I remember many years ago when I was starting in this business, Mr. Stoddard at the Experiment Station told me that he felt more plants were killed by over-fertilization than all other reasons combined. I feel the best advice for the homeowner is to fertilize lightly, and when in doubt — don’t.

At the January 1982 CNA Short Course, I gave a brief talk about maintaining container grown plants in the garden centers. Several people were nice enough to say they thought it was a good talk, and a few were adamant that I put the thoughts I expressed there down on paper. I placed a summary…

Before you read through The Plants We Grow, it might be a good idea to get some feeling for the terms I use in naming plants regarding their genus, species, etc. Michael Dirr, in his marvelous book Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, has on page 22 of the 1990 revision an excellent essay on nomenclature.…

Acer pensylvanicumStriped MapThis is a relatively small understory tree of our northern forests with fairly large leaves that give good fall color. However, its main attribute is its bark. On young wood, the bark is bright green with vertical white stripes which are very striking. Generally 10 to 15 feet in height but not that…

Most of us are aware that deer have become a tremendous problem in regard to landscape plantings throughout the northeast. Mainly because logging operations are giving them a lot more winter browse, the deer population in New England, especially in southern New England, has grown considerably. This, combined with the fact that many housing developments…