Author: Caleb Lawson

Something has been dripping from the big, fast-growing tree near your patio, and now the deck furniture is sticky and black with mold. That tree might be tree-of-heaven, Ailanthus altissima, an invasive species already spreading across North Carolina that spotted lanternfly loves to feed on. The insect was first confirmed in North Carolina in 2022,…

You step off your back porch on a cool October morning in the Piedmont, coffee in hand, and notice a vine has swallowed half your fence overnight. It looks harmless, almost pretty, but it is stealing sun, soil, and space from the plants you actually want. Fall is the sneaky season for invasive plants in…

You crouch down to plant along the back fence on a sticky July morning, and your trowel hits red clay so hard it feels like brick. Black-eyed Susans get planted here every spring in North Carolina, and half of them sulk, rot, or fade by August. The good news is that clay is not the…

Pull back the mulch on a baking full-sun border in July and you will often find weeds already winning underneath it. Many North Carolina gardeners reapply wood chips every spring and still lose ground to crabgrass, spurge, and whatever blew in from the neighbor’s yard. There is a low, mat-forming native plant that can actually…

You spot a fox trotting along your back fence at dusk, and three weeks later it shows up again, nosing around the same corner of the yard. Most North Carolina homeowners chalk it up to coincidence, but there is usually more going on. Your yard may be offering something that makes it worth a return…

You step out onto the back porch on a sticky July evening in the Piedmont, swatting at a mosquito while the storm clouds build to the west. Somewhere down the fence line, a neighbor has a tall clump of green that smells like lemon and citronella when the breeze moves through it. That plant is…

It is late July in the Piedmont, the red clay bakes under an afternoon storm cloud, and your summer tomatoes are winding down while the garden looks tired. Here is the quiet secret most neighbors miss: July is not the end of the season, it is the starting line for fall. The muggy heat that…

You stand at the top of that baking hillside in July, watching the mulch wash downhill again after an afternoon storm rolled through the Piedmont. The daylilies you planted look tired, the clay keeps sliding, and you are tired of hauling bags up a slope that fights you every step. Here is the good news…

Gardenias can be the most rewarding shrubs in a North Carolina yard, or the most frustrating, and the difference often comes down to a few weeks in midsummer. Right now, while the heat is pressing down and afternoon storms roll through, the buds already forming on your plant are doing something quietly important: deciding whether…

Most North Carolina gardeners plant butterfly bush expecting a yard full of butterflies, and for a few weeks, it delivers. But there is a native plant that does something butterfly bush cannot: it feeds caterpillars too, not just the adults stopping by for a quick drink. Butterfly weed, Asclepias tuberosa, grows throughout the state, thrives…

Bare soil between zinnia plants is basically an open invitation for weeds, and any North Carolina gardener who has spent a July morning pulling crabgrass out of a flower bed knows exactly how fast that invitation gets accepted. There is a low-growing perennial herb called creeping thyme that can spread across that open ground and…

You walk the same loop at the garden center every fall, past the mums and the pansies, and there it sits in a plain black pot with no flowers. A native shrub called beautyberry, and half the North Carolina gardeners in that aisle stroll right by it. Then October hits and the whole plant lights…

Dragging a garden hose across a hot patio to water a dozen containers in August is one of those chores that sounds minor until you are doing it every single day. A rain barrel positioned close to your pots can change that routine in a real way, collecting roof runoff and making it available right…

You glance out the kitchen window and there it is again, that same hawk sitting on the fence post like it owns the place. If you have spotted a hawk circling or perching near your North Carolina feeders more than once, you are not imagining things. That bird keeps coming back because your yard is…

You settle into your porch chair on a warm July evening, and something feels off. The little green lizard that used to bob its head from the fence post every single morning is just gone. For North Carolina gardeners who have grown used to spotting these quick, bright creatures darting through the shrubs, that empty…

Walk past a sunny slope in the North Carolina Piedmont in late April and you might notice a low, spreading plant covered in clusters of pink or purple-lavender flowers, and wonder why nobody talks about it. That plant is rose verbena, Verbena canadensis, a native perennial with a documented bloom window stretching from April through…

