BESIDES THEIR native-heavier plant palette and looser style, ecologically designed landscapes have another difference: The way we maintain them is not the same as with more traditional, ornamentally-focused gardens. I’m asked again and again by gardeners who have planted a meadow-like area or some other habitat-inspired, naturalistic feature about how to handle its aftercare: about what to do when the picture changes a couple of years down the road and thereafter—when the balance of the plants in their design starts...
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Hello & Welcome!
'horticultural how-to and woo-woo'
A WAY TO GARDEN is the latest horticultural incarnation of me, Margaret Roach, birthed in March 2008 with my own words as its primary DNA, mingled with ideas shared in weekly expert interviews.
Since April 2020, I have been the garden columnist for “The New York Times,” where I began my journalism career decades ago. I host a public-radio podcast; write books, plus hold tours at my 2.3-acre Hudson Valley (NY) Zone 6a garden, and always say no to chemicals and yes to great plants.
Timely Essentials
How to Grow Everything
A “NEW YORK TIMES” column I did recently happily put me back in touch with organic farmer Kate Spring, who in our past conversations has always taught me how to think smarter about when to start seeds—like how to time succession sowings of vegetables for an extended harvest well into fall. This time she gave me a 101 on another kind of seed-sowing, but indoors, preferably under lights, and starting right now as winter descends: mastering microgreens. Kate Spring,...
Recipes
I MADE VEGETARIAN BAKED BEANS WITH MARTHA STEWART, my ex-boss, on her television show in 2011, one of the more out-of-body experiences of the relatively quiet current life I began when I dropped out of the corporate world in 2007. After that show, a lot of people wrote in to ask for the recipe, and the source of the heirloom beans I use. Their wish was my command (although it had to wait till I made another batch so...
'horticultural how-to and woo-woo' with margaret roach, head gardener
