January/February 2024

Garden Gate

The Illustrated Guide to Home Gardening and Design

Garden Gate1 min read
From The Editor
My weather app is one of the first things I check every morning. Then I know how to dress, whether I should close the windows and can plan my day: Can the pots by the back door go one more day without water? Should I plan to shovel snow after dinner?
Garden Gate2 min read
Reader Tips
To avoid damaging the roots of her seedlings, Kayla plants seeds in upside-down drinking cups. Cut the bottoms off the cups, fill them with potting mix and place them upside down in a plastic storage tote. When it’s time to plant or repot, just hold
Garden Gate1 min read
Garden Gate Online
This Japanese form of garden art is a unique way to display plants. Make your own with our how-to steps! GardenGateMagazine.com/articles/projects/ Don’t toss your bulbs after the holidays — here’s how to encourage an encore performance. GardenG
Garden Gate2 min read
Native Bees Find Winter Shelter in Surprising Places
As the buzz of busy bees gave way to the rustle of fallen leaves in my autumn garden, the last of the bumblebee stragglers hit up fading mountain mint blooms. Day by day, fewer sparkly green sweat bees and dwarf carpenter bees nectared on the asters,
Garden Gate1 min read
Garden Gate
The Illustrated Guide to Home Gardening and Design® EXECUTIVE EDITORKristin Beane SullivanEXECUTIVE ART DIRECTOREric FlynnSENIOR EDITOR Sherri RibbeyTEST GARDEN MANAGER/ASSOCIATE EDITORJennifer HowellASSOCIATE EDITOR Marisa ReyesDIGITAL MEDIA MANAGER
Garden Gate1 min readArchitecture
The Right Light = Happy Houseplants
● Spots in south or west-facing windows without curtains or blinds that get 6 to 8 hours of unobstructed bright sunlight per day ● In east-facing windows with bright direct sunlight in the morning and indirect light by midday ● Next to south- or west
Garden Gate3 min read
6 Pro Garden Design Secrets
Starting a garden can feel overwhelming. And sometimes it’s hard to know if you’ll like something until you’ve seen it. By then, you’ve spent enough hours, hard work and money that it’s tough to make a change. That’s where these 6 smart design tips f
Garden Gate3 min read
Dreaming of Summer
Unless you are lucky enough to live where it’s warm year round, when winter starts to drag on, it may feel as if the garden is awash in dreary, monochromatic browns and grays. Time to close your eyes and dream of summer—a colorful season when foliage
Garden Gate11 min read
2024’s Best New Plants!
Instead of ringing in the new year with champagne and balloons, why not treat yourself to a few new plants that you can enjoy through the growing season? There are a lot of interesting introductions to get excited about this year. WHAT’S NEW? This ye
Garden Gate7 min read
Bee Balm
The vibrant blooms and aromatic foliage of bee balm add a splash of color and scent across perennial gardens from early summer to fall. In addition, deer and rabbits won’t eat it, butterflies, hummingbirds and bees love its flowers, and this North Am
Garden Gate8 min read
Destination Gardens
Boise sand verbena Abronia mellifera var. pahoveorum Cutleaf coneflower Rudbeckia laciniata Giant purple sage Salvia pachyphylla Globe amaranth Gomphrena globosa Hopflower oregano Origanum libanoticum Hyacinth bean Lablab purpureus Munro’s globemallo
Garden Gate4 min read
Power In The Garden
I may have said this before (or several times), but I really love a good battery-powered garden tool. I no longer regret an impulse purchase of 300 spring bulbs—I can plant them in about an hour with my trusty bulb auger drill. Spring garden cleanup
Garden Gate2 min read
Which Berry Plant Is Right For You?
Homegrown blueberries not only taste delicious, but they make beautiful garden plants too, with brilliant fall foliage in shades of red, orange, yellow or purple. It may take a few years for the plants to produce a harvest, but it’s well worth the wa
Garden Gate4 min read
Plant a Garden Deer Pass By
Have you stepped out into a garden devastated by deer and immediately blurted a few choice words that you wouldn’t want the neighbors to overhear? Having deer mow through the garden time after time can have that effect on even the most patient garden
Garden Gate6 min read
5 Ways to Stake Tomatoes
While it might feel early to be thinking about tomatoes, it’s never too early to start planning your next garden, especially if your tomato plants tend to look wild and overgrown by the time you remember to offer them a cage for support. Luckily, the
Garden Gate3 min read
Q & A
Q My new river birch (Betula nigra) trees are doing fine except there are lots of sprouts at the base. What should I do? Edith Voznec Haviland, SC A The sprouts, or suckers, at the soil line are a reaction to the stress of being transplanted. Remo
Garden Gate1 min read
Weed Watch
What it looks like Crush this annual and you get a sweet scent similar to pineapple. A low rosette quickly grows into a bushy shrub-like form up to 18 inches tall. The finely divided foliage is similar to the herb chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile). But
Garden Gate2 min read
Garden Essentials
Want to start a lot of seeds but have limited space under lights or on the germination mat? Try this seed-starting flat and sow 20 different plants, each in their own 10-by-1-inch-wide row. It’s perfect for sprouting seedlings indoors before transpla
Garden Gate2 min read
An Early Spring Spectacle
When you encounter the lightly fragrant, bell-shaped, lemon-yellow blooms of cowslip, it’s like witnessing the first sunlit dance of spring. Cowslip’s flowers create a radiant spectacle from April to May, bringing in a symphony of bees and butterflie
Garden Gate2 min read
Birds & The Bees (and Bunnies)
Although I wouldn’t call my raised garden beds romantic, the rabbits in my neighborhood sure like to use them in spring for their bunny rendezvous and subsequent nests. BIG SURPRISES The first year it happened, I found the bunny babies entirely by ac

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