Seeds of Spring

It seems like just a few weeks ago that the garden settled down for its winter nap but already the first signs of spring are appearing – seed and plant catalogs. This year, while you enjoy the standard (and reliable) sources – Park, Burpee, Henry Fields, Gurney’s, White Flower Farm ­– you might want to [...]

Suburban Myths: Poisonous Poinsettias

There are a lot of traditions surrounding the winter holidays. One of the most persistent is the tradition of thinking that poinsettias are poisonous. It’s simply another Suburban Myth – a popularly believed garden-variety fallacy. Supposedly, the poisonsettia myth started in 1919 when a two-year-old child of an army officer stationed in Hawaii died of [...]

Great Gifts For Painless Gardeners

It’s holiday time – time to make gift lists for yourself and your gardening friends. Here are some of the best gift suggestions that I know of for Painless Gardeners. (I’m not a representative for any of these companies nor do I receive any commission from them. These are all just items that I personally [...]

How To Build A Back-ReLeaf Rake

A few years ago, as I was bending to scoop up fallen autumn leaves, it hit me: a sharp pain in my lower back, closely followed by the thought “There MUST be a better way to do this!” I was still hobbling stiffly a few days later when I used our pooper-scooper to clean up [...]

How to Rake Without Ache

Raking and bagging is a time-honored strategy for dealing with fallen autumn leaves. Despite the popularity of using leaf blowers and leaf vacuums (detailed here,) raking is still most people’s method of choice – because it works so well. Here are ways to ensure that your raking is as painless as possible this year. 1. [...]

Weapons of Mass Suction for Autumn Leaves

We’re headlong into fall and the leaves are piling up. What’s a Painless Gardener to do? One strategy is to bring in the big guns – leaf blowers or leaf vacuums – to arm yourself against strain and over-exertion. A Blow for Freedom The fellow who invented the leaf blower in the 1950s in California [...]

What’ll you do with all those leaves?

It’s time now for the next phase of painless autumn gardening – leaf collection. Depending on your surroundings, that can be a simple task or a sizable chore. I live in a state that is still 50% forest. No matter where you are in Arkansas, you’re not far from trees – and a LOT of [...]

Fall is fine for transplanting shrubs and trees

Fall is the perfect time to do some needed renovation in your painless garden. In the last post, we looked at dividing and transplanting perennial plants this time of year. Now, let’s examine best practices for transplanting woody plants – shrubs and trees. As with perennials, there is a cornucopia of benefits to autumn planting: [...]

Divide (and Multiply) and Conquer This Fall

As the days start cooling and getting shorter, Painless Gardeners have the perfect time to perform some important – and money-saving – garden math. Fall is a great season in which to divide many plants and transplant them, thus multiplying their presence in your garden with fairly painless effort. Not all garden plants are candidates [...]

Suburban Myths: Bleach

If you read much gardening literature, you’re sure to have encountered marvelous claims about using bleach: • It’s the perfect disinfectant to clean tools! • It’s great for sterilizing pruning cuts! • It’s an effective weed-killer! I’ll admit that I’m a bit of a bleach-lover. I use it to clean and disinfect a lot of [...]

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