The Gardenangelists: Flowers, Veggies, and All the Best Dirt

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 Dee and Carol turn their attention toward fall in the garden and discuss what to put in fall containers, lettuce they love to grow, a new book by Jacqueline van der Kloet, tracking invasive plants, and more.

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Insect of the Week:

Garden spiders

Flowers: 

Refreshing your fall pots

Sarah Raven’s method for planting containers

Vegetables:

Lettuce worth growing, including:

Salanova® Green Butter Salanova® Lettuce

Black-seeded Simpson

Great Lakes 118, which is an heirloom variety

On the Bookshelf:

My Garden: A Year of Design and Experimentation by Jacqueline Van Der Kloet (Amazon Link)

Dirt:

Midwest Invasive Plant Network’s Public Gardens as Sentinels Against Invasive Plants

Rabbit Holes:

Dee: How do they make pelleted seed? (YouTube)

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Dee and Carol wrap up their project to garden through the alphabet with the letter Z!

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Dee’s virtual Fit walk took her to Yew trees of Borrowdale

Flowers:

Zephyranthes, commonly called rain lilies. Southern Bulb Company has them for sale.

Zinnias 

Zantedeschia, commonly called Calla Lily 

Vegetables:

Zucchini - summer squash. 

Zebra-striped tomatoes - Purple Zebra F1 is an All-America Selection

Zingiber officinale - Ginger How to grow info from Old Farmer’s Almanac

On the Bookshelf:

The Essential Guide to Bulbs: Grow a Bounty of Beautiful Bulbs in Gardens and Containers by Jenny Rose Carey (TimberPress) (Amazon Link)

Dirt:

Light Pollution. Check out Dark Sky website and The Garden Goes Dark by Phyllis Graces

Rabbit Holes:

Zombie game link? DEE CHECK THIS IS THE RIGHT ONE

Louise B. Mansfield… the latest lost lady of garden writing.

The Night Gardener by Jonathon Auxier (2015)

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Dee and Carol have reached the letter Y as they near the end of the alphabet.

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Flowers:

Yarrow - Achillea millefolium. Growing info from Proven Winners. Herb info from the Old Farmer’s Almanac

Yews. Info on Yew Trees in the UK from the Woodland trust

Vegetables:

Yams

Yellow tomatoes - less acidic - I always try to include a yellow variety in my garden, but this year, just some yellow cherry tomatoes…

Yard Long Beans -  Johnny’s has several varieties 

Yerba mate: Ilex paraguariensis Info on growing from The Spruce

On the Bookshelf:

Your Asian Veggie Patch by Connie Cao (A guide to growing and cooking delicious Asian vegetables, herbs and fruits) Murdoch Books, October 8, 2025 (Amazon Link)

Dirt:

Clover the Sunflower smashes the world record: Guiness World Records

Rabbit Holes:

Helen Morgenthau Fox, a Lost Lady of Garden Writing

Garden Commissions:

Dee’s next big project, rose removal.

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Dee and Carol are almost done gardening through the alphabet and this week challenged themselves with the letter X.

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Links!

Flowers: 

 Xerochrysum - Strawflowers. Missouri Botanical Garden on strawflowers and Matt Mattus’s book, Mastering the Art of Flower Gardening.  

Xeranthemum - Paper Flower. Seeds from Johnny’s Selected Seeds

For Xeriscaping, Noelle Johnson, AZ Plant Lady, and Lauren Springer Ogden

Vegetables:

Salt Hay mulch

On the Bookshelf:  

The Vintage Farmhouse Garden by Rhonda Kaiser (Amazon Link), Rhonda on Instagram. 

Dirt: 

Milkweed supports native pollinators, fights spotted lantern fly

Rabbit Holes:  Check them out on our newsletter!

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Dee and Carol talk about white flowers, winter squashes, Doug Tallamy's new Book, How Can I Help: Saving Nature with Your Yard and more.

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Insect of the Week:

Bald-Faced Hornets. info from Penn State and Iowa State

Flowers:

W is for:

Wabi-Sabi Gardening!  (Carol’s blog post about it) and White Flowers

Vegetables:    

“Patch for Kids” pumpkin from Burpee (coming soon!).  

Watermelons:  All America Selections has several winners 

On the Bookshelf:  

How Can I Help: Saving Nature with Your Yard, by Doug Tallamy (Amazon Link)

Dirt: 

Lone Star Ticks on Martha’s Vineyard: Tick Bites on Martha’s Vineyard Has Businesses Going Vegan - The New York Times

World’s Tallest Sunflower grown in Ft. Wayne Indiana this summer: WANE

Rabbit Holes:

Dee: Vivian Maier

Carol:

Edna King Mandeville and Atomic Gardening.

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Dee and Carol are almost at the end of the alphabet, but there's still plenty of time in the gardening season. Join us to discuss the letter "V".

