Two Minutes in the Garden: Gardening Tips, Science, Myths - Test

It's a plant hack that has taken off on social media. Is shaking your plants just silliness, or is there actually something to it?

NEW FROM Empress of Dirt: Germination Trick for Stubborn Delphinium Seeds

In much of the U.S. and Canada, we will soon be welcoming hummingbirds back to our gardens. When will they arrive and how can we prepare?

READ MORE AT Empress of Dirt: 2021 Hummingbird Migration Map (Find Out When to Expect Them)

Salts are the source of essential nutrients for your plants, but they can also interfere with plant growth and even kill plants.

NEW FROM Empress of Dirt: 20 Perennials with Long-Lasting Blooms

It's often recommended but seldom done. Do we really need to get our soil tested?

NEW FROM Empress of Dirt: 4 Essential Tips for Indoor Seed Starting Success

Free plants that you weren't expecting to find in your garden can be a nice surprise -- but may not always be what you want.

NEW FROM Empress of Dirt: Is Wood Ash a Good Soil Amendment?

Seeds all have different labels on the packets -- open-pollinated, hybrid, heirloom, organic -- so what do those labels mean?

NEW FROM Empress of Dirt: 12 Tips for Growing Giant Sunflowers

When we propagate plants from seeds we usually get a genetic combination of two parent plants. But some plants can actually produce clones of themselves through seeds.

NEW FROM Empress of Dirt: 60 Herbal Plants to Grow for Homemade Tea

Many of us are getting to the time of year when we can start seeds indoors -- but we may need to hold off just a little bit longer. Why is that?

NEW FROM Empress of Dirt: Using Biochar as a Soil Amendment (Pros and Cons)

Many people generate a lot of ashes over the winter from fireplaces and wood stoves. There's some good stuff in there for plants, so can we use wood ash in the garden?

NEW FROM Empress of Dirt: 10 Flower Growing Secrets & Common Mistakes

Some gardeners come to love scientific names and take pride in learning them ... for others they can seem a bit pompous. But there are good reasons that our plants need scientific names.

NEW FROM Empress of Dirt: Perennial Flower Bloom Times From Spring to Fall