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Articles by Teri Dunn Chace
10 Practical Landscaping Ideas to Transform Your Outdoor Space
If you want to refresh and beautify your yard but you aren’t sure how to begin, “think broadly,” advises gardening expert Teri Dunn Chace. “Landscaping involves more than plants—it’s also context.” Try some or all of the following practical ideas to make a change for the better. In the process, you’re sure to create curb appeal and raise your property value. 1. Start with a plan Assess your yard first.
Perennial Flowers: Expert Tips for a Colorful, Low-Maintenance Garden Year After Year
Whether you’re a busy person or just want a lot of bang for your gardening buck, long-lasting perennials are a smart garden investment. Unlike annuals (which have to be purchased afresh every year), perennial flowers are left to grow in place, get bigger, look better and bloom more generously year after year.
Best Weed Killers
Weeds can interfere with the best-laid garden and landscaping plans. Gardening expert Teri Dunn Chace offers some economical and effective ways to combat these unwanted invaders, plus important safety tips. Know thy enemy. Don’t spray when you don’t know what you’re dealing with. Identifying specific weeds isn’t difficult. Try a plant-ID app such as Pl@ntNet, iNaturalist or PlantSnap. Or show some samples to a landscaper, gardening neighbor or garden-center staffer.
How to Create an Indoor Garden
Longing for something fresh-grown…but concerned because you’re a beginning gardener, lack the time or space for an outdoor food garden, or don’t have a greenhouse? Or perhaps it’s off-season—winter, early spring, fall? Given these limitations, you might think growing tasty edibles indoors is not possible. Not true, says our Bottom Line gardening expert Teri Dunn Chace. You can grow food plants indoors. Key to success: Keep your plans simple, and set your sights on easy and proven choices.
How to Start a Vegetable Garden
Is growing your own vegetables worthwhile? Yes, says our Bottom Line gardening expert Teri Dunn Chace, a backyard vegetable garden is a great idea, especially when you factor in that you can choose quality varieties and assure that your crops are organic and picked at the peak of ripeness for maximum flavor and nutrition.
How to Overseed a Lawn
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How to Overseed a Lawn
When your lawn starts to look worn, patchy or thin, consider overseeding rather than spending extra time and money replacing it. Overseeding can be used on an existing lawn to thicken up the grass and fill in gaps. But don’t just throw grass seed down on existing lawn and walk away. Take the time to do it right… Time it wisely. Spring and fall are the best times to overseed.
Don't Waste Money on Plants That Can't Stand the Heat
Blazing sun and long, dry days are hard on flowers…and on gardeners. Don’t waste time and money on plants that won’t thrive. Best: Install resilient bloomers you don’t have to fuss over. Flowers like this exist in natural areas, but you want garden-worthy selections with appealing blooms. Then you need to be smart about watering so they’ll do well. How to proceed… Seek out the toughest bloomers.
Save Time and Money When Watering Your Garden
Here’s how to lower your water bill and save time and effort when watering your outdoor plants. Bonus: Your plants will become more resilient! Create basins. To ensure that water goes down into the roots, use your hands or a trowel to create a shallow basin around the base of each plant. The basin’s outer edge should reach to the outer edges of the plant. Plant in groups. Cluster together plants that have similar water needs.
How to Revitalize Your Perennials
Now is the ideal time to rejuvenate your overgrown or neglected perennial flower bed—after the plants have sprouted but before they become too big to deal with or move. What to do… Clear out the weeds. They don’t just crowd flower beds, they also monopolize moisture and nutrition. Cut them down with a hoe, or dig out individual ones by the roots—both jobs are easier when the ground is damp. Evaluate. Removing the weeds will expose the clumps of perennial plants.
Grow Your Own Rhubarb
Those ruby-red stalks of rhubarb can be expensive and hard to find. Fortunately, you can grow your own. Pick the right spot. Rhubarb plants need space—these perennials reach around three feet high and three feet wide. Plant them where they get full or part-day sun. Plant early…plant small. Plant in spring as soon as the ground is no longer soggy. The hole should be several feet deep and wide. If the soil is gritty or unimproved, add compost, dehydrated cow manure or other organic matter.
