Arborvitae Privacy Trees – Pick the Right Tree
Privacy trees are almost always at the top of list for gardeners moving into a new home, or when new buildings go up around you. We all want to feel our house and…
Get all the latest insight into the world of plants, from experts.
Privacy trees are almost always at the top of list for gardeners moving into a new home, or when new buildings go up around you. We all want to feel our house and…
So you want to design your own garden? You don’t need a degree, or years of study to do a good job of it – just a grasp of some basic principles and…
Most of us want privacy in our gardens, so we can relax and enjoy ourselves, free from the noise and dust of a highway, the curiosity of passersby, or the scrutiny of neighbors….
As gardens have become smaller, planting trees has become harder. There is an irony to this, as a time when everyone is being urged to plant more trees, but it is important to…
One of the most common instructions we find ourselves giving is to grow a certain plant in ‘well-drained soil’. That is fine, but what if you don’t have soil like that, perhaps because…
For many people, the Japanese are the greatest garden-makers in the world. So for many gardeners, creating a Japanese garden is their greatest ambition. Some study the different types of Japanese gardens for…
I’m sticking with it, but looking back at the title I just wrote for this blog, I see right away a classic oxymoron – if they are ‘harmless’ they can’t be ‘pests’. But…
Without realizing it, many of us create gardens in styles that we bring from other countries. This is obvious when you are inspired by Japan or Asia to emulate their beautiful gardens, but…
After our last ‘Garden Styles’ blog on the Classic American Garden, we are going to step outside the US for a moment to look at the most influential garden style of the last…
For the first style in our series, we will start with a garden look that is seen almost everywhere in the country, but perhaps especially in the east. Houses that are now around…
In this era of computers, there is an app for everything. When it comes to doing your own design for the garden around your new home, or making improvements to an existing garden,…
Say “Hydrangea”, and most people think of those big, floppy heads of flowers in summer, in pink, white, or blue. That is the big-leaf hydrangea, Hydrangea macrophylla, that came to us from Japan….
We hear so much today about extinction and ecosystem collapse, but sometimes, by luck, a plant can be saved – if not in the wild, at least in garden collections, and its gene…
Last week we starting this topic off with some basic principles of water and plants, and some tips on watering in your garden. If you stumbled on this blog without seeing that one,…
Some of the most common gardening questions revolve around watering. We might think nothing could be easier that pouring some water on your plants, but it doesn’t work out that way. In the…
Growing edible plants in your flower garden is a hot trend right now, and everyone is planting everything from zucchini to potatoes in their beds. We have been doing this for years with…
It’s nice to have a sunny garden, but sometimes it can become a miniature Sahara, especially if your soil is sandy and naturally dry. It can be frustrating trying to find plants that…
When they come into our gardens, some plants stay pretty much the same as they are in the wild, but others are changed dramatically by keen growers, who see some potential and go…
If you have ever seen a cat lost in the ecstasy of rolling around in a plant of catmint, you will know just how attractive these plants are to them. You might then…
So you want to grow some lavender, but when you Google for some more information you start seeing this word ‘Lavandin’. Ah, you think, maybe it’s the French name for it? Hm, nice…
The prairies are deeply embedded in the American psyche, even for people who live a thousand miles from them. Accounts of settlement and Native American hardship can complicate things, but one thing remains…
The old-fashioned orange daylily, with its tall stems and narrow orange trumpets, has been grown in gardens for many, many, years. It is often seen in old, neglected ones, or growing along roadsides,…
When you first start gardening, one of the most difficult things is to keep your garden interesting all year round. For most of us that means blooms, although of course fruits, fall color…
The Hardy Hibiscus, or Rose of Sharon, is a shrub that’s familiar to many gardeners. It was once wildly popular but then fell from favor, returning recently with many new varieties. For long-blooming…