Want to have the full experience of growing tomatoes from start to finish this gardening season? Start by growing your own plants from seed indoors this winter. Your first step is to choose which variety of tomato you want to grow. There are a lot to choose from-- around 10,000 varieties of tomatoes exist. There are d...

Even though winter has set in and your gardens are under snow, you don’t have to be without fresh herbs. You can plant an herb garden on your kitchen windowsill.   Here are some hints on how best to grow herbs indoors: Most herbs are not hard to grow indoors, but they do need plenty of light. Many of the herbs we ...

You can’t beat poinsettias for a colorful Christmas plant in your home, but after Christmas, poinsettias tend to go downhill. Come January, we all are ready to move on from the Christmas theme. There are other beautiful houseplants that are colorful but do not scream Christmas and will continue to make a good housep...

Have you seen the lavender-colored crocus-type flowers that emerge in local gardens in the fall? To me, these flowers look like they should be growing in the spring because of their pastel-purple flower color when the colors of fall are oranges and yellows. These flowers are Colchicum, sometimes known as fall or autum...

We have always loved cherries. When my husband, Jerry, was a child, his mother bought some “Flathead Cherries” and he found out that Flathead Lake in Montana was a cherry growing area. (Flathead is not a variety of sweet cherries—many varieties are grown around Flathead Lake.) He loved to eat sweet cherries and ...

by Jan Cashman 6/13/20 Everyone loves lilacs…and what’s not to love? Lilacs (genus Syringa) are beautiful to look at and wonderfully fragrant. They are hardy in our climate and grow well in our local soils that tend to be alkaline. Lilac bushes are long-lived; they make good hedges. If you choose carefully, you ca...

By Jan Cashman 7/20/20                                                 Pollination is one of nature’s most important functions; it is the way many plants reproduce. Pollinators assist plants with reproduction; they take pollen from one plant to another. If plants aren�...

Pollination is one of nature’s most important functions; it is the way many plants reproduce. Pollinators assist plants with reproduction; they take pollen from one plant to another. If plants aren’t properly pollinated, they can’t bear fruit or produce seeds to grow new plants. Many plants are wholly dependent ...

There are many reasons why barberries are one of the most popular deciduous shrubs---they are deer resistant, they do well in full, hot sun, and have thorns that keep animals and foot traffic away. They are dense, respond well to pruning, and are hardy. Barberries are dwarf shrubs that are perfect for small plantin...

by Jan Cashman 10/13/19 The weather in a large part determines how our gardens and plants grow each year.   This year’s weather was unusual. If you remember, last winter was unusually cold and snowy.   At MSU there still was 16 inches of snow on the ground on March 31. And February and March were the coldest on r...