How and When to Deadhead
Deadheading works because it interrupts seed set. Which plants respond, which do not, and where to make the cut.
Category
Gardening Basics
The fundamentals every gardener needs: hardiness zones, watering, pruning, propagation and seasonal timing.
10 articles
How to Tell When a Garden Actually Needs Water
Wilting is a poor signal and a schedule is worse. How to read soil moisture properly, and how deep watering should go.
Why Plants Wilt After Transplanting
A wilting new transplant has lost more root than it can supply. What helps, what does not, and how long recovery takes.
How to Harden Off Seedlings Without Losing Them
Indoor-raised seedlings have no defences against sun and wind. The schedule that builds them, and what happens if you skip it.
Why Your Seeds Are Not Germinating
Six reasons seed fails to come up, in the order worth checking. Most of them are temperature or depth, not bad seed.
How Deep to Plant Seeds
Planting depth decides more germination failures than seed quality does. The rule of thumb, and the seeds it does not apply to.
What Full Sun and Partial Shade Actually Mean
Plant labels use four light terms and define none of them. What each one means in hours, and how to measure your own site.
Annual, Perennial or Biennial: What the Label Means
The three words describe a life cycle, not a plant type — and the same species can be all three depending on your zone.
What Your Last Frost Date Actually Means
A last frost date is a probability, not a promise. How to read it, and how much risk you take planting on the date itself.
How to Find Your Hardiness Zone (and What It Will Not Tell You)
Your zone describes average winter lows and nothing else. What it does predict, what it misses, and why it changed in 2023.