How to Feed Hungry Epiphytes: A Realist’s Guide to 10 Fertilizers for Orchids
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I still remember the sour smell of rotting roots back in the spring of 1998. I had just acquired a small collection of rare Paphiopedilum orchids, and in my eagerness…
10 Best Plants That Grow Big in Bedrooms
My back still twinges when I think about the three-gallon terracotta pot I dragged up my narrow stairs last Tuesday. The smell of damp pine bark compost and old earth…
How to Take Care of a Poinsettia Year-Round: A Realistic Guide to Keeping Holiday Plants Alive
Every January, garbage cans around the neighborhood fill up with millions of bare, sad-looking holiday plants. It always makes my heart ache a bit to see these robust shrubs tossed…
10 Mistakes that are Killing Your Burro’s Tail Plant
My knees are currently aching from two hours of kneeling on cold, damp concrete, cleaning up a mess of soil and shattered clay. My favorite garden hose kinked in that…
Feeding Your Patch: 7 Organic Watermelon Plant Fertilizers That Work
My lower back still aches when I recall the summer of 2005. I was attempting to coax a decent crop of ‘Sugar Baby’ watermelons out of a sandy, unforgiving plot…
10 Fish That Can Live Peacefully With Bettas: The Ultimate Compatibility Guide
My feet were soaked, and the smell of rotting Java moss filled my small living room back in 1998. I had just flooded the carpet while cleaning a canister filter,…
How to Use Hydrogen Peroxide for Plants to Rescue Roots and Fight Off Garden Pests
Let’s start with a dirty truth about gardening. Behind every healthy garden lies a trail of dead foliage, rotten roots, and hard-earned failures. In 1998, I stood over a wooden…
How to Make a Gnome Home with Moss, Pebbles, and Natural Forest Finds
My lower back still aches from bending over the damp forest floor yesterday afternoon. My fingernails are stained a dark, stubborn brown from digging up wild clay near the creek…
Managing Monstera Aerial Roots: A Practical Guide for Indoor Gardeners
You are sitting on your living room floor, trying to unravel a tangled mess of green leaves, when a rough, brown appendage pokes you directly in the eye. If you…
How to Grow Watermelon in Your Backyard: A Realistic Guide to Sweet, Heavy Yields
I still get a twinge in my lower back when the humidity rises, a stubborn reminder of the summer of 2008. That was the year I tried to grow thirty…