Steve Boehme
Steve Boehme is a landscape designer/installer with a lifetime of experience. “Let’s Grow!” simplifies landscape topics in clear, direct language, for non-technical readers, with no ads or popups.
This popular weekly gardening column appears weekly in 16 southern Ohio newspapers, reaching over 300,000 households.
Experts can disagree, and there are always exceptions, but these simple columns give you the basics. Search by topic or keyword to quickly find simple answers to your landscaping questions!
This Weeks Column
Plant Mums Early for Success
Mums as Perennials Have you ever tried planting hardy mums and had them fail to come back the following year? Fall mums are perennial flowers that can grow and bloom in your landscape year after year, if you handle them properly. One sec...
Plant Mums Early for Success
Mums as Perennials Have you ever tried planting hardy mums and had them fail to come back the following year? Fall mums are perennial flowers that can grow and bloom in your landscape year after year, if you handle them properly. One sec...
Meadow Management
The Mystique of Wildflower Meadows The words “wildflower meadow” summon a mental picture of colorful blooms waving in the wind, fluttering butterflies, and busy honeybees buzzing from bloom to bloom. This lovely picture invites you ...
Trees: Ten Favorites
What Kind of Tree Should I Plant? People often ask me what kind of tree to plant, and then I start asking questions. How much space do you have? What’s the purpose of the tree? Why do you want a tree in that spot? What are the growing ...
Boxwood Decline
Your Boxwood Shrubs Need Protection NOW! Boxwood, a popular evergreen shrub we’ve been planting for many years, is suddenly in the crosshairs. This reliable landscape mainstay is under attack from winter burn, a well-known insect, a no...
Hydrangeas – How to Choose
Hydrangeas – Choosing the Right One For a long-lived display of huge showy blooms, few plant families can top the diverse Hydrangea. Every year we see new Hydrangea varieties introduced, making this plant more of a problem-solver and a...
Connecting Our Children with Nature
Connecting Children with Nature Do you worry that your children or grandchildren are slipping out of touch with the natural world? You have intelligent company. In his book Last Child in the Woods – Saving Our Children from Nature-Defici...
Trees – Shade Saves Dollars
Shade Trees Pay for Themselves There’s a reason that old farmhouses are surrounded by mature shade trees. After a day in the fields, farm families could retire to a cool house. In the days before air conditioning, farm wives could work...
Is Night Lighting a Sign of Progress?
Night Lighting Part 3 Less than 100 years ago, everyone could look up and see a spectacular starry night sky. Now, millions of children across the globe will never experience the Milky Way where they live. The negatives of excessive nigh...
Do We Really Need Night Lighting?
Night Lighting Part 2 The nighttime environment is a precious natural resource for all life on Earth, which exists in a rhythm of light and dark provided by the sun, moon and stars, quietly guiding all living things since life began. Now...
The Night Sky is a Precious Gift
Night Lighting Part 1 Have you ever thought about how wonderful it is that you can see the stars in the night sky over Adams County? It’s easy for us to take this miracle for granted, but visitors from cities and suburbs notice it righ...
Watering is Easier with the Right Tools!
Watering Tools Hot, dry weather is hard on your plants, whether you are a vegetable gardener or have landscaping to maintain. A long period of sunny, breezy weather sucks the moisture right out of plant foliage. During extended drought, ...
Take Container Gardening to a Higher Level
Container Gardening Tips & Combinations Container gardening is a popular way to enjoy summer color. Whether you grow houseplants indoors, vegetables or annual flowers in pots or window boxes outdoors, there is an endless variety of effec...
Building Trails on Your Property
Trail Building Have you ever hiked the Appalachian Trail or one like it? One of the great pleasures is to enjoy a walk in the woods and fields without having to stumble through the brush or worry about what’s underfoot. You can move qu...
Getting Rid of “Stupid Grass”
Eliminating “Stupid Grass” I’m old enough to remember when the “Weed Eater” first appeared on the landscape scene. As a landscape gardener I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever seen. I could manicure lawn grass in rough...
Your Trees Need a Drink!
Watering in Drought Hot, dry weather has been with us for some time and there’s no drought relief in sight, so it’s time to pay attention to our thirsty trees. In particular, trees you’ve planted within the past two or three years ...
Enjoy Showy, Low-maintenance Peonies
Peonies – A Sentimental Favorite.. Around Memorial Day each year you see many colorful clumps of showy peonies in farmyards and gardens. Some of them give off an intoxicating sweet fragrance second only to tea roses. Newer varieties ha...