A drive around any older neighborhood will quickly show you giant trees right up against houses, blocking windows, damaging foundations and drains, and making rooms dark and gloomy. Bad decisions about planting distances are easy to find, so why are they made? The biggest single reason for poor tree placement is the way we see plants as cute and small, and our wish to surround…

If you have gardened in colder parts of the country for a long time, you will remember the ubiquitous PG Hydrangea, still seen in many gardens. It’s a standard shrub for later flowering – reliable, hardy, but with several faults that make it a long way short of perfect. To begin with, it grows quite large – older plants that have not been regularly pruned…

Wherever you garden, even in cooler climate zones, you can have hot, dry areas in your garden. Those places that bask in the sun all day, perhaps with sandy or rocky soil that dries out quickly and leaves your plants looking sad and droopy. Sometimes too, if you have wide eaves, there are dry areas at the foot of a south or west-facing wall, that…

Spring is the big season in the garden, and this is when we all go out and look at our gardens, to see what we can grow that will make them more beautiful. Evergreens are popular choices for easy-care gardening, and pines trees stand out for their very different appearance, and suitability for many different areas. Pines have a special kind of beauty, and their…

Most of us grow plants in our gardens simply for their beauty, and that surely is the best reason of all. But many plants also have a story to tell, perhaps of how they were first found, or the uses people have made of them – or sometimes about their amazing histories. Knowing these stories makes our plants more interesting and enriches the experience of…

Japanese and Asian-themed gardens are amazingly popular – and no wonder. They combine beauty with serenity, and by using just a few carefully chosen plants they create low-maintenance gardens, turning a few plants and rocks into a place of beauty. They are also perfect for smaller spaces, and courtyards, which are becoming increasingly common, especially in urban areas. You can even create an Asian ambience…