Sunflowers have changed their ways in the last few years. They used to be country cousins, handsome and bold but a bit too rustic. Their single stalks were awkward and prone to toppling over, they took up too much room in an ordinary garden, and they were so blatantly yellow. Today, they’re starring in beautiful bouquets and adding dramatic presence to gardens everywhere. Many current seed catalogs list pages of sunflower...

Mulch saves water and weeding A mulch is simply a covering for the soil. Gardeners have used almost any material as a mulch, including old newspaper, foot-deep straw, grass clippings, tree leaves, roofing paper, and plastic. These and many other materials will work if they satisfy these two basic conditions: The mulch should help to retain water in the soil on hot days, and it should smother weeds. A third but less important...

Home grown varieties have the best flavor. Most of the vegetables sold in markets and grown in vegetable gardens are well known. The last major introduction of new kinds of vegetables took place in the sixteenth century when Europeans began to arrive in the Western Hemisphere and returned to carrying seeds of white potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, corn, squash, and climbing beans, together with such plants as tobacco and...

Bare root planting is a method—and usually the best method—of planting deciduous plants (those that lose their leaves in winter, such as roses, apples, or sycamores). Commercial growers raise the plants to salable size in their growing fields. Then in early December, they dig up the plants, clean and trim the roots, and ship the plants off to retailers. Normally, bare root plants are sold from bins of wet shavings...