These are our salad days. Plant a living salad bowl chock-full of ruffled lettuce, tender arugula and other delicious greens, and you'll be able to pick a healthy harvest for the dinner table for months.

Lettuce is easy to grow in pots, and a bowl full of lettuce plants is pretty enough for the front porch. Salad greens of all kinds flourish in unpredictable spring and early summer temperatures without special care. Half a dozen plants in a pot -- or more, because they don't mind being crowded -- will produce salad greens all through the spring. If you plant edible flowers, such as violas, pansies or pinks, among the lettuce plants, you'll enjoy a spot of color both in the container and in the salads you put on the table.

It's fun to grow garden crops from seed, but to get your salad pots off to a fast start, plant transplants, which are available in six-packs at garden shops. Look for healthy, bright green plants that stand up strong and tall in their little cells of soil. Some lettuces (such as red leaf and red romaine) are either all red or tipped with red. They add color and contrast to the planting -- plant them side by side with green lettuces, and they'll look appetizing just growing together. The fancy, frilly leaves of arugula, mizuna, kale or mustard greens will contribute interesting textures to your planting and add spice to your salads.

Any container with drainage holes will make a fine vessel for your living salad, but a large bowl, wider than tall, is an especially good choice. Lettuce plants will only be growing for a couple of months (until they turn bitter in hot summer temperatures), so you don't need a deep planter. A bowl about 12 inches across, sometimes called a "color bowl" at garden shops, is a good size to start with. It will hold about eight small plants. A larger bowl, 18 inches across, will look more impressive; it will hold about 15 plants.

Buy a fresh bag of potting soil and fill the container to the rim. Potting soil is lightweight and drains well. Most potting soils today include a slow-release fertilizer, so there's no need to add more.

Take the plants out of their cell packs and arrange them on top of the potting soil in the bowl. Normally, you would plant the tallest plants in the center or at the back of a flowerpot, but lettuce plants all grow to about the same height, so arrange the planting however you like to take advantage of their leaf shapes, colors and textures. A pretty design might have green lettuce plants around the outside of the container, with a flourish of red-leaf lettuces in the center and a couple of pansies or violas for color. If you're growing romaine, set these compact plants in the center of the dish and arrange ruffled-leaf lettuces around the sides, like a frilly petticoat. You can experiment with the design, trying different kinds of lettuces or adding more flowers until you're happy with the way it looks.

Now loosen the roots of each plant with your fingers and tuck them into the potting soil, with the crown of the plant at soil level. Firm the soil in around each plant as you go. Potting soil tends to settle a bit even as you're planting, so you may need to add more as you work. Just make sure the plants are not too deep in the pot.

Now water well to moisten the potting soil and to settle the plants in. Don't worry if the splashing water pushes the plants over slightly; they'll stand up again within a few hours. If some of the leaves are a little bit floppy, snip them off with scissors for your first salad.

After the pot has drained thoroughly, move it to the porch, a patio, or a bright spot near the kitchen door. Sunshine is the only requirement. If you plant several pots, let them march up the front stairs. Salad pots also look great on a patio table or on a garden wall. They're particularly nice on a pedestal; try raising them up by putting the pots on upside-down flowerpots, chimney flue tiles or a stack of inexpensive concrete pavers.

Within a few days, you'll be able to pick your first real harvest. Trim the leaves from the outsides of the plants with sharp shears, and the plants will continue to produce new leaves from the center. Trimming actually encourages growth, so picking a few leaves every day or so will make your salad garden even more productive. Water the pot when the soil feels dry (poke a finger a couple of inches into the potting soil). From just one pot, you can count on harvesting fresh-picked salad greens for at least two months. It's a nice trick, a treat for your table and a feast for your eyes.

SOURCES:

-- Lettuce and other spring greens (arugula, mizuna, kale, mustard) are available in six-packs at garden shops in spring. Bonnie Plants is a good source, with half a dozen or more different lettuces and greens. They're widely available. For a retailer in your area, visit bonnieplants.com.

To make the cut with savvy consumers, today's lawn mowers are packed with features. They have to be. Robo vacuum cleaners are getting to be mainstream these days. Driverless cars are in the news. Customers -- and their phones -- are very smart, and they expect their lawnmowers to be on top of things, too.

"Consumers' expectations are that the products and services they want can be customized to suit their needs," says Wade Tollison, senior marketing manager for walk-behind mowers at Toro. Today's high-performance grass-cutting machines rely as much on sophisticated technology as on raw horsepower. They're easier to use and maintain than ever before. Gasoline mowers still dominate the market, but battery-powered electric mowers are charging into the future.

