ArcaMax

Q: It looks like winter is coming next week, and I need to get some ice-melting granules. My area gets a few ice storms each winter. We get a little snow too, but that usually melts off quickly. My concern is getting rid of the ice. I was told that I could use lawn fertilizer to melt the ice and it would then fertilize the grass nest to the ...Read more

Awards for plants come in a variety of names: Louisiana Super Plant, Mississippi Medallion, as an example, and in Georgia where I live, it is the Classic City Award given out by the University of Georgia. The UGA Trial Gardens said in a press release that the winners represent the best overall in the gardens and were ranked on a scale of one to ...Read more

Q: I have tried growing amaryllis bulbs, and they seem to grow smaller each year. I buy a big bulb that has two or even three flower stalks with four or five flowers on each one. Then the next year, it will grow only one flower stalk and two or three flowers. I see the bulbs are again available in the stores. I want to try again, but what am I ...Read more

Pinky Winky has gone Prime! One of my all-time favorite hydrangea paniculata varieties, Pinky Winky is now being offered as Prime. This means you can now choose Pinky Winky or Pinky Winky Prime hydrangea for your landscape or pollinator habitat, as I will explain.

Your first question is what the difference is, and that would be size. It is ...Read more

Q: I have three potted mums on my porch. The flowers are fading, and I am wondering what to do with them next. They were expensive, and I would like to keep them until next year. I have a place in the back of my vegetable garden where I could bury the pots until next spring. What do I do with them in the spring?

A: Some potted mums are not ...Read more

The Temple of Bloom is like the tree of life to everyone who gardens for pollinators. It is a more compact form of Seven-Sons Flower known botanically as Heptacodium micronioides. The Temple of Bloom’s native habitat is China where its wild populations are under threat of extinction.

If you live in zones 5a to 9b however, and you are looking ...Read more

Q: I have a neighbor who says she gets a better "pumpkin" pie by using butternut squash. My squash vines grew a lot of fruit this year, and I was planning on storing some for the winter. I have had trouble getting pumpkins to grow in my garden, but the squash almost always produce a lot. If she is right, I may stop trying to grow pumpkins and ...Read more

ATLANTA — Atlanta has landed a new NBC drama series “Grosse Pointe Garden Society,” which begins production Nov. 6.

According to a note provided to members of the IATSE 479 union, the series will be shot at Assembly Studios in Doraville. A 12-episode pick up is scheduled to shoot through early April and is set to debut mid-season in ...Read more

The Unplugged salvia group is growing to four in 2025 and that can be your start to an epic red, white and blue garden. There is also an Unplugged Pink that has 26 awards in the trophy case. Unplugged So Blue and Unplugged Pink have won a whopping 63 awards in what seems to be just a couple of years. Plus, what I am seeing in my own garden makes...Read more

Q: I brought my houseplants indoors for the winter, and I have saucers under the pots. When I water some of the plants, water immediately flushes out of the pots and overflows the saucers. When the plants were outdoors, I used a garden hose to water them, and I never gave a thought to water flooding out of the pots. In fact, there weren't any ...Read more

As I look back at this gardening year, one of the plants I enjoyed the most was the Upscaled Red Velvet monarda or beebalm. I am in my third year growing the fairly new variety, and it is just getting better and better. Like countless others before me have said, the third year is like magic.

It was like magic with the bees and butterflies too. ...Read more

Q: My lawn is getting lumpy, for lack of a better word. It is mostly shady, but I don't think it is tree roots. There are grass plants and bare spots plus little worm dirt piles. What would be a good way to smooth it out? It is getting hard to mow and to walk on.

A: There are several causes of lumpy lawns, and you hit on two common ones. Lawns ...Read more

Four years ago or so, Supertunia Mini Vista Indigo was extensively used in our area and was like the shot heard round the world. We all looked at each other with a sense of bewilderment asking how a Mini Vista could compete with the Vistas for a long, hot summer show of color. With every new variety or addition to the series, it has been the ...Read more

Q: Help! I planted my tomato plants late, and then we had a lot of hot, dry weather, so there were no tomatoes. Now there are dozens of green tomatoes, but our average first fall frost is coming soon, so I think that many of the tomatoes are still going to be green when the frost comes. Can I cover the plants? Can I spray water on them like in ...Read more

The Garden Guy has always been a tropical plant geek, and not a closet one either. My second book was "Paradise Found: Growing Tropicals In Your Own Backyard." The years I was the host of Mississippi State’s Southern Gardening TV, I was most always decked out in a tropical floral shirt.

So, when Proven Winners announced this year that ...Read more

Q: When I was a kid, my mom and the neighbor ladies would gather seeds from the marigolds and other plants. They spent the afternoon doing something to them, and then in the spring, they replanted them with great success. I want to do that with my daughters; what do I need to do?

A: I hope your daughters have as great of memories of gardening ...Read more

You have heard or perhaps even said something like, "Wow, he caught lightning in a bottle." It may now be said, "Boy, they caught lightning in that phlox." You will see what I mean if you try the new Luminary Pink Lightning phlox coming out in 2025.

The Luminary series already has Opalescence, a light pink tall garden phlox that is indeed the ...Read more

Q: For the past month, we have had several hummingbirds using our feeder. It hangs in front of my office window, and I notice them all day long. Yesterday, there was only one. I assume they are leaving for migration. How long should I leave the feeder up? I don't want to have them not migrate because the feeder is up.

A: This is a common ...Read more

I looked at one of my photos the other night and thought "Holy wow!" I leaned over to the couch and said to my bride, Jan, "Look at this."

She said much the same but asked, "Where is that garden?"

Delightfully, I said, "In your backyard!"

The picture was clear evidence that the Heart to Heart caladiums faced the onslaught of extreme summer ...Read more

Q: With the drought conditions we experienced this summer, what should we do for watering this fall to help our plants make it through the winter? Especially for some new perennial flower beds we planted in the spring.

A: The answer for this fall is to not stop watering until the ground freezes. If your area doesn't freeze at all or only for a ...Read more