Several times a year a visitor to our garden is shocked to find a rogue steak knife pierced downward in one of the beds, as if it were an escapee from our kitchen knife block. I’m always quick to tell them that it’s indeed where I meant to place it, and that I haven’t found any tool as great as a serrated knife when it comes to removing grass or root systems. It’s perfect for edging small areas or pulling up entire sheets of grass; all I have to do is start on one side and pull up as I carefully saw back and forth. It can be a cheap purchase from a thrift store—or in my case, the way I finally convinced my husband that we needed a new set of kitchen knives.
—Erin Lang Norris, Mazomanie, Wisconsin
I am always looking for ways to work smart in the garden. Of all the various gardening tasks there are to do, one is ever present—weeding. Whether I’m weeding in the morning with a cup of coffee or in the evening with a glass of wine, it seems I’m always able to gather a sizable pile of weeds in no time at all. I don’t want to make countless trips throughout the day to dispose of the weeds, so I tuck empty black or brown plastic plant containers throughout the garden. (I find that black or brown containers without logos are easiest to conceal among the vegetation.) Now when I accumulate a handful of weeds, I simply drop them into the nearest container and move on to my next task. It takes a surprisingly long time to fill these empty containers, resulting in far fewer trips to the trash can or compost pile.
—Katherine Coker, McDonough, Georgia
I was gifted ‘Stella d’Oro’ daylilies by my mother. They are now planted in my front yard next to my driveway. After the seedpods are ripe, I let the scapes dry out and gently pull them
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