The Dirt: One flower takes over a garden, plus how to curate a yard

An illustrated article header titled "The Dirt: One flower takes over a garden (and we love it!), plus how to curate a yard full of beautiful birdsong." To the right of the headline text, a colorful garden scene features blooming pink and yellow dahlias, lavender, a birdbath, a wooden birdhouse, and various wild birds including goldfinches, a bluebird, a hummingbird, and chickadees.

The Dirt: One flower takes over a garden (and we love it!), plus how to curate a yard full of beautiful birdsong

ICYMI, we’re sharing what’s big on social media, the latest research results, and fun factoids about the natural world

By: Maria Ricapito

Garden big or go home!

We love gardens whether they’re homogenous, varied, or anything in between. That said, the impact of planting a swath of a single bloom can be undeniable. Exhibit A: Check out this life-affirming dahlia-palooza planted by Canadian Andrew Wyton. A few years ago, he decided to go all in on dahlias, and this year, he put in some 1,059 dahlia tubers. His 206,000 followers have watched him weed, water, compost, and harvest the sometimes dinner plate-sized blooms, which he sells at a garden stand. Doesn’t this make you want to run out and get a truckload of tubers for your own patch of land?


A top-down, line-art-style illustration shows a man in a green shirt trimming a large, blooming pink dahlia with garden shears in a vibrant, dense field of orange, yellow, pink, and purple dahlias. In the background, bees and butterflies fly around a wooden flower stand displaying potted dahlias next to a dirt path.

A completely genius backyard hack

Here’s another all-consuming project: A woman in Utah saw multiple kids’ playhouses that weren’t selling on Facebook marketplace. “What if I just bought them all?” she thought. So she did and painted them to create a post office, a potting shed, an apothecary, and a bakery. The result: a magical, kid-friendly playhouse village in her backyard. Maybe it’s time to start scanning what kind of play structures are available for a song in your neighborhood.

A top-down, line-art style illustration shows a woman in a striped shirt painting a small, light-colored playhouse labeled "BAKERY" with red hearts in a lush garden. Nearby, a young boy holds a watering can beside a wooden potting shed, surrounded by potted plants, garden tools, a wheelbarrow, and blooming flowers like lavender and foxgloves.

Can AI help foil your pollen allergies?

Shifting gears, let’s talk to those who are sniffling their way through summer. Good news: Researchers recently developed a 1.5-million-image pollen atlas, complete with AI-generated descriptions of pollen grains. How does this stop the misery of allergies? It means instead of sticking pollen samples under a microscope, environmental monitoring may become tech-enabled, making it faster, more accurate, and more intensely geo-local. In other words, you’ll have better intel about when to pop an antihistamine before heading out to lounge in your yard. A nice way to avoid those too-familiar sneezing fits.

A top-down, line-art-style illustration shows a person in overalls standing in a lush garden holding a smartphone pointed toward three floating, enlarged pollen grains. In the background, a hammock hangs between trees near a potted plant, watering can, gardening gloves, and a flower bed filled with blooming roses, daisies, and lavender.

Bring on the birds!

More research to note: A recent study in Sri Lanka found that more diverse land cover correlates to more kinds of avian friends flocking to a given area. It may sound like common sense, but for those of us who’ve been laser-focused on getting an Insta-worthy expanse of green lawn or cultivating hydrangeas that are the envy of our neighbors, it’s a good reminder to mix things up a little. Making sure you have some shrubs, native flowers, ground cover, and the shelter of trees can turn your yard into a Disney-esque bird wonderland. 


A top-down, line-art-style illustration shows a variety of wild birds, including a goldfinch, a chickadee, and a hummingbird, perched on flowering cone-flowers, goldenrod, and a stone birdbath next to a small tree with berries and a bird's nest. To the left of the image, headline text reads "Bring on the birds!" above body copy describing research on diverse land cover and bird species.

Side hustles we love

We’ll leave you with something a little goofy. This might be the ideal job if you’re plant-obsessed: Not sure what it’s called, but this going-viral video shares a gig we can get behind. If it involves dressing up in a leafy suit, surprising unsuspecting tourists at a theme park, and giving them a giggle, count us in!

A line-art illustration shows a person dressed up as a leafy green hedge bush stepping along a garden path, surrounded by a group of smiling adults and a child taking photos and laughing. The garden is surrounded by flowering trees, peonies, blooming shrubs, and birds including a robin and bluebirds.

About the Writer

Maria Ricapito is a freelance writer and editor whose work has appeared in Vanity Fair, Marie Claire, Elle Decor, and The New York Times. She lives in the Hudson Valley where she’s writing a thriller and happily tends to a veggie and herb container garden and a pollinator mini meadow in her backyard.

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