All Entries in the "Henry Homeyer’s Notes from the Garden" Category
Henry Homeyer: holiday gifts for the gardener
By Henry Homeyer ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Already, songs such as “Jingle Bells” and “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer” are blaring in stores in an attempt to get us in the mood to buy holiday gifts. Good grief, Halloween is barely over. Still, here are some thoughts for all you eager beavers who […]
Henry Homeyer: Who, what, where and how of pruning
By Henry Homeyer ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC If you have cut back your perennials, cleaned up the vegetable garden and raked the leaves, you have good reason to be a tad smug. You’re ahead of me, but don’t be too proud – there is still plenty to do outside. It’s time for some fall pruning. […]
Henry Homeyer: Tips for forcing spring bulbs
By Henry Homeyer ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC One of the easiest and most satisfying gardening activities I do each year is to plant tulips, daffodils, hyacinths and crocus in containers each fall. I keep them in a place that is cold, but not freezing, for three to four months, then bring them into the warmth […]
Henry Homeyer: How to handle rodent visitors
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Like the Joad family in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, countless squirrels are on the move. Heedless of traffic, they cross the road in search of new sources of food. Steely-eyed gardeners bear down on them, thinking revenge for the destruction of their crops, particularly tomatoes, apples and […]
Henry Homeyer: What to plant now for spring
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC For decades I’ve been planting spring-flowering bulbs. Some come back every year, some disappear after a few years, and some I treat as annuals. So just when mud season is about to swallow me whole, I am rewarded with flowers to enjoy outdoors – and indoors in […]
Henry Homeyer: How to grow great garlic
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Now is the time to buy garlic for planting – unless you have some from your own garden that you saved for that purpose, as I do. You’ll want to get your garlic planted a month before the ground freezes, so depending on where you live, you […]
Henry Homeyer: 7 chores to complete this fall
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC For many years I was in denial, for I refused to accept that fall and winter were on the way by October. I didn’t start fall clean up until November, and by then it was cold, raw, often wet and unpleasant out. Now, having reached a certain […]
Henry Homeyer: Fall in love with seasonal mums, asters
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Summer is over, officially, and the garden knows it. Tomatoes exist only in the kitchen, many flowers are looking lackluster, and trees are losing their leaves. What’s a gardener to do? I buy color in the form of chrysanthemums and fall asters, and I also enjoy wild […]
Henry Homeyer: It’s the perfect time to plant (some) seeds
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Most of us think about planting seeds in the spring, but there are lots of plants that can be planted by seed now, especially wildflowers. One of my favorite wildflowers is Jack-in-the Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum). In the spring, it produces a single well-hidden blossom beneath its large […]
Henry Homeyer: Harvesting, storing root crops
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC I sometimes wonder if I’m part squirrel. No, I don’t bury acorns for winter, but I do love putting up food for winter, especially potatoes. They’re the ultimate “comfort food” as far as I am concerned, and I rarely have too many. If you haven’t already done […]
Henry Homeyer: Create espalier fruit trees
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC When traveling in France and England I have often admired the fruit trees that have been pruned and trained to stay low and follow a wall or building. Their branches, like the extended arms of a scarecrow, travel horizontally – and are often loaded with fruit. I […]
Henry Homeyer: Love those red-leafed trees, shrubbery
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Everyone seems to go wild for sugar maples trees in the fall because, here in New England, their leaves turn wonderful colors – yellow, orange and, best of all, red. But some trees and shrubs have reddish or purplish leaves all summer, and these, too, are very […]
Henry Homeyer: Getting the best from your harvested tomatoes
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC This is my favorite time of the year: tomato time. Tomato sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. Tomato, basil and cucumber salads with dinner. Tomatoes in stir-fries. Tomatoes going in the freezer, dehydrator and jars of sauce. Oh my, I do love my tomatoes and this year, I […]
Henry Homeyer: Attract pollinators with native plants
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC I recently helped prepare and plant a pollinator garden. Bees, butterflies and other insects need pollen and nectar for food, and suitable native plants on which to rest and lay their eggs. Unfortunately, many landscape plants have been introduced from foreign shores, and the plants may be […]
Henry Homeyer: Try new plants if just for fun
By Henry Homeyer ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Each year I try to grow some new things in my vegetable garden, varieties that I’ve never tried before. Sometimes my efforts are a bust, and I never grow them again. Then sometimes something new becomes an instant favorite, as happened this year. This year I grew Romanesco […]
Henry Homeyer: Preparing for garden guests
By Henry Homeyer © 2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Summer is the time for spending time in the garden – and for sharing your love of the garden with others. If you want to invite friends – your mother-in-law or perhaps the entire bowling team – to see your garden, here are a few tips. First, […]
Henry Homeyer: Mid-summer tasks in the garden
By Henry Homeyer ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Oh I how I love the sunny weather we’ve had this summer! It reminds me of the years I spent as a young man working with the Peace Corps in West Africa. There were often 7 or 8 months of sunshine between rainy seasons. And, like there, we […]
Henry Homeyer: Building a stone retaining wall
By Henry Homeyer ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Many years ago, when I was young and foolish, I decided to build an 80-foot long terrace for fruit trees, and to edge it with a nice fieldstone retaining wall using stones I could find on my property or on the nearby property of a friend. It was […]
Henry Homeyer: Tips for building a garden arbor
By Henry Homeyer ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC When I was a beginning gardener, I just planted vegetables in one place, flowers in another, and never spent 2 minutes thinking about the overall design. I was growing veggies to eat, flowers to admire or to cut and arrange in bouquets. But reading gardening books and and […]
Henry Homeyer: Trees that even tree-huggers can hate
By Henry Homeyer ©2018 Telegraph Publishing LLC Tree-huggers to the contrary, not all trees are good. Yes, they all take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, reducing global warming. Yes, they provide shade, keeping us cooler during hot stretches in summer; most trees are great. However, some are invasive, crowding out others and sucking up […]