Consumers shopping for lawn mowers have an astonishing number of choices. Easy-to-start, self-propelled gas mowers are the most popular models, but battery-powered mowers, with zero emissions, already represent 15 percent of all mower sales, says Paul Hope, who tests mowers and writes about the results for Consumer Reports. The top-rated battery-powered mowers do not compromise quality or performance. These mowers "have gotten really good," Hope says. "We are now starting to see electric models that perform as well as gas."

Nevertheless, "the industry is a little bit in flux right now," Hope says. Gas mowers run indefinitely, as long as you have a can of gas, while battery-powered mowers have a finite range: They may need a charge, which means you have to stop mowing, before you finish a large yard. Electric mowers also cost more than gas mowers.

Lawn tractors and zero-turn mowers, both popular with consumers who have an acre or more to mow, cut the grass on large properties uniformly, quickly and safely, say Mark Waldvogel and Jamie Palmer, product managers at John Deere. These big mowers are comfortable to ride, and they are designed to chop grass clippings quite fine, which is good for the lawn.

Most people with large properties do not bag their clippings, but they're not happy when the grass clumps under the deck in mulching mode or forms big windrows when the grass is being discharged out the side. New lawn tractors and zero-turn mowers have deep decks and are more efficient mulchers than the previous generation of mowers, Waldvogel says. Switching between the mulch and side discharging functions used to require several steps, but new machines can be switched easily from one mode to the other -- so you can mulch the grass close to the house, or blow clippings out the side of the mower elsewhere.

Although cutting grass is just a chore to many homeowners, others really like to mow, Waldvogel says, and comfortable, easy-to-operate lawn tractors are part of the reason. Zero-turn mower customers want maneuverability and speed, so they can cut the grass and get on with their Saturday.

Several electric lawn tractors and zero-turn mowers are already available. Ryobi and Cub Cadet make them, and both have earned good reviews from Consumer Reports, in spite of some limitations. Mean Green Products, in Hamilton, Ohio, makes a heavy-duty, battery-powered zero-turn mower called the Nemesis that can mow three to five acres on a charge. It's almost as big as a commercial lawn mower. It is also a luxury purchase ($9,000 for the basic model). "If you own a Tesla, drive a hybrid car or have solar panels on your roof, you are a candidate for our mower," says Joe Conrad, founder and president of Mean Green Mowers. The company even makes a mower canopy with built-in solar panels to recharge the batteries.

Regardless of the source of power, the dominant trend among all mowers is toward consumer-friendly features. One of the latest walk-behind models by Toro includes power reverse, "an exciting, unmet need," Tollison says, that eliminates tugging a heavy lawn mower backward repeatedly when mowing around trees. The company's PoweReverse mower's handle has shock absorbers, to reduce hand fatigue. With the flip of a switch, you can change from bagging the clippings to side discharge. Push-button starting is a standard feature on some Toro mowers, eliminating the annoyance of a pull cord. Several new Toro mowers can be folded up and stored upright, without leaking oil or gas. "We live in clutter nation," Tollison says. "This mower needs 70 percent less storage space."

And how about robotic mowers that cut the grass all by themselves? Last year, Honda introduced its robo Miimo mower, designed for tech-savvy consumers. It's a hot product that commands a premium price ($2,500 to $2,700). At present, this mower works only on very short turf types, those kept between one and 2 1/2 inches high, so it's not for everyone. It can be programmed to mow an entire lawn, steer around trees or just trim the edges around flower beds. When it's finished working, it returns automatically to its charging station, while you sip lemonade on the patio.

Honda also makes a dozen different self-propelled and push-type walk-behind gas-powered mowers, including electric-start mowers with cruise control, and mowers with sophisticated bagging systems that allow homeowners to mulch and bag at the same time, ergonomic handlebars and an exclusive twin-blade mowing system.

So what's next? Hope, at Consumer Reports, predicts more choices in every category, a continued emphasis on convenience, and a narrowing gap between the performance and prices of gas and electric mowers. Depending on your yard and your preferences, "there is a case to be made for keeping the old mower a few years, while electrics get even better," Hope says. "But if you are ready to embrace electric and pay a little more for it, it's here."

SOURCES

-- To compare the features of lawnmowers, check manufacturers' web sites: toro.com, deere.com, powerequipment.honda.com, and others. For electric mowers, see especially egopowerplus.com, ryobitools.com and meangreenproducts.com.

