Author: Alma Weatherford

Privacy is one of those things homeowners value more every year. A backyard feels more relaxing when you can enjoy it without feeling like the whole neighborhood is looking in. That is why planting a living screen has become such a popular choice. The challenge comes later, when a shrub that seemed perfect starts creating…

Georgia summers are no joke, and your lawn is the one taking the heat. The combination of high temperatures and relentless humidity creates conditions where lawn fungus can spread faster than many homeowners realize. The frustrating part is that the watering habits meant to help are often the ones making things worse. Brown patch, dollar…

Not every welcome visitor arrives with wings or bright feathers. Sometimes the most exciting backyard sight moves a little slower and quietly appears when you least expect it. Spotting an Eastern box turtle can turn an ordinary day into a memorable one, especially if you have never seen one wandering through your yard before. Many…

Georgia gardens go through a sneaky transformation every summer that catches even experienced growers off guard. The heat climbs, the humidity settles in like an uninvited houseguest, and before you know it, your plants start showing spots, coatings, and wilts that were not there last week. Georgia’s warm, sticky summers create the perfect storm for…

Bare patches beneath mature trees can be surprisingly stubborn. You reseed them, water them, and give them another chance, yet the grass still refuses to fill in. After a while, those thin, patchy areas become something many homeowners simply learn to live with, even though they never look the way they want. The problem often…

Many Georgia gardeners have been there. You walk out to your vegetable bed on a bright summer morning, and something has already been chewing through your tomatoes or squash overnight. The instinct is to spray. But spraying everything in sight can wipe out the very insects that were already working in your favor, and once…

Growing plumeria in a container can be surprisingly rewarding, but it does not always go the way people expect. Some plants take off with healthy leaves and beautiful blooms, while others seem slow to grow no matter how much care they receive. That difference often has less to do with luck than with the way…

A green lawn stands out during the hottest weeks of summer. When temperatures stay high day after day, it becomes easy to spot which yards are handling the heat well and which ones are starting to struggle. Brown patches, thinning grass, and signs of stress can appear surprisingly quickly once the season reaches its peak….

There is a native vine climbing fences and trellises across Georgia that most gardeners walk past without a second look, and that oversight is genuinely worth correcting. Coral honeysuckle does not announce itself the way exotic ornamentals do. It does not overwhelm a yard or demand constant management. It just produces brilliant red and orange…

Some gardening habits become so common that people stop asking whether they actually work. You see neighbors doing the same thing every year, local landscapes filled with the same look, and before long it feels like the right way to care for the plant. Sometimes, though, the most popular approach is not the one that…

Georgia summers arrive with a particular kind of confidence. The heat settles in hard, the rain becomes unpredictable, and keeping a garden looking good can start to feel like a second job. Here is what many gardeners figure out only after dragging a hose across the yard too many times: some plants do not need…

Front doors usually get plenty of attention, but the space around them often feels like it is missing something. A few shrubs can look nice, yet they do not always create the warm, welcoming feeling people hope for. That is why more gardeners are choosing plants that do more than fill an empty spot. Bright…

March in Georgia and your azaleas delivered. Pink, white, red, the whole neighborhood looked like a garden show. Then summer came, you grabbed the shears, tidied things up, and felt good about the work. Fast forward to the following March. Fewer blooms. Patchy spots. That hollow feeling that something went wrong but you cannot quite…

Some plants spend years earning a place in the yard. They stay where they belong, do what they are supposed to do, and become part of the landscape without creating extra work. Others have a way of slowly changing the rules. What starts as a beautiful addition can become much harder to manage once strong…

Rosemary is supposed to be the tough one. The indestructible herb. The plant you stick in the ground, ignore, and harvest forever. Georgia gardeners know a different story. The plant yellows. The stems go soft. The whole thing slowly collapses in what should be perfect growing weather, and nobody can figure out why. Here is…

Some plants seem to stay in the background for years before suddenly appearing everywhere. One day they are rarely mentioned, and the next they are showing up in more landscapes, more neighborhood plantings, and more conversations about native plants. That kind of popularity usually does not happen by accident. A plant has to offer something…

Growing figs in a small Georgia backyard is more rewarding than many people expect. The warm Southern climate gives fig trees exactly what they love, and with the right approach, even a tight yard can produce a basket full of sweet fruit every summer. But squeezing a productive fig tree into limited space takes more…

Growing sweet potatoes can feel easy for most of the summer. The vines spread quickly, the plants look healthy, and there is not much visible activity above the soil to suggest anything is going wrong. That is why many gardeners assume the hard part is over once the plants become established. The weeks leading up…

Southern magnolias have a way of becoming part of the landscape. After a few years, it is hard to imagine the property without them. Their glossy leaves, large flowers, and year-round presence make them one of the most recognizable trees found in residential landscapes. Summer is also the season when many homeowners start paying closer…

Summer evenings can make a yard feel completely different. As daylight fades, familiar plants and garden spaces become part of a landscape that most people rarely pay attention to. Activity continues long after sunset, even if it is not always easy to see. Many fascinating creatures spend their time moving through the yard while homeowners…

Some fences do nothing for a yard until plants change their purpose entirely. Instead of sitting in the background, they can become part of the landscape itself, filling in with growth that shifts how the whole space feels. Native vines are getting more attention because they don’t just grow for coverage. Once they take hold,…

Georgia yards are changing, and not in the way most garden magazines talk about. Nobody is swapping plants for better curb appeal. Nobody is doing it for a trend. They are doing it because they are exhausted. July comes around, and suddenly the yard becomes a second job. The hose, the sprinklers, the fertilizer schedule,…

June has a way of slipping by faster than expected. One minute summer is just getting started, and before long the calendar is moving toward late July. During that rush, plenty of routine garden tasks get postponed for another weekend that never seems to arrive. Crape myrtles are easy to overlook during this time of…

July in Georgia sorts the garden into two categories: plants that look genuinely fine, and plants that look like they made a terrible decision by being here. Most shrubs land in the second group by midsummer. The heat is relentless. The humidity is suffocating. Blooms that looked beautiful in May have long since given up,…

Nothing is more disappointing than watching a tomato plant thrive in early summer, only to slow down once the hottest weather arrives. The plants still look alive, the leaves may still be green, yet the steady flow of tomatoes suddenly seems to fade. Many gardeners start wondering if they did something wrong or if the…

Every yard has a place that seems to resist every improvement. New plants go in with high hopes, look decent for a while, and then slowly fade away. The rest of the landscape fills out, flowers bloom, and shrubs settle in, but that one area never seems to come together the way it should. After…

Two clematis vines. Same fence. Same Georgia neighborhood. Same amount of sun and rain. One of them is loaded with blooms every season, the kind of display that stops people on the sidewalk. The other looks healthy enough but barely produces flowers, and the gardener behind it has been frustrated for years without knowing exactly…

Nothing builds anticipation quite like a fig tree loaded with small green fruit. Weeks go by, the tree looks healthy, and everything seems to be moving in the right direction. That is why it can be so disappointing when harvest season arrives and the crop is much smaller than expected. At first, it is easy…

Summer does not leave much room for mistakes in a vegetable garden. A crop may look strong one week and far less impressive a few weeks later once the heat settles in. Water disappears faster, soil dries out more quickly, and keeping vegetables growing well can start feeling like a full time job. By the…

Green Giant Arborvitae became popular for a reason. Fast growth, year round privacy, and a neat appearance made it an easy choice for property lines, backyard screens, and landscape borders. Garden centers sold plenty of them, and homeowners planted them with the best intentions. Years later, some of those same plantings are creating a very…