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Flowers:

V is for all-things Verbena 

Verbena bonariensis

Verbena ‘Bampton’ (Verbena officinalis var. grandiflora) 

Verbena hastata - Blue Vervain. Can get seeds from Select Seeds

Annual verbena, Verbena x hybrida  Like Verbena ‘Sweetheart Kisses, an AAS Winner. 

Vegetables:   

Vetch as a cover crop. Perennial that can become invasive.

Vitex - Vitex agnus-castus - Chaste Tree

On the Bookshelf:  

A Year and a Day on Just a Few Acres by Peter Larson (Amazon link) His YouTube channel is Just a Few Acres Farm. 

Also, A Very Small Farm by William Paul Winchester (Amazon Link)

Dirt: 

The 2,000-Year-Old ‘Perfume Garden’ in the Ancient City of Pompeii Has Been Restored to Its Former Glory: Smithsonian

And armadillos in Indiana! 

Rabbit Holes:

Dee: New blog post on Substack: Tomatoes, peppers, okra, and squash

Carol:  Discovered more Lost Ladies of Garden Writing and wrote a Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day Post. 

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This week, we dig into the letter "U" for topics for this episode.

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To watch our We Do Not Care Garden Club video, on YouTube, on Instagram

Flowers:

Under-utilized flowers

• Tradescantia pallida, purple heart, aka Mary’s tears. 
• Barnardia japonica, Japanese jacinth. 
• Begonia grandis, great for shade.. 

Our Choices Underplanting

• Daffodils
• Crocuses
• Snowdrops
• Summer snowflake
• Epimediums
• Hellebores
• Leadwort (Ceratostigma plumbaginoides)
• Caladiums
• Blackberry lilies
• Toad Lilies

Vegetables:    

Unusual vegetables. 

• Cucamelons
• Armenian cucumbers
• Celeriac
• Fall vegetables in general. Many people plant in the spring and then forget about fall planting
• And fall can be the best vegetable garden of the year especially in southern climates. 

On the Bookshelf:  

The Newfoundland Lunch Party: A Sisters of the Soil Novel with Recipes – Sonia Day (Amazon Link) 

Dirt: 

Roblox Grow a Garden Online Game

Rabbit Holes: 

Dee: Babylon Berlin. You can watch it with the MHZ Choice app

Carol: The latest lost lady of garden writing, Lena Mae McCauley and Honey Bee Mill Books. 

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Dee and Carol continue their series of gardening through the alphabet. This week, it's the letter T!

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Flowers: 

Flowering Tobacco - Nicotiana 

Tulips 

Tithonia, Mexican sunflower. 

Tassel Flower ‘Irish Poet’  Emilia coccinea   From Select Seeds

Vegetables:  

Tomatoes 

Tomatillos 

Turnips - There is an All-America Selection Turnip. Tokyo Cross from 1969

Tulsi - Holy Basil 

On the Bookshelf:   

The 10-Minute Gardener: How to Have a Veggie Garden and a Life—85 Time-Saving Tactics to Be More Efficient and Grow More Food in Less Time by CaliKim (Amazon Link)

Dirt: 

Dogs Sniff out Spotted Lantern Fly (Virginia Tech) 

Rabbit Holes:

Dee:

Carol:  

Shakespeare’s Flowers jigsaw puzzle that I abandoned earlier in the spring.  

A made-for-TV movie about Barbara Pym starring Patricia Routledge called Miss Pym’s Day Out

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Dee and Carol features flowers and veggies for the letter S today, plus talk about a new book on herbs.

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S is for...

Flowers: 

Scabiosa - Pin Cushion flower.  

Sunflowers:  Sunflower Steve

All American Selection sunflowers include Concert Bell (2022), Ring of Fire (2001), Suntastic Yellow with Black Center(2014)  

Statice -  Limonium sinuatum

Saffron crocuses 

Vegetables:    

Shallots -  Creme Brulee is an All American selection from 2021. 

Swiss chard  

Savory: winter (Satureja montana and summer (Satureja hortensis). 

Sorrel 

On the Bookshelf:    

Herbs in Every Season: 48 Edible and Medicinal Herbs for the Kitchen, Garden, and Apothecary by Bevin Cohen (Amazon link)

Dirt:

Alpha gal: an article picked up by the AP. 

Rabbit Holes:

Dee:  Wall Street Journal article about Giverny. 

Carol’s Bread crumbs to : Fox in the Forest on Instagram

Carol’s rabbit hole of Molly Price, the latest Lost Lady of Garden Writing.

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 Dee and Carol continue to plow through the alphabet in their gardens and this week plow up some R's

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Links!

RoseChat Podcast

Rue (Ruta graveolens) - Article from Mother Earth Gardener - Rue: The Forgotten Herb

Red Impact Bell Peppers, plus Dragonfly peppers

On the Bookshelf:    

Grow 5: Simple seasonal ideas for small outdoor spaces with just five plants, by Lucy Bellamy. (Amazon)

Dirt:

On Substack: Flowerology. She draws cute little pictures and goes in-depth on a flower for each post, like this one for Rest-Harrow Rabbit Holes:

Rabbit Holes:

Mouse Garden on Instagram.  

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