Ready to make the most of your backyard? We share practical ideas, growing guides, design inspiration, and seasonal tips to help you create a beautiful, productive outdoor space. Whether you’re growing vegetables, flowers, or both, you’ll find simple ways to turn your backyard into a garden you’ll love spending time in.
Ever walked outside in March and felt let down by a bare, brown yard? I know that feeling. You wait all winter for color, and nothing’s there yet. Here’s the good news. You can fix this now, in fall, with almost no effort in spring. Plant the right bulbs today, and your garden wakes itself…
You planted your garden with care. Then one cold night wiped half of it out. Sound familiar? It happens to almost every gardener at least once. The good news? Some perennials just don’t care about frost. They shrug it off and come back even stronger the next spring. I’ve pulled together 10 of the toughest…
Fall doesn’t have to mean the end of color in your garden. Neither does winter. While summer flowers fade and lawns turn brown, a whole group of plants is just getting started. Some bloom right through the first frost. Others wait until the coldest months to show off. In this list, you’ll find 10 flowers…
That first fall frost feels like a deadline. Most summer flowers give up overnight, leaving your beds looking bare just as the season gets interesting. But you don’t have to watch your garden go dull. Some flowers actually get better once the temperature drops, holding their color through frost, light snow, and everything in between….
Your perennials looked amazing in June. Now the middle of that daylily clump is bare, and the blooms are smaller than last year. That’s not disease. It’s overcrowding, and fall is the best time to fix it. Cooler air means less stress on the roots. The plant gets weeks to settle in before winter instead…
Your coneflowers looked incredible all summer. Now the blooms are fading. So what do you do next? Cut them down? Leave them alone? Cover them up? Get winter prep wrong, and you risk trouble. Root rot. Weak spring growth. A plant that just doesn’t come back. Here’s exactly how to set your coneflowers up for…
I get it. Once the leaves start turning, it feels like the herb garden window has closed. But here’s the thing: fall soil is still warm. The air is cooler. Your new plants get to settle in without fighting summer heat. It’s actually one of my favorite times to add herbs. You can go with…
Has your garden started looking worn out by August? Mine used to. The roses were done. The annuals were leggy and sun-bleached. Then I started leaning on flowers that wait for late summer to show off. They shrug off heat. They feed pollinators on their way south. Some even keep blooming past the first light…
Fall garden cleanup can feel confusing. Do you cut everything back? Or leave it all standing until spring? Here’s the honest answer: it depends on the plant. Some perennials genuinely need a fall trim to stay healthy. Others do better left alone until the weather warms up. Get the timing wrong, and you risk losing…
You brought your mums home looking incredible. A week or two later, half the blooms turned brown. The rest look tired. Sound familiar? Here’s the thing. That’s not bad luck. A few small habits are usually to blame, and they’re easy to fix once you know what’s going on. I’ll walk you through exactly what…