All the Dirt on Gardening

Indoor plants are a rewarding hobby whether they are grown to be used as room dividers, cheerful decorations, or to reduce inside air pollution. Some plant varieties sold as houseplants thrive indoors only if you give them plenty of care, such as daily misting or if the live in a terrarium, under a glass cloche or inside a glass house called a Ward.  Those plants make excellent hobbies, too, but only if you enjoy providing daily plant care (See https://bit.ly/2CvBmlz  for more information.) Since the appearance of a houseplant is the main reason to have it around, shop for plants in person rather than on the Internet. Look for insect-free, healthy leaves and notice their environment. Are they under grow lights, protected from direct sun or in filtered sunlight? Office plants have to be especially tough since they are abandoned on weekends, watered by everyone or no one, receive minimal light, breezes from heat and air conditioning, and have to survive variable r...

Cinthia Milner wrote The Dirt: Do Not Disturb, for the Asheville, NC, Mountain Xpress. In the column, Milner explores the relationship between plants in winter dormancy and the pleasures of our own chances for rest in the winter. Milner says that by Nov 1, she has the bulbs planted and her garden mulched for the winter. Click to read "The Dirt: Do Not Disturb"; it is a lovely piece of writing. Here's the little frog that came in with the plants this week. Yes, it is time to bring the houseplants in, clean them up, repot a few and find the saucers we put away last spring. Common wisdom dictates spraying plants with insecticidal soap before bringing them in for the winter but usually I check them over under bright light and simply rinse them off. A few spiders hitchhike indoors but they don't live very long once they are inside. PLANT SENSE could be just the help we need for next season's garden planning. Have you heard about this new gizmo for gardeners? Plant Se...