Garden Detective

Need to get some know-how so you can grow your own food this year? You're in luck: Farmingdale State College's Dept. of Ornamental Horticulture is hosting a  daylong workshop -- "Home Grown Food: Planning and Planting the Abundant Landscape," on April 20 from 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. at the Teaching Gardens and Greenhouse on campus.

Admission is  $5, and proceeds will benefit...

It's unseasonably warm and has been for pretty much the last five or six months, and your plants know it. My rhododendrons, above, are in full bloom right now -- at least two weeks ahead of schedule. Shoots from my spring bulbs appeared a full month ahead of schedule. And the forsythia have been at it for over a week, which is more than three weeks ahead of last year. So it stands to reason that...

Looking to learn a thing or two so you can take your garden to the next level this year?  The Suffolk County Cornell Cooperative Extension’s 2012 Spring Gardening School is a great place for one-stop, garden-education shopping. Advance registration is underway for $55 (it'll be $60 at the door.) For your money, you'll get to attend 4 sessions of your choosing, continental breakfast, box lunch,...

Facebook? Check. FarmVille? Check? Brand-name fertilizer? Maybe check in the real world, but what about the virtual?

Miracle-Gro has partnered with FarmVille, the Facebook-integrated game that allows play farmers to plant, nurture and harvest crops. (Full disclosure: I tried playing FarmVille once, but all my plants died. C'est la vie.)

Now, players can use Miracle-Gro to help their...

Familiarity can breed contempt, I know, so oftentimes we don't appreciate the riches right under our noses. One place I've never taken for granted, though, is Old Westbury Gardens.

Appreciated by advertising agencies who shoot magazine ads on the great lawn, producers who film episodes of TV shows such as "Royal Pains" and "Gossip Girl," and even film directors who've chosen...

Looks like Long Island has done it again! For the second straight year, a local student has won the NY Farm Bureau Scholarship. 

Justin Bakewicz, a senior at Rocky Point High School, won first place in the statewide competition, edging out 10 other finalists from across the state to win the recognition -- and a $1,500 scholarship. Last year, Jessica Anson of Yaphank took the...

Boxwood Blight has hit North America, and appears to be so bad that public gardens are being asked to refrain from planting any boxwood plants anywhere for the foreseeable future. The disease is believed to be a fungus which doesn't respond to fungicides.

Boxwoods are extremely popular broad-leaved evergreen shrubs that can be found all over Long Island, most commonly as hedges. There are...

This weather makes it easy to take care of all the February garden chores. But it looks like we might be getting a storm on Sunday, so get out there before then.

The first thing you should do is assess your trees and shrubs. February is pruning time. If you need to know which plants to prune and how it should be done, check my complete guide to pruning trees and shrubs. 

Then bring...

Looking for something fun to do over Presidents Weekend? How about counting birds? You can participate in the 4-day-long annual Backyard Bird Count simply by looking out your window and counting the birds you see in your backyard, office parking lot, dark alley, or wherever you might be lurking.

If you submit a checklist noting the species you see, you'll even get to call yourself a "citizen...

It's hard to believe that just a year ago, Malverne's Groundhog Day was canceled due to a ridiculous amount of snow, and now here we are in February without jackets.

Just a few minutes ago, the country's most famous rodent, Punxsutawney Phil, was summoned from his burrow -- OK, was dragged from his burrow -- in Gobbler's Knob, Pa., before a crowd of  thousands of revelers, saw his proverbial...