Fruits and vegetables may provide the only close encounters we have with the plant kingdom these winter days. An invisible gas called ethylene is responsible for the ripening - and often the rapid decline - of our produce and windowsill flowers. If you aren't aware of its sneaky ways, you might get tripped up.  

Garden catalogs are filling up the mailbox with the stuff of endless fantasy. Do you have lust in your heart for these visions of perfection? You're not alone.

It's 8 degrees or less and the snow is flying. Then - presto! It's 58 or maybe 60. What's going on, you ask? Oh, just a weather singularity...

Houseplants are the greenery that tides us over until spring comes again. It's dismaying when perky plants don't look so perky anymore. Here's your cheat sheet on rendering first-aid.

Ready to launch yourself into a New Year? Everyone has their customs and traditions. Mine involves casting off my sorrows and looking upstream in hope.

Jolly Old St. Nick has been with us for ages, but what do we really know about him? Science probes the mysteries and the results are surprising. 

Some people go crazy decorating for Christmas. A lower-key approach: Repurpose outdoor containers to hold a cheerful arrangements of evergreens and such. They'll have staying power even after the holidays are over.

It's the Great Debate: Should your Christmas tree be real or fake? This argument can get quite lively, with partisans on both sides. Which option would you think is the "greenest?" 

With winter closing in, it's time to fill and hang the bird feeders. Inviting a flock of winter birds to visit is one good way to liven up the view from your windows. 

What's on your Thanksgiving menu? We always called them "candied yams," but this favorite tuber may have identity issues. It may, in fact, be a sweet potato traveling under an assumed name. To learn the truth, we dug deeper.   

The growing season largely takes place between last frost and first. These cold nights are hard on plants but when Jack Frost visits, he leaves behind a sparkling tracery that has its own beauty.

Johnny Mercer expressed a certain romantic melancholy in his song "Autumn Leaves," but I don't believe we ever saw him with a rake in hand. Trees shedding their foliage can leave piles of debris behind. Here's how to deal. 

The nighttime bug music has long since been silenced but November ushers in owl mating season. Deep into the small hours, great horned owls hoot in haunting dialogues. I love nature's lullabies.  

As they say of baseball (and opera), "It ain't over 'til it's over." November creeps closer, but I'm reveling in fresh clouds of blossoms, thanks to my Korean mums. It's the last flower of the season and very dear.

They call it "obedient" plant and you can bend the florets of this native species to your will. Contain its enthusiastic spread and you'll have another carefree fall bloomer to brighten up the late season garden.  

Acorn production can vary from virtually nothing to 23,000 per tree. In heavy years, they can cover the ground to the consternation of homeowners. Hey -- sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.

Our native goldenrod is often more prized abroad than here at home, where is is wrongly accused as the culprit in fall allergies. Beautiful hybrid forms introduced in recent years are excellent additions to the fall garden. 

Ornamental grasses offer a wide range of textures, colors and sizes, making them versatile plants for the natural garden. There's year-round splendor in these handsome grasses.   

So, on the equinox we have equal periods of light and dark, day and night. We can balance eggs on their little bottoms while the universe remains in equilibrium. Right? Wrong, all wrong.

Ornamental onions, also known as alliums, remind me of lollipops with round blossoms on thin stems. Beyond good looks, their real virtue is critter-resistance. Deer and squirrels won't touch them.