-- Consumer Reports takes a close look at new lawn mowers every year, testing them in Florida during the winter and publishing the results in the magazine every summer. This year, the CR lawn mower overview and results will be in the magazine's June issue. An overview of mowers and recent recommendations is also available on the Consumer Reports website, consumerreports.org.

A surprising number of the common flowers in our gardens are exotic imports. Increasing the proportion of native plants will put your garden at the forefront of a modern movement.

Growing interest in naturalistic gardens, with their rich interplay of color and texture, has boosted awareness of the beauty and importance of native plants in both the design and ecology of gardens. You don't have to plant exclusively natives to capture the look, but native plants are an obvious choice. They evolved to thrive in the various local conditions around the country, so they're easier to take care of than beautiful but marginally hardy or finicky exotics. Native plants support pollinators, provide habitat for birds and bugs, and require fewer resources to maintain than most non-natives. Make room for natives among traditional favorite flowers, and you will be delighted by the life they bring to your garden.

The easiest way to get native plants into your garden is to fill any empty spot with them. You don't have to get rid of your big mop-head hydrangeas, peonies or other hardy non-natives -- just allow native plants to share space with them. Native flowers such as butterfly milkweed, coneflowers, penstemon and phlox, among others, look great and thrive planted side-by-side with existing perennials and shrubs in flower beds. They are also good for the environment.

"These are all solid native plants that provide benefits for nature," says Peggy Anne Montgomery, a spokeswoman for American Beauties Native Plants. American Beauties is a branding program that works with growers to help increase the availability and diversity of native plants in garden shops. "We finally have the wind in our sails, and it's because of the whole thing with bees," Montgomery says.

Not so many years ago, all insects were considered pests. Gardeners wanted to limit them, control them or eradicate them. Now gardeners are encouraging pollinators -- and bees are among the most important of these -- with native plants that provide nectar and shelter through the seasons. Gardens with native plants support an astonishing variety of good bugs, says Neil Diboll, owner of Prairie Nursery in Westfield, Wisconsin. Good bugs help keep the population of bad bugs in check, limiting pest problems among ornamental and edible plants. Instead of reaching for pesticides, "now we're planting preservation gardens," says Diboll, who, for almost 40 years, has been a champion of native plants.

Native plants are appropriate in gardens of every size and style, in urban, suburban and rural settings. They're pretty in pots on patios and look terrific in balcony and rooftop gardens. Native plants are the refreshingly stylish and modern element in municipal flowerbeds, offering a drive-by lesson in grace and diversity. At botanic gardens and nature centers, displays of native plants give home gardeners a lot of new ideas to take home with them.

The appeal is broad. Professional garden designers and landscape architects are specifying native plants in their designs to enliven traditional landscapes with a fresh look. In corporate landscapes, plantings of natives instead of traditional swaths of identical annual flowers look modern and up to date and show that businesses are good ecological stewards, because natives naturally do not require insecticides, herbicides or pesticides to thrive.

The selection of native plants at garden shops has grown, but natives themselves are really nothing new. "Most of our plants are from the mid-Pleistocene," Diboll says. So-called "new natives" are actually what the professionals call nativars, combining the words native and cultivar (or cultivated variety). These are native plants that have been selected for larger flowers, for example, or a longer bloom period. Nativars may be more compact than the original natives from which they are derived, or they might be hardier, or have more spectacular fall color. They represent what some professionals consider the best of both natives and hybrids.

Nativars are controversial because they're usually propagated by cuttings or divisions, so they don't pass along the genetic diversity of a truly native seed-grown population. Diboll offers only native species grown from open-pollinated seed. American Beauties includes nativars in its selections, but the company evaluates these choices carefully, Montgomery says, and labels them appropriately. In her own garden in Pennsylvania, natives, nativars and many non-native plants all grow happily together.

Even a few natives will make a difference in a garden. Jason Delaney, a garden designer in St. Louis, is a daffodil collector (daffodils are Old World plants) who recommends natives to clients and grows them at home, too. A diverse garden "attracts not only myriad beneficial insects, but also small birds and mammals," he says. "Even tiny urban gardens can successfully support an array of wildlife." Native plants help make them feel right at home.

SOURCES:

-- Prairie Nursery sells native seeds, plants, seed mixes and plans for native-plant gardens, including butterfly habitat gardens, rain gardens, gardens for songbirds, and more; prairienursery.com.

-- American Beauties Native Plants are available at garden centers and by mail through gardencrossings.com. The company's website includes resources for gardeners and garden designers, including detailed plant descriptions and garden plans; abnativeplants.com.