For many Americans, poinsettias are a symbol of the Christmas holidays. Their radiant color will brighten up your home, even in the dark of winter, and something about their specific shade of red really works for me. The connection of poinsettias to Christmas reaches back to a mexican legend. A young...

My neighbor and I had a bit of a wager going, concerning the number of lawn mowings left in the season. My contention was that with the temperatures only recently dropping into our classic fall weather in these parts, we were bound to be cutting the grass until December. He felt otherwise, and following...

Bradford Pear trees are probably the most commonly used landscape tree in my area, and their prevalence tends to dilute the fact that they really are nice trees. They have shiny foliage that they keep long into the fall. Their leaves stay green for a long time and slowly turn to a pretty reddish bronze...

Work is always easier when you know you're helping someone out. Last weekend my older brother Ben and I descended on my parents' house to help them with some yard work. For years when we were younger, our time in the summer was measured out in yard work; mowing, trimming, pruning, mulching, weeding,...

Ed Wood was an American film director who made some of the worst movies ever committed to acetate. He truly gave the term "B-Movie" a standard by which all others were judged. These movies were terrible to the point of being unwatchable, and by all accounts Ed Wood himself was a bit of an odd duck. He...

"And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills, Where blossomed many an incense bearing tree" Samuel Taylor Coleridge In my corner of Ohio, there is a time every year in late May and early June that is as distinct as any holiday. When the honeysuckle blooms it's as if everything draws to a sweet,...

The most amazing thing happened in the last 24 hours. It rained. It's true what they say, that you don't know what you have until it's gone, and the rain has been gone for some time. Earlier this month we had about one inch over the course of three days, and before that it had not rained in SEVEN WEEKS...

The highlight of my second grade year came very early. Fairfield, Ohio held an annual Indian Summer Days festival in September. It was your standard "Hooray for our town!" sort of event that seemed to celebrate civic pride and the return of children to school in equal measure. As a local businessman...

I'd like to say a quick word about manure. Yes, manure. The smelly bovine byproduct that I have recently become an advocate of. Prior to planting anything this spring, my father laid some sage advice on me, "A smart gardner spends 90 cents of every dollar on the soil, and 10 cents on the seed." The previous...

As I mentioned, I've planted a vegetable garden. Really it's just a strip of dirt off the south side of my garage. There were some overgrown boxwoods there, which actually survived transplanting and are doing very well, which is a bonus. I started a bunch of stuff from seeds; tomatoes, peppers, squash...