Catmints – Great Plants for More than Just Cats
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…
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Lavandin or Lavender – What’s the Difference?
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…
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Planting Guides
How To Plant Rhododendrons, Azaleas and Camellias
A whole group of plants have developed to live in acid soil conditions where other plants will not do so well. Top of the list for gardeners are Rhododendrons and Azaleas, closely followed…
Planting Guides
How to Plant Deciduous Trees
Deciduous trees lose their foliage during winter, bursting to life with new growth once spring arrives. Many types of deciduous trees bring color to an otherwise dull landscape in fall with their brilliant…
Planting Guides
How to Plant Deciduous Hedges
Hedges are one of the major features of many gardens. Besides providing privacy and protection for your garden, they make the perfect backdrop for ornamental and flowering shrubs and plants. The plants you…
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Coneflowers – Flowers of the Prairies for every Garden
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…
Daylilies – the Best Summer Flower for Your Garden
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,…
Grow a Flow of Seasonal Color with Perennial Plants
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 special Story of a Special Plant, the Pillar Hibiscus
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…
Chinese Astilbe – Top Choice for Drier Gardens
Perennial plants add an extra dimension of beauty to any garden, and ones that are pest-free, long-blooming and low-maintenance are the best ones of all. Add in weeks and weeks of summer blooming,…
How to Succeed with Winterberry Bushes
‘Winter’ and ‘Berries’ definitely go together. The traditional Christmas holly may dominate the Christmas card market, but as many gardeners soon discover, if you live in areas that are too cold or too…
Let’s Sort Out Jasmines and their Friends
There is nothing new or unique about botanists and ordinary folk having different names for plants. If you look at the plants gardeners call ‘cypress’ you find a whole host of very different…
Meet the Viburnums – Some Of Our Best Flowering Shrubs
If you want to know the secret to creating an attractive garden, there is a one-word answer – ‘structure’. I don’t mean pergolas and gazebos, but structure from shrubs and small tree. A…
Mophead or Lacecap? – Two Beautiful Kinds of Hydrangea
Everyone loves Hydrangeas – they are a classic summer shrub for partially-shade parts of the garden, and their long-lasting blooms make a real impact for weeks and weeks – probably longer than any…
Growing Peaches on Walls – Espalier Fruit Trees
Who doesn’t love peaches? Melt-in-the-mouth, buttery, sweet and fragrant – nothing beats that bite into a ripe peach, and no ripe peach tastes like one you grew yourself and just picked, still warm…
