Welcome to Garden Myths – We are the Garden Myth Busters!
Our Goal: to provide correct gardening information and make you a better gardener.
Our Process: We research topics and examine scientific studies to bust gardening myths. Then we provide FREE blog posts.
Our Experience:
The author of most posts, Robert Pavlis, has 50 years of gardening experience, is an award-winning author of 11 gardening books, holds an M.Sc. in chemistry and biochemistry, teaches numerous gardening courses, and has written articles for many popular magazines such as Mother Earth News.
Robert’s Plant Science for Gardeners book won the Independent Publisher Book Award for Science in 2024.
In 2025, Roberts’ book, Food Science for Gardeners, won the International Book Award for the Home and Garden category.
Our Guarantee:
- The information on this site is more accurate than most other gardening sites. If you find an error and let us know in the comments, and we’ll correct it immediately.
- None of the information is created by AI – we prefer real people.
- All of the information is science-based.
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Start by selecting from one of these popular categories, and enjoy the site (click on image).
I took your course on Garden Fundamentals and am working my way through Healthy Soil. At the end of the first lecture you said you could have too much compost in your soil. I have raised vegetable beds and other vegetables growing in barrels. The original soil was sand, topsoil or triple mix and some compost (mulched leaves etc.) I would like to add to my beds and was going to order a load of compost but rethinking. Should I buy topsoil, triple mix, compost or something else?
hank you for your help.
Linda
For raised beds I recommend 70-80% top soil, the rest compost.
Hello Robert,
I just watched your video about the benefits of roots to growing plants and I have a question for you as a result.
So, I am getting ready to plant some native shrubs in an area of my yard which has a tremendous number of ferns and, of course, their quite pervasive root system. In addition to removing some of these roots while digging holes for planting of these shrubs and saplings, I was planning on removing much more than just those roots in the immediate area of the planted shrub or sapling for the purpose of ease of future growth of these plants so that that didn’t get strangled by the fern roots which, as you know, are very pervasive. However, after watching your video about the contribution of living roots to the surrounding soil, now I don’t know if that is such a good idea.
Can you lend any advice as to what I should do?
Thanks,
Dave
Gardening is always a balancing act. Are you more interested in growing a strong tree or developing better soil?
There is no right or wrong here – it depends on your goal.
So maybe the first 3-4 years you focus on the tree and remove more ferns. Once it is established, leave the ferns.
Robert,
Thank you for your new blog realitytime.substack.com
Unfortunately I have not been able to post comments. I fill out the info requested, use only letters and numbers for my handle (not even spaces) but I get a cryptic” “Invalid Value” message. Others obviously are able to post. I won’t comment on your realiytime posts on the gardenmyths blog, but this is frustrating.
By the way, I bought your Garden Myths (both volumes)and you’ve saved me so much time and money, far more than the priceof the books, aby avoiding useless tasks and useless products.
I am not very familiar with substack login – can’t help you there.
Thanks for buying the books.
Hi – I came across a photo of yours on this page and was wondering about the Twinleaf leaves pictured there. Are those jagged leaves common on plants in your area, or are the ones pictured there more of an oddity? I have loads of Twinleaf in my region and have never seen any leaves at all like those in your photo. https://www.onrockgarden.com/index.php/plant-of-the-month?view=article&id=45:jeffersonia-diphylla&catid=22
Those are normal leaves for Jeffersonia diphylla. There is another species of Jeffersonia called jeffersonia dubia, its leaves are different.
Hello Robert,
Here is a link to some information about the invasive weed – Lesser Celandine:
Lesser Celandine | solvepest https://share.google/SZh3LgyrQRGd9Fihl
What would you recommend to get rid of this invasive weed? It has spread throughout my lawn and perennial gardens. Right now it is just coming into leaf.
Thank you for any suggestions you may have.
When we talked I was thinking about Chelidonium majus https://www.gardenmyths.com/hylomecon-japonica-which-is-the-real-plant/
A different plant.
I’d control yours with a herbicide. https://extension.psu.edu/lesser-celandine
What’s the best thing to lower PH for blueberries
https://youtu.be/00nNA-RsFds&list=PLq7hmpP9i05RsUgPmGDqGTdbWZrVZbfd
I enjoyed your informative talk on Seedtime!
Always my first stop for all aspects of gardening as it’s well written biased on evidence based research and has never let me down Thanks for sharing your knowledge. From a research plant physiologist.