Author

Marguerite Okafor

Hi, I'm Margo — let's have a look at that yellow leaf.

I'm Marguerite Okafor — Margo, please — gardener, recovering plant-doctor-desk professional, houseplant collector of "we don't say hoarder" proportions, and the tender of The Tended Garden.

I was raised in a garden in Petersburg, Virginia. My Nigerian-born father kept vegetable rows that fed our family and half the block — okra, collards, tomatoes, peppers — and a compost pile he treated like a member of the family. My American mother kept the flower beds and named her daughters after blooms; I'm Marguerite, after the daisy, and my sister is Zinnia. (We've made peace with it. Mostly.) My childhood job was watering, weeding, and listening, because Dad narrated the garden constantly: "See how she leans? She's asking for the sun." Everything I believe about plants started there — they tell you what they need, if you learn the language.

I studied biology in college, then chose dirt over lab benches: fourteen years at an independent garden center here in Richmond, working my way from seasonal help to perennials manager. For my last six years, I ran the store's plant doctor desk — the counter where people brought their dying fiddle-leaf figs, mystery pests, and phone photos of yellowing leaves. I estimate I diagnosed over 10,000 plant problems at that desk, and I heard "I swear I barely watered it" approximately as many times. In 2015, I certified as an Extension Master Gardener volunteer, and I still take help-desk shifts and mentor community vegetable gardens — some habits shouldn't be broken.

The blog started in 2020, when garden center customers stuck at home kept emailing me plant photos. It became my full-time work in 2023.

Here's what The Tended Garden promises you:


Diagnosis, not just orders. Yellow leaves aren't a verdict — they're a question with about six possible answers. I'll teach you to rule them out in order, the way I did at the desk, so you build real skill.
Zone honesty. I garden in Richmond, Virginia — zone 7b — and I say so in every timing post, with instructions to adjust for your frost dates. My calendar is not your calendar, and anyone who claims otherwise is selling something.
Honest difficulty ratings. Every plant I profile gets rated Forgiving, Standard, Fussy, or Heartbreaker — based on my real experience, not the nursery tag. Some "easy-care" labels are marketing fiction, and I'll tell you which.
The kill file stays open. I maintain a documented list of every plant I've killed — currently 63 entries, each with a cause of death. Killing plants is tuition. I've paid a lot of it so you can pay less.
Safety, every time. Pet and child toxicity notes on every houseplant post (our cat Basil is the reason), and a firm rule on pests: identify first, gentlest fix first, and always — always — follow the label.


These days I tend a third of an acre behind our 1950s ranch house — vegetable garden, pollinator border, and a shade garden under two old oaks I refuse to curse at — plus 80-something houseplants that began as winter therapy and got structurally out of hand around plant #40. I share it all with my husband Chidi (who now knows "we're just looking" at the nursery is a lie), our son Emeka (pepper harvester, works on commission), Basil the cat, and Gerald, the compost bin. Yes, the compost bin has a name. My father would approve.

Every morning I walk the garden with coffee before anyone wakes — I call it rounds. Some things need checking on daily. That's not a chore; that's the whole point. A garden isn't finished, and neither are you.

Keep tending,
Margo 🌿