Every year when the fall catalogs arrive, I say: I really need to layer in more spring bulbs, to extend my bloom time. Fall's our chance to plant spring-blooming species, so I got a nudge from Scott Kunst of Old House Gardens. We talked about how to get stubborn winter aconite, spring's first bulb, going; achieving eight weeks of tulips; why I need to try hyacinths; other animal-proof choices, and more. All right here. 

Seed libraries are making headlines -- and not in the usual happy way. A recent banner in "The Sentinel" in Pennsylvaina (followed by Associated Press and Grist.com stories) read as if a dragnet had been put over a fledgling seed library in Mechanicsburg. Words like "busted" and "crack down" and "agri-terrorism" made it sound positively criminal. I asked veteran seed-library insider Ken Greene, who founded the first seed library in a public town library in the nation, for this perspective.

hummingbird migration: the garden's abuzz

Leaving so soon? That's the lament for hummingbird-lovers (and who isn't one?), as the tiny creatures move along southward. Parts of the country have even more hummingbirds than usual now, with summer visitors still hanging around and migrants just showing up as they pass through. The story of hummingbird migration.