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great blue lobelia features tall spikes adorned with vivid blue tubular flowers and lance-shaped, dark green leaves.

Flowers

How to Plant, Grow, and Care For Great Blue Lobelia

Do you have a moist garden plot with enough space for a spectacular perennial wildflower? Great blue lobelia is an eye-catching plant that appeals to gardeners, hummingbirds, and a multitude of pollinators. In this article, gardening expert Liessa Bowen will discuss the proper care and maintenance of these brilliant blue-flowering plants.

Close-up of a cut peony flower bud covered with drops of water, showing a round, tightly closed bud with a smooth, green exterior and a hint of pink petals inside.

Flowers

23 Flowers You Should Always Cut in the Bud Stage

Do you want to extend the vase life of your cut flowers from the garden? Cut flower gardener Melissa Strauss discusses which flowers you should cut in the bud stage, or before they open fully. Cutting these blooms before they open will significantly extend their vase life

Fe EDTA tablets arranged on a table.

Gardening Tips

How to Use Chelated Iron in the Garden

Although gardeners often apply nitrogen and potassium fertilizers to plants, they sometimes overlook micronutrients like iron. Join farmer Briana Yablonski to learn about iron fertilizers and how chelated iron can help your plants.

gathered, bright yellow cobs of maize, placed in a brown, woven basket, left in a field.

Vegetables

9 Harvesting Tips For The Tastiest Corn

Corn, with its silky tassels and waves of green, is ripening on the stalk as we speak. With early yields enjoyed, mid and late-season plantings are nearly ready to burst in the husk. There’s a small window to harvest ears at their peak ripeness. Join gardening expert Katherine Rowe in exploring ways to extract corn for its optimal sweet flavor.

Closeup of a gardener deadheading wilted flowers of a plant using pruning shears.

Gardening Tips

11 Garden Tasks To Do In August

There’s still plenty of summer to enjoy, with harvests, flowers, and buzzing birds and pollinators. Late summer is a time of managing water and plant health, weeding out unwanted volunteers, and shaping leggy, ragged stems. It’s also an opportunity to make plans for the coming cool season. Learn about August garden maintenance with gardening expert Katherine Rowe to extend the season.

An unhealthy tomato plant showing symptoms of disease, with brown leaves and blemished fruits.

Plant Problems

5 Reasons Your Garden Has Stopped Thriving This Summer

There’s nothing worse than watching your garden suffer through summer when it should be thriving! Hot weather is perfect for growing crops, but it can also invite issues that halt your plants’ growth. Follow along and find solutions for these problems with native plant gardener Jerad Bryant.

Growing green sprouts of young Vicia villosa and wheat on an experimental farm field.

Soil Improvement

11 Nitrogen-Fixing Plants That Will Improve Your Garden Soil

Nitrogen fixers are the superheroes of the garden world, adding available nitrogen to the soil for whatever you plant next, saving you money on fertilizer, and often acting as stellar cover crops that further suppress weeds and improve soil structure. Gardening enthusiast Emily Estep walks you through 11 nitrogen-fixing plants that will improve your garden soil with minimal effort.

The Oakleaf Hydrangea bush features large, lobed green leaves, with cone-shaped clusters of white flowers.

Shrubs

15 Varieties of Oakleaf Hydrangea

Oakleaf hydrangeas bring multi-season appeal in flowers and foliage. Native to the southeastern U.S., the species and its cultivars bring large blooms in crisp white, soft pink, deep rose, and scarlet. Join gardening expert Katherine Rowe in exploring these shade-tolerant summer bloomers with long-lived garden beauty.

This Daphne odora bush displays clusters of highly fragrant, pale pink to white flowers against glossy, dark green leaves with variegated creamy yellow edges.

Shrubs

21 Best Boxwood Alternatives For Your Landscape

With handsome foliage, attractive forms, and easy care, boxwoods are a go-to for all-season appeal. These evergreen anchors unify the planting arrangement as low-growing hedges, mixed borders, and stand-alone specimens. The versatile, historic shrubs are worthy of any collection. But, if you need to avoid boxwood blight, vary evergreen options, or find suitable growers for your microclimate, equally worthy selections abound. Join garden expert Katherine Rowe in exploring boxwood alternatives.

A close-up of the invasive plant English ivy reveals glossy, lobed leaves and trailing vines that carpet the ground and envelop thick tree trunks.

Weeds

9 Tips for Removing Invasive Plants

Invasive species are annoying invaders! They quickly overrun gardens, banishing all other plants with their unruliness. Learn how to remove pesky invasive plants with nine easy tips from native plant gardener Jerad Bryant.

dry, yellow, rotting cucumber leaves.

Plant Diseases

11 Steps for Managing Garden Diseases in Humid Gardens

Humid-area gardeners suffer with plant disease more often than their arid-area counterparts, as high humidity encourages the kind of fungal and bacterial growth that leads to numerous plant diseases. While some garden maladies are just an inconvenience, others can decimate your harvests. Plant biologist Emily Estep explains preventative and regular steps you can take to manage diseases in humid gardens.