Loyalsock Garden Club

08/10/2026

The two celestial events should both be visible on the same day in some parts of the world, including Pennsylvania.

08/10/2026

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08/03/2026

For a few remarkable decades Williamsport was said to be home to more millionaires per capita than anywhere in the world, and it was all thanks to logs floating on the Susquehanna. 🪵 The West Branch became the beating heart of Pennsylvania's timber boom.

Loggers felled the vast white pine and hemlock forests of the northern mountains and floated the logs downstream to a giant boom, a barrier of cribwork and chained timber that corralled millions of logs in the river. Sawmills screamed day and night, and lumber barons built the grand Victorian mansions that still line Millionaires Row to this day. The city swelled with workers, sawdust hung in the air, and the river ran thick with timber. 🌲

Then the great forests were cut, the boom broke in a catastrophic flood, and the industry faded almost as fast as it had risen. What remains is a stunning streetscape of gilded age homes that testify to those roaring years. Have you ever walked Millionaires Row and imagined the boom at its height?

08/03/2026

08/03/2026

08/03/2026

National Watermelon Day in 2026 will be celebrated on Monday, August 3.

07/22/2026

07/13/2026

You have been sold mulch in a bag every spring. You did not need to buy it.

1. CREEPING THYME , dense mat seals soil surface, blocks w**d germination flat
2. WHITE CLOVER , fixes up to 150 kg of nitrogen per hectare, free, every year
3. WOOD SORREL , colonises dry shade gaps in two seasons, edible lemon leaf
4. CORSICAN MINT , 2 cm tall, cools the root zone, deters soil pests by scent
5. CREEPING OREGANO , stabilises dry slopes where sheet mulch slides away
6. SWEET WOODRUFF , builds humus under trees where almost nothing else grows
7. WILD STRAWBERRY , closes bare soil with runners, gives fruit and pollinator habitat

This knowledge did not disappear by accident. Mulch is a margin. Bags, delivery, markup, repeat purchase every season. A living ground cover is a one-time planting that compounds. Nobody profits from that, so nobody promotes it.

What replaced it was the landscape aisle: dyed bark, rubber chips, plastic sheeting. None of it feeds a bee. None of it fixes nitrogen. It suppresses w**ds while suppressing everything else too, including the soil biology you actually need.

Plant one of these in a gap this season. Watch what fills in by autumn... That is not a trick, that is just how ground works when you stop interrupting it.

07/07/2026

Pennsylvania gardeners who have dealt with boxwood blight describe how quickly the situation can escalate.