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...
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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...
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Almost every garden has shade – and even if it begins as sunny, once trees and large shrubs develop, shady areas are almost inevitable. We can treat shade in two ways, as a problem, or as an opportunity. Once we see it as an opportunity to grow plants that prefer or even require shade, a whole world opens up to us. Once we start looking...
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Bringing living green inside your house is a great way to improve your indoor space. Not only do plants add that special something to your rooms, softening the sharp angles of furniture, and filling corners effectively, but multiple studies have shown their amazing ability to remove polluting chemicals from the air. With plants in it, the air inside your home will be cleaner, and be...
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When we look at the huge range of different trees and shrubs available for our gardens, we take it as a given that something new is always coming along – the latest variety of rose, like the arrival of the Knockout Rose, or the exciting twice-blooming Encore Azaleas. Like the latest models of our phones and computers, we see this as a normal thing, and...
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When choosing plants for the garden, the words shade-tolerant, or grows in shade are regularly seen. The true situation with shade is a little more complicated than that, and a better understanding of the various kinds of shade found in gardens is helpful in making good choices, and avoiding costly failures. Let’s think about the different kinds of shade, and their impacts on the growth...
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In colder areas, spruce trees are a common sight, and they are widely used in landscaping. Despite their beauty, the fact that they are so widely used can make them slightly boring options. Their value as screens or specimens can certainly not be underestimated, but sometimes we yearn for something different. If you are looking for a hardy, attractive specimen evergreen for a lawn, or...
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At this time of year, we look anxiously for the beginning of spring, especially those of us who live in cold areas, where April is merely the month when all the snow finally disappears. We might take a walk around our neighborhoods and see plants in bloom, but when we come back through the gate our own gardens can be sadly lacking. If that sounds...
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The succession of flowering shrubs through the seasons is a large part of the beauty of a garden, bringing interest to every part of the year. Yet in many gardens the shrubs are overgrown, and often flower poorly because of incorrect pruning. A little understanding can go a long way to help that, and it is not difficult. Like many things, once we grasp the...
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Camellias are the aristocrats of the garden. They stand majestic, wrapped in rich green and glossy leaves all summer, and then when winter comes they burst into bloom, bringing exotic forms and rich colors to the garden when most other flowers have finished blooming. By choosing several varieties, it is possible to have camellias in bloom in your garden from fall to spring, in an...
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Let’s be honest, roses have a reputation for being difficult. While most people love those big blooms, especially from the flower shop, growing them in gardens has faded from a high-point reached perhaps 50 years ago. As the world got busier, people had less time for their gardens, less time for the detailed pruning and care required, and for the spraying for pests and diseases....
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Hedges are important garden features, for privacy, shelter and appearance. Evergreen hedges are always the most popular, since they give protection 365 days a year, and often the need is greatest in the winter, just when a deciduous hedge is bare and open. That doesn’t mean deciduous hedges are not a good choice in many locations, and they are great for dividing up the interior...
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As the warmer weather arrives, and our plants start to show signs of waking from their winter sleep, we start to wonder how to get the best from them in the coming season. Many flowering shrubs – and trees too – benefit from pruning to stimulate the best display of flowers for our pleasure, but new gardeners can be very confused about what to do....
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Finding enough room in your garden for all the plants you want to grow can be a challenge. As well, many gardens have large blank walls of wood, brick or stone, or fences around the property. These tend to be forgotten when planning the garden, but they offer lots of interesting opportunities for growing plants. These walls and fences can also be unattractive, so putting...
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Spring is the great highlight of the gardening year, always with a profusion of color, scent and interest from all kinds of flowering plants. Just when exactly that great moment arrives depends on where you live and what kind of weather we have had. There is a way to encourage spring to arrive as soon as possible, and that is to grow some of the...
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Gardening in sight of the sea presents special challenges. Most plants are sensitive to salt, which draws water from the leaves and roots by the process of osmosis. However, as the saying goes, ‘Nature abhors a vacuum’, and numerous plants have evolved mechanisms that protect them, and allow them to grow in areas where nothing otherwise would grow. Not only are plants in coastal areas...
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Introduction There are many evergreen trees to choose from for the garden, but one of the most useful is the Arborvitae, or Thuja. These soft-leaved, upright trees grow in a wide range of climates and soil conditions. They make excellent specimens and are among the very best trees available for making hedges and screens, a vital and basic part of almost any garden. So basic...
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Developing and laying-out a garden can be difficult, and the results may not always be what you were looking for. Part of the job involves choosing different varieties of plants, but that can be difficult, so having an overriding principle in mind when choosing is very useful. Beyond different styles – formal, Asian, cottage, and so on – there is an interesting concept that can...
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If you are a beginning gardener, the words ‘needs acidic soil’ in the description of some plants can be confusing. Perhaps you have a hazy knowledge of acids as being things like vinegar, or lemon juice, so what can that have to do with the soil in your garden? The answer is certainly important, since knowing this about your soil will guide you in choosing...
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Evergreen azaleas are real beauties of the spring garden, and wherever they can be grown they are immensely popular. There are hundreds if not thousands of varieties available, in all the colors of the rainbow (except for sky blue). They come in a wide range of sizes, so they are suitable for gardens of all sizes too. Taller ones can be placed further back in...
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Flip through the pages of any interior décor magazine these days, and the chances are you will see a tall plant, with large leaves, being used as an accessory to the latest furniture or wall finishes. This plant – the Fiddle Leaf Fig – has captured the imagination of decorators for its bold foliage and clean lines. The leaves in this plant can be 18...
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Boxwood is undoubtedly the most functional plant in garden history, as well as being attractive and easy to grow in sun or shade, and in a range of soil types. It has endless uses around the garden, but it is especially useful for making geometric shapes and hedges, as it thrives on regular trimming. It can be clipped into balls, cones, cubes and a whole...
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In winter, most gardeners put up their feet and dream of the coming year. Experienced gardeners do more than dream. They plan ahead so that when the glorious seasons of spring and summer arrive, they have prepared the garden to give the best it can. Every year people rush to buy their trees and shrubs when the first warm days arrive, but to get the...
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Citrus fruits are among the healthiest and most popular fruits around. Besides being great to eat, naturally or juiced, they have all sorts of uses in the kitchen, from salads and desserts to pies and preserves. So it makes sense to grow your own if you can, since that way you can have them fresh, and know exactly what has been done to them before...
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