at…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Most herb gardens in North Carolina start looking rough by August, with wilted leaves, burnt edges, and plants…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 28

By late summer, many hanging petunia baskets start looking scraggly: long bare stems, sparse leaves, and all the…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Your Knock Out roses put on a gorgeous show from spring through early summer, and now, in late…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 28

Every summer, Florida and Texas homeowners watch a once-green lawn develop spreading brown patches that refuse to respond…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

That shady, wet slope where nothing seems to grow but weeds and mud is actually prime real estate…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 28

Your clematis is already doing the hard work of growing in your yard, so why not let it…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Watching your hydrangea push out leaf after leaf while producing almost no flowers is genuinely frustrating, especially when…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

That tall, shiny blade poking up above your St. Augustine or bermudagrass is not just an aggressive grass…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 28

Few garden frustrations match the sight of a hydrangea loaded with lush, dark-green leaves and not a single…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 27

Few things are more unsettling than watching a beloved Christmas cactus go soft and wrinkled when it should…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 27

Most flowers close up when the sun goes down, but one vine does the opposite, saving its biggest…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 27

You hung the feeder, mixed up the sugar water, and waited – but the hummingbirds never really showed…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 27

Watching a hydrangea collapse in the August heat is enough to make any gardener reach for the hose…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 27

Kohlrabi might be the most underrated vegetable in a North Carolina fall garden. It looks unusual, grows relatively…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 27

Every summer, Southern gardeners hang out a fresh hummingbird feeder only to find it crawling with ants within…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 27

Raccoons are smart, adaptable animals that have figured out Southern yards offer a reliable supply of food, water,…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 27

Stepping outside on a warm July morning and finding no butterflies where there were plenty last week can…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 27

Some plants make you work hard every spring, but the best perennials do the opposite. They quietly settle…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 27

Gardenias are one of those shrubs that reward a little attention before the heat arrives, and one practical…

By Jasmine Hughes · Aug 27

Weak hydrangea blooms are one of the most frustrating things a Southern gardener can face after months of…

By Ethan Brooks · Aug 27