How to Prune Your Flowering Shrubs
A shrub covered with blooms in spring or early summer is a happy sight—but once the show passes, we may look critically at an unruly plant. Perhaps it’s grown too big for its spot, or the branches are hanging over or bumping into the house, a fence or other plants. It is tempting to start pruning! Not so fast! Pruned at the wrong time or in the wrong way, a shrub will not only suffer a setback but bloom sparsely—or even not at all—the following year.
Best Holiday Gifts for the Gardeners In Your Life
It is likely that the gardeners on your list already have the tools they consider essential. So what qualifies as a nice treat, perhaps something they wouldn’t buy for themselves but that they will use or delight in?
How to Prepare Your Evergreens for Winter
Winter can be stressful for the evergreens in our home landscapes…but not for the reason you might think. Spruces, pines, junipers and arborvitaes really aren’t troubled by cold and freezing temperatures. But winter does bring other enemies. Take action now to protect your evergreens from these threats—before the snow starts to fall… Ice and snow. When a winter storm dumps a heavy load, the flexible branches arch and bend.
Where to Shop for Spring-Flowering Bulbs
Fall bulb-planting time is almost here. You can order from specialists now…or wait until autumn arrives and get your bulbs in local outlets. Gardening expert Teri Dunn Chace explains the benefits of each… Shop by Mail Bulb companies encourage ordering in late summer. If you are on their mailing lists or they have your e-mail address, enticing and colorful offerings—often with early-bird sales and discounts—are already popping up in your mailbox.
How to Have a Beautiful Garden and a Happy Dog
Is having a dog and having a beautiful garden at the same time impossible? It doesn’t have to be. Bottom Line’s gardening expert Teri Dunn Chace tells how… Establish a spot for “business.” Dogs are creatures of habit. They will lift their leg or squat in the same spot over and over. Problem: Urine is acidic and high in nitrogen, at best harmful and at worst fatal to grass and other plants. To avoid “burning” damage: Rinse away (dilute) the urine with water. The sooner after the dog visits, the better.
How to Make Your Own Compost
Composting turns yard waste and kitchen scraps into a crumbly soil-like material called humus. Adding this humus to your garden or in new planting holes will improve your soil’s structure, health and water-holding capacity. And it’s free! Start now, and you’ll be using your homemade “black gold” by late summer and for years to come. How to proceed… Pick a good location.
How to Grow Your Own Wildflower Garden
If you’re looking for low-care flower-garden ideas, wildflowers may be your answer. They are native plants and are less likely to be damaged by insects and diseases. Wildflowers also nurture beleaguered pollinators, butterflies and birds. Here’s how to create your wildflower garden… Prepare a spot. Clear a wide, open area, or prepare a curb strip or driveway or walkway border. Evict the weeds. Improve poor soil by digging in organic matter such as compost, bagged dehydrated cow manure and/or topsoil.
How to Grow Veggies in Small Spaces
Who doesn’t love garden-fresh produce? But if all you have is a deck or balcony, you may think you can’t grow your own. Solution: Grow potted versions of your favorite vegetables. Here’s how… Examine plant labels and descriptions. Find suitable varieties wherever seeds or starts (seedlings) are sold. They might be labeled “for containers,” “dwarf” or “patio” plants. Also keep an eye out for these clever variety names… Bush beans: Porch Pick.
It Is Easy to Grow Your Own Salad Greens
Of all the vegetables that you could raise yourself, perhaps none are easier and more rewarding—especially for a dabbler or total beginner—than leafy salad greens. Depending on the types you grow, you can enjoy a variety of delicious flavors with different colors and leaf shapes. Salad greens offer a lot of nutritional value (fiber, vitamins A and C, potassium and other nutrients) with minimal calories.
The Right Way to Close Down Your Garden
How you care for your yard as the gardening year winds down can make all the difference for next year’s garden. While there is plenty of advice about starting up a garden in spring, closing it down properly at season’s end can be equally important. Moreover, not all of these tasks are intuitive. In fact, recent research has resulted in new recommendations. Here are some best practices to follow… Timing is everything. Pick your gardening days with care.
