Everyone loves Japanese maples, with their diversity of leaf color and form. Some are upright, some weeping, while some cascade elegantly over rocks and walls. Leaves may be green, or the coveted rich-reds that are always so popular. Their fall coloring is also varied and spectacular. Some have attractive seed clusters hanging from their bare branches, or brightly-colored twigs glowing in the winter sunlight. A…

Planting shrubs is the best way to create form and structure in your garden, and working with a selection of different ones, both evergreen and deciduous, and large and small, is the way to create variety too. Getting the balance right, between mass planting and individual specimens, using different heights, and with different foliage types, is the key to creating a garden that looks good…

Last week I started discussing the pruning of spring-flowering shrubs and trees, but after diverting into the choice and use of pruners, delayed finishing the conversation till now. So let’s get back to the topic, and investigate how to do the important job of pruning plants that flower early in the year. Many gardeners plant something new, and for the first few years it does…

Now that spring is behind us, and summer has officially begun, don’t leave the pruning of your spring-flowering shrubs any longer. Ideally it should be done immediately after they flower, so for next year, make a note. However, ‘better late than never’, so if you didn’t do it yet, bring it to the top of your list. There is often confusion about pruning, and many…

It sometimes seems that garden writers are obsessed with the ‘off’ seasons in the garden. There are endless blogs on flowers for spring, color in fall, how to have winter interest, but summer seems to be forgotten. Yet that is the time when almost everyone is in their garden, enjoying a vacation at home, barbecuing, throwing parties, and having family gatherings. So surely that is…

When organizing the layout of plants in your garden, making the best and most exciting arrangement you can is the key to making the ordinary look extraordinary. Most plants are basically rounded, and the eye tends to pass quickly over them. What gets our attention is vertical lines. There are quite a few plants that are upright, and even narrow, but there are some that…