As a kid, I can remember feeling dubious whenever my parents tried to convince me that something educational could also be fun. I felt like they were trying to dupe me into doing the “smart” thing rather than hanging out with my friends or playing with my toys.

As an adult, I’ve learned that fun and educational don’t have to be mutually exclusive and as senior publicist I get to combine both by organizing bookstore events for my authors.  I attended one such event last week at Powell’s Books with David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth (or, “The Plant Doctors”, as we call them around the office), authors of What’s Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?).

We were a little concerned that turnout would be hampered by the pelting rain and wind, but Portland gardeners rarely let the rain deter them. If they did, Portland wouldn’t be such a thriving gardening community. The crowd was lively, asking lots of questions:

“Why are my camellia buds brown?”—Probably because of last week’s cold snap.

“How do you get rid of mealy bugs?”—Sanitize the plant by removing affected leaves then spray with insecticidal soap several times a week until the pests are gone.

The audience had fun passing silk roses around with various maladies painted on them and following the flow charts in the book to “diagnose” them, and we learned a bunch of new tricks to prevent plants from going the way of the compost pile.

David and Kathryn are currently on tour along the West Coast.  Keep up with their schedule here if you are interested in a little educational fun!

This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

Village Books in Bellingham, Washington, hosted our first bookstore appearance of the Great ‘Here Come the Plant Docs’ Book Tour of 2010. There is something very comforting about beginning such a venture talking about a book surrounded by good books, in the company of bibliophiles and phytophiles.

On this, my first trip to Bellingham, I discovered what a delightful town it is. Kathy, at the Village Inn, greeted us with an enthusiastic, “Oh, I should have recognized you. I have your book.”  Making us feel a little like the Olympic athletes who were also staying there (overflow from the games in Vancouver, just across the border).

Naturally this welcome warmed my heart immediately and made me very predisposed to love Bellingham.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog. Kathryn and David are currently touring the West coast to solve plant problems and promote their book.

Spring is here. Friends already lay out their soaker hoses, sow seeds indoors, and move seedlings out into their cold-frames. We’re going to miss all that this year, as we travel to talk about our book, and other topics from the green world. We won’t bemoan the loss too much. Surely an exciting journey lies ahead. David and I love a road trip.

The second event on our book tour is behind us. David and I gave a talk at the Port Townsend, WA public library. This low-key chat with our “homies” in the town where we live was a perfect send-off for the tour.

At the library we talked about how we developed the book –- our book –- from inchoate thoughts about the questions we must ask when someone else asks us, “What’s Wrong With My Plant?” A very common question, by the way.

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I love houseplants. Particularly the long draping ones that hang over bookshelves. I love the way houseplants can make a room feel more fresh and interesting, and add a nice touch of green.

Recently, I’ve been struggling to keep my plants alive and happy. My problems are threefold — here they come!

Rubber monsters add a touch of the wild to your domestic plant.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

It’s time to get started on the vegetable garden for the coming season so you can grow your own healthy, organic food again this year. Many of us have already started seedlings indoors to transplant out to the garden or the cold frames as soon as weather permits. Kathryn and I have come up with a checklist of ten things to consider before you plant. Each item on the list helps to prevent pests and diseases in your vegetable garden. All ten of them acting in concert really gives you a leg up for a successful and productive year.

1. Sanitize. If you didn’t get around to cleaning up old left-over garden debris last autumn, do it now. Pay special attention to any dead plant material from diseased or infested plants and get it out of your garden. Fungal spores, insect eggs, and bacteria lurking on old infected dead leaves lying on the ground can quickly infect your new plants and ruin your produce all summer long.

2. Right plant, right place. Be sure and read the instructions on the seed pack or the vegetable start plant label and put your plants in the best location to meet those requirements. If your plants have the right amount of light and water, the correct temperature, and the proper soil they won’t be under stress. And stress, as we all know, predisposes our plants (as well as ourselves) to attack by pests and diseases.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

We’ve prepared a list of the ten most common problems of houseplants. If you’re having a problem with a houseplant, it’s most likely going to be due to one of the following.

1. Overwatering.

More houseplants die from overwatering than from any other cause. Never let the pot sit in water in a saucer. Put marbles or pebbles in the saucer and set your pot on top of them to raise the pot up and away from the water in the saucer. Make sure the pot has adequate drainage holes. Allow soil to dry out in between watering. When you water, water the root zone of the plant, not the foliage.

This crown-of-thorns houseplant struggles to survive in a pot without drainage holes.

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This guest post was written by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth, authors of What’s Wrong with My Plant?, and originally appeared on their blog.

It’s late November and garden ghosts from last summer’s bounty may still linger in standing dead stalks of flowers long gone. Unfortunately, some of this left-over plant material may be infected with fungal or bacterial diseases. Roses may keep their foliage until well into winter, even if it’s infected with black spot or powdery mildew. Pear leaves infested with blister mites will come back to haunt you if you don’t rake them up. And all those tomato vines that succumbed to late blight last summer will cause you problems next year unless you get rid of them.

Getting infected plant material out of your garden is called sanitizing and it’s one of the basic tools for managing plant disease or infestations by insects or mites. Sanitizing disrupts the life cycle of these organisms. The bacteria and fungi inside dead infected plant material are still alive and waiting for the opportunity to reproduce. Insects, mites, and eggs are also not dead but merely dormant, waiting for winter to be over. The bacteria, fungi, insects, and mites will all begin to reproduce and create a new generation to infect your garden again next spring as soon as the weather permits. When you seek and destroy these critters while they are dormant you have drastically decreased the numbers that will survive to give you headaches next year. If you can gather all the infected and/or infested material up and get it out of your garden you have reduced the inoculum load significantly. The result is less disease and fewer pests. Sanitizing won’t eradicate these problems but it will give you a fighting chance to manage your garden more effectively.

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During my time at Timber Press, I’ve seen many titles come up for discussion. Most of our titles are self-explanatory — buy a book entitled Japanese Maples, and you will find it to be chock full of Japanese maples. (Truth in advertising!) Some titles, however, are a bit vague. Niwaki? What does that mean?  In these cases, it’s the subtitle to the rescue! (A perfect example of the subtitle clarifying the title is the Diagram Prize winner Bombproof Your Horse, whose subtitle is Teach Your Horse to Be Confident, Obedient, and Safe, No Matter What You Encounter. Makes a lot more sense with the subtitle, doesn’t it?)

In the realm of self-explanatory titles, I would say that our latest, What’s Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?) is pretty darn self-explanatory. (Though I do kinda wish that the last part was in all caps. I think it would add an important soupçon of drama!)

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Home gardeners and commercial tomato producers in the Eastern and Southern US face a potential tomato crop failure this summer. The problem is called late blight and is caused by a fungus.

What are the symptoms?

There are several different fungal diseases of tomatoes, including early blight and septoria leaf spot. But no other fungus has the specific combination of symptoms on leaves, stems, and fruit that identifies late blight. If your tomato plants have all three of the following symptoms you can be sure you are dealing with late blight.

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