You step onto the back porch in late July, sweat already beading before your coffee cools, and there sit your Black-Eyed Susans, looking tired and half-crisped by noon. They were fine in June, but a North Carolina summer wears them down fast. The good news is that plenty of native perennials shrug off the heat,…

You bend down to plant something new near your mailbox, and the shovel stops cold against that packed North Carolina red clay. Sound familiar? Most of us in the Piedmont have fought that orange, brick-hard soil, wondering what will actually grow there without a fight. Borage is one plant that shrugs it all off, feeds…

Hang a wooden box on a tree in your backyard and a wild owl might move in, hunt your yard all night, and chip away at the mice and voles making your garden a mess. That is the promise behind owl nest boxes, and it is genuinely appealing, especially for North Carolina homeowners who would…

You walk the front path on a warm April evening in the Piedmont, coffee in hand, and there it is again. That thick green ribbon of liriope you planted years ago, spreading past its line, feeding nothing but itself. It looks tidy enough, but it does not work for a single bee, butterfly, or bird….

Around late January, something shifts in a North Carolina backyard. A flash of blue lands on a fence post, tilts its head toward an old wooden box, and lingers just a little too long to be passing through. Eastern Bluebirds may begin selecting territories and inspecting potential nest sites as early as February, which means…

July in North Carolina is not kind to most flowers. The sun hammers down, the humidity sits like a wet blanket, and beds that looked great in May start looking sorry by mid-summer. Blanket flower, especially the hybrid Gaillardia x grandiflora, is one plant that can keep producing color through a lot of that punishment,…

You walk out on a July morning in the Piedmont, coffee in hand, and notice a clump of daylilies has quietly doubled since spring. That is not a mistake. Some plants genuinely spread on their own, filling gaps you never planted, and you can dig up the extras to start whole new beds without spending…

Something purple and glossy has been catching attention in North Carolina yards, and gardeners are starting to ask whether it could keep ticks away from their vegetable beds. American beautyberry, Callicarpa americana, is the plant behind the buzz, and the short answer is more interesting than a simple yes or no. Real laboratory research found…

You walk out back on a July evening, the air still thick from the afternoon storm, and your hydrangea looks gorgeous. But come spring, that same shrub might hand you nothing but a wall of green leaves and zero flowers, and most gardeners blame the wrong thing. If you grow a traditional bigleaf hydrangea in…

By late July, a lot of North Carolina yards go quiet. The spring bloomers are done, the early summer color has faded, and the August heat makes everything look a little defeated. That is exactly when Joe-Pye weed steps up, offering big clusters of pink and purple flowers right when the garden needs them most….

You pull into your driveway on a sticky July evening in the Piedmont, and there it is again. Your neighbor’s crape myrtle, covered in aphid soot and topped like a coat rack from last winter’s bad pruning. It blooms, sure, but the bees mostly ignore it and the trunk looks worse every year. North Carolina…

Summer evenings in North Carolina can turn from pleasant to miserable the moment mosquitoes find you on the porch. A lot of gardeners have heard that bats are the answer, and it is a tempting idea: a colony of fast-flying, night-hunting animals working the yard while you enjoy a cold drink. Bats genuinely are valuable…

Two native fruit trees grow wild across North Carolina, ask almost nothing from you once they settle in, and still produce sweet, ripe fruit year after year. Most homeowners walk right past them at the nursery, drawn instead to peaches and apples that demand spray calendars, pruning schedules, and still break your heart with a…

You step onto the back porch after a muggy June day, the last thunderstorm still dripping off the gutter, and the yard is dark. Too dark. The blinking green lights you remember from childhood summers just are not there anymore. Fireflies are fading across North Carolina, and a big reason is the tidy, sprayed, over-mowed…

You drag your patio chair into the shade one morning, coffee in hand, and a flash of red lands three feet away on the fence post. That cardinal just sits there, looking at you like it owns the place. North Carolina homeowners see this happen in January, in May, in the thick heat of August,…

A small native tree blooms along North Carolina roadsides and woodland edges every spring before most yards have leafed out, drawing bees and early butterflies to its white flowers. That tree is most likely downy serviceberry, Amelanchier arborea, and it genuinely earns its place in a wildlife-friendly yard. But a popular claim says it also…