Green and Lush | Bottom Line Inc
Ordinarily, fall is not the time to plant anything in our yards— except, of course, springblooming bulbs. The other exception is the lawn, whether you are replacing an old, worn-out one or starting from scratch. A cluster of favorable conditions allow this project to succeed now. Unlike in spring, fall soil is warmed up and quite hospitable to seeds—they’ll grow well. Rainy days ahead will help keep the area moist.
Enjoy Home-Grown Veggies Well Into the Fall
Those of us who grow our own vegetables are accustomed to freshly harvested food, close at hand, delicious and healthy. As the gardening year winds down, we hate to think about going back to eating inferior grocery-store produce. No need! There are a number of tricks to delay that fate and keep the homegrown crops coming even in climates with snowy winters.
The Bugs You Want in Your Garden
While bugs, beetles and other creepy-crawlies are not welcome indoors, stay your hand when you spot them outside! The realization that not all bugs are bad is relatively new. In the past, gardening books and magazines touted remedies to rid your garden of insect pests, and garden-supply shelves were chock-a-block with sprays, dusts and granules intended to poison them.
Beyond Tomato Cages: Best Supports for Vegetables and Flowers
When your garden plants have flopped or threatened to keel over, you may have tried staking or cages. Sometimes that works…sometimes it doesn’t. Let’s take a closer look—and make your gardening life easier this year with some “best practices” secrets and alternative products to consider. Steel Stakes If your bamboo or wood stakes tend to lean or fall over before a plant has reached its full size, it’s time to graduate to a steel tube, galvanized-steel pole or even rebar.
How to Keep Small, Furry Nibblers Out of Your Garden
We gardeners are not the only ones who like the plants we grow. Perhaps the most common and most aggravating garden visitors, besides deer, are the smaller, nibbling, destructive mammals—squirrels, chipmunks, woodchucks (also called groundhogs) and rabbits. Robust cultivated plants such as peas and even young fruit trees are irresistible, and springtime’s tender seedlings are especially appealing.
Keep Your Houseplants Alive While You Are Away for the Holidays
It’s wonderful to travel during the holiday season to celebrate with family or in faraway places, but who wants to come home to dead houseplants? Here’s how to keep your plants happy while you are gone—without hiring a plant sitter. For a Long Weekend In case you haven’t noticed, even houseplants slow down in the cooler months. To give them their natural rest period, water less and less often—let the soil mix go dry between waterings—and don’t fertilize.
Best Gifts for Gardeners
While winter is traditionally downtime for gardeners, it is also prime gift-giving season. That turns out to be a blessing actually. Shopping now means there will be plentiful choices and plenty in stock. And, perhaps best of all, when you give someone a garden-themed gift, you’re literally planting a seed of anticipation for springtime’s return. Most gardeners have the basics of a trowel, shovel, clippers and rake but will happily welcome a practical, high-quality addition or an inspired upgrade.
Fall is the Best Time to Plant Perennials and Shrubs
For many a gardener, fall is a time to slow down. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the season past and clean up your yard. But those spring and summer planters may be missing out on the best time of year for gardening—the fall. Beyond planting spring-blooming daffodils, tulips and other bulbs, the fall offers both great weather and great bargains for beautifying your yard. Capitalize on fall’s assessing opportunities. Now is the perfect time to make calm and prudent planting decisions.
10 Stunning Nature Photography Coffee Table Books
I love nature photography. I could probably waste a whole day vacationing from real life and escaping into the wonder of the natural world. Luckily, the advances in high resolution photograph over the last 15 years have given birth to a whole new generation of nature photography books that can turn any coffee table into an instant wilderness retreat. Here are 10 stunning coffee table book for nature lovers: Remember that 2006 BBC nature documentary that everyone was raving about a few years ago?
Seeing Seeds Up Close
A centuries-old saying goes, "Great oaks from little acorns grow." But as a new book, Seeing Seeds, reveals, there is much more to a seed than the plant it will become. Seeds, seedheads, pods and fruits have their own astounding beauty that sometimes even surpasses that of their flowers. One example, shown here, is the seed pod of annual corn, or Flanders poppy, Papaver rhoeas. The plants self-sow in gardens and fields. The tiny seeds have been known to lay dormant for decades.
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