This Week in Gardening

This Week In Gardening (TWIG)

Our seasonal field report. Each week I share what we’re working on in the gardens – what matters now, what’s coming, and how to think about it. This is instructive, practical guidance rooted in real work. Read it, comment on it, ask questions about it. That’s what it’s there for.

Tags: 2026

Showing 9 results:

The Chelsea Chop Around this time every year you might hear gardeners talking about ‘The Chelsea Chop’— a phrase that sounds like, what? A soccer move? A Brit punk band? It is actually quite a practical gardening technique cued to coincide with the renowned Chelsea Flower Show in England, whic...

by Michael Ray Anderson — May 31, 2026 2026 spring

Misinformation [May 23, 2026]

Misinformation This week I was out in the woodland section of one of the gardens - a steep slope falling away from the house that has been resigned to a quality of care we like to call 'managed neglect.' Not really visible from anywhere on the property, it holds a big messy productive compost pil...

by Michael Ray Anderson — May 24, 2026 2026 spring

Azalea Pruning [May 17, 2026]

Azalea Pruning For our TWIG topic this week, a more 'nuts and bolts' bulletin, I want to talk about azalea pruning and shearing. Across the mid-Atlantic, azaleas are cycling through to the end of their blooming season. We have had weeks of bloom, with early and mid-season varieties wrapping up ...

by Michael Ray Anderson — May 17, 2026 2026 spring

Demands and Decisions [May 10, 2026]

Demands and Decisions This week the garden feels a little disjointed to me. Or maybe more accurately, I feel disjointed in it. Early May has a way of producing demands faster than decisions can be made. Everything is emerging at once. Things that seemed fine a week ago suddenly require attention...

by Michael Ray Anderson — May 10, 2026 2026 spring

Dirty dishes in the Sink

Years ago, about this time of year, Florence and I stepped out onto the back patio of her wonderful garden. Florence was my mentor and my friend. I worked with her in her own garden, and in many others, for nearly twenty years. By that spring, we had already shared many seasons together. I h...

May 03, 2026 2026 spring

Staking Peonies [April 26, 2026]

Peony season is upon us. From now through about Mother’s Day, we get the thrilling arrival of these late-spring flowers. I grew up in southern Indiana, where there was a row of old herbaceous peonies down the back hillside, growing at the feet of old-timey bridal wreath spirea. I loved to cut th...

Apr 26, 2026 2026 spring

Watering [April 20, 2026]

WATERING In this middle week of April here in Washington, D.C., we had a bit of a heat wave. The last days have been hot and windy—and that combination will likely bring a quick close to the spring flowering bulb season. Meanwhile, things are growing like mad—or trying to—in these lengthening day...

Apr 20, 2026 2026 spring

WATCH YOUR STEP [April 12, 2026]

It is easy enough to stay out of the tulip beds and spring flowers now that they are up and in bloom, but throughout the garden all kinds of other things are waking up. The first growth of perennials and ferns is just pushing up in our cultivated beds, and bright green lawns are inviting us acros...

Apr 12, 2026 2026 spring

TIME [April 6, 2026]

This week in gardening, we are thinking a lot about time. Someone asked me this week, ‘Aren’t those tulips blooming early?’. My first response was yes — they are an early blooming species, and with some unseasonably warm weather they have kicked off a bit ahead of what I had expected. But th...

Apr 06, 2026 2026 spring