Plants That Hold a People Together By Diana Pierce | April 8, 2026 May Lee with her daughters, Mhonpaj and Zongxee Lee. One generation holds the knowledge. The next is carrying it forward—in the field, at the market, and now on the page. Photo: Lindsey Miller The first time Zongxee Lee lost a plant teacher, she realized too late that the knowledge had never been written down. It was 2016, and two grandmothers had passed away in the same period, each of them carrying decades of accumulated...

Are you grabbing the wrong bag? Diana Pierce | April 1, 2026 Three very different products. Left: Bachman’s Garden Soil, for planting beds and in-ground use. Center: Espoma Organic Potting Mix, the right choice for containers. Right: Bachman’s Potting Soil, formulated for containers despite the confusing name. The labels tell the story. Photo: Diana Pierce I’ll be honest. I’ve stood in the garden center aisle, staring at a wall of bags, and grabbed whatever looked right. Potting soil....

Plus: Why you need to stop filling the bottom of your pots with rocks By Diana Pierce | March 25th, 2026 Colorful pots waiting for your plants at a garden center. Photo: Diana Pierce Some of us are still waiting to start a few seeds indoors. Others are still waiting for the snow to melt before we can even begin to envision what this year’s garden might look like. And then there are container gardeners like me, staring at last season’s empty pots and wondering: what can I do differently this...