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The peak month of summer is also the pivotal month in the gardening year. Although a tradition has developed that puts spring as the time to get your garden going, a far better time is fall. Warm ground, the return of rain, and time for new plants to establish themselves so they can make an […]

Everyone loves roses, and it is impossible to have too many in your garden. Except for the work, right? If you think that way you probably grew roses a while back, because a lot has changed in the rose world since the new century began. As 21st century gardeners, it’s time to take advantage of […]

Pines – big and small – were the subject of a recent blog, and they are beautiful trees that bring a unique look to any garden, with so many to choose from. Pine trees are usually trouble-free, but, like all plants, they can be attacked by insects from time to time. Often these attacks are […]

When July rolls around, that first flush of spring flowers is over, and even some of the early summer plants are finished too. If you haven’t planned ahead you may be looking at a lot of green right now, and if that sounds like your garden, now is the time to do something about it. […]

When we think of ‘home grown’, it is usually vegetables, or fruit, that most people think of. Yet there is a valuable food – nuts – that is often overlooked. Yet nut growing is certainly the easiest way to grow edible plants. No elaborate annual bed preparation, seeding and planting, as you do with a […]

Junipers can be confusing plants when you first start gardening. Someone will casually say, “It’s a juniper” when pointing at almost anything from a tall tree or a narrow, upright shrub, to something a few inches tall creeping across the ground. It might have fuzzy or smooth leaves, and it could be green, blue, yellow, […]

We all want the best plants in our gardens – healthy bushes covered in flowers that bring color and often perfume for us to enjoy. Yet sometimes we are disappointed. A bush produces a few initial flowers and then stops for the rest of the season, or has a good flowering one year, and then […]

In everyday talk around our gardens, we often talk about cypress trees, but that name seems to cover many trees that look very different from each other.  So what is going on with all these ‘cypress’? The name is an old one, going back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and was applied to trees […]

When you start gardening, the biggest lesson is knowing what to do when. Good timing gives you plenty of blooms in their seasons, and makes planting go smoothly, with plants developing quickly. It prevents (or greatly reduces) winter injury and drought problems, and it makes your work much more effective. In different parts of the […]

In a perfect world we would walk out into our spring gardens and be surrounded by beautiful flowering shrubs and trees, with a lush, green lawn, and the promise of another perfect gardening season. Too often, though, the reality falls short of our vision, and we instead find a tired collection of unhappy plants, with […]

In this series of blogs, we have been looking at a different approach to designing your garden. Forget about drawing plans, and work instead right on the ground, thinking out your garden right in the garden, and laying it out directly on the ground. The great thing about this approach is you don’t need to […]

In the extended plant descriptions and advice which are a unique feature of The Tree Center website – and a great resource for our customers – we often describe a plant as being ‘suitable for foundation planting’. Experienced gardeners will know exactly what we are talking about, but new gardeners may be a little mystified. […]

Once warmer weather returns, and the days start to grow longer, the garden tempts up back into it, after a winter of rest, perhaps buried beneath snow. The early-spring garden can look sad, and some early work will pay dividends, as well as getting you out in the fresh air and spring sunshine. Here are […]

With the gardens of new homes getting smaller and smaller, and particularly with more and more of us living in town homes and apartments, there is a lot of interest in growing plants in planter boxes and larger pots. Perhaps you just have a patio, or a balcony large enough for a plant in the […]

A couple of weeks back we started talking about designing your garden – something people often want to do in spring. If you read that first part – and if you didn’t, you can find it here – then you already know we are not going to get out the drawing board, or buy some fancy […]

With winter drawing to a close in most parts of the country – and flowers already showing on early bloomers in the south – it seems like a good time to put some thought into laying out your garden. Perhaps you have just moved into a new home, with an existing garden that you don’t […]

Encore Azaleas, with their continuous flowering from spring to fall, have become THE most popular azalea in warmer states, displacing the older types, that only flower in spring. Not only are the Encore Azaleas beautiful, they are also vigorous and fast-growing, typically adding 12 inches a year, and soon becoming large plants. Their final size […]

Planting up your garden is a big project, depending of course on how big your garden is, and how complex you want it to be. Along with choosing sizes, shapes, evergreen or deciduous, and what will grow where, there are many possibilities to consider with color, from both foliage and flowers. When we go out […]

The days are beginning to lengthen, and although we are still in the grip of winter in most areas, spring cannot be far away. Within a few weeks it will be time to hit the beach, and if you are fortunate enough to live on the coast, or have a beach cottage, then it is […]

Over the last few years there has been an enormous growth in interest in preserving our natural environments. They are under threat from multiple directions, with everything from climate change and logging to too many visitors threatening the great natural areas of this country. In some areas there has been an additional threat – garden […]

Shade is the gardener’s perpetual problem – just what can I grow in those inevitable shady spots that are found in every garden. Beneath trees or in the shade of buildings, it is almost impossible to have a garden without shade – either from the beginning, or gradually developing as your trees and taller shrubs […]

Winter is the time when evergreen trees are most noticeable in our gardens, and few stand out more than holly does. These handsome trees and bushes, with their rich-green leathery leaves, bring structure and form to the garden, and their rounded or pyramidal shapes are perfect additions to any garden. The classic ‘greeting-card’ holly, with […]

The Japanese style of garden is enjoying huge popularity in the West. Perhaps it’s the huge interest in mindfulness and Zen, the desire for simplicity, or maybe the realization that it is the perfect style for a small space or enclosed garden. Whatever the reason, more and more people are turning to Japanese influences to […]

You invest love, energy and money into your garden, so why enjoy it for only part of the year? Winter is a season too, and despite the cold and rain or snow there are ways to make your garden more enjoyable in winter than you might think it could be. With some planning and thought […]