Artful Gardens: Blending Art and Plantings

Artful garden blending is combining a diverse collection of plants, hardscaping, and art into a larger, living, inspiring work of art. The greatest gardeners are master blenders that work magic to bring a garden design idea to life.

The Gertrude Jekylls and Christopher Lloyds (two famed and accomplished garden designers) of this world are […]

Pruning Flowering Shrubs in Summer

Pruning flowering shrubs makes people crazy.  Even experienced gardeners hesitate when confronted with a shrub in need of attention.  Why?  Most of the pruning-phobic are afraid of cutting off next year’s flower buds or even maiming or killing the plant. 

Instead, gardeners should focus on other worries because it is hard to cause death by pruning if a shrub is otherwise healthy.  The worst that can happen is […]

Best Shade Perennials for East Coast Gardens

Coral bells come in a wide array of colors.

Download the Nursery-Ready Plant List

Shady spaces are a frequent source of frustration for flower-loving gardeners. Annuals, like impatiens (regular and New Guinea) and wishbone flowers (Click here to read more about wishbone flower), can help, but for a truly vibrant landscape, dependable flowering perennials are a must. Put your frustration aside, because the options are plentiful, even for the dreaded […]

Purple Vegetables for Color and Nutrition

 

At various times and places, purple has been the color of royalty, rock stars, and rebellion. It has represented bravery, as well as overwrought prose. A shade of purple—mauve—was even used to describe the 1890’s, a time when the invention and widespread use of aniline dyes made purple fabrics and clothes widely available.

Wishbone Flowers for Shade Garden Color

The flowers of Torenia Summer Wave® Large Blue look spectacular close up.
Gardeners the world over have long suffered from a common ailment—we covet plants, climate conditions, and time that we don’t have. This is especially true of gardeners with shady landscapes. Our gardens may support all kinds of ferns, but we want roses. Hostas the size of small houses sprout without any help at all while we pine for sunflowers. The list of “wants” […]

The Sweetest Spring Carrots

Poet John Keats said, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” And a spring carrot is truly a thing of beauty, if even if it is covered with dirt when pulled from the ground. Wash off the dirt and take a bite of that carrot. You will discover its inner beauty. Time spent in cool spring soil gives home-grown carrots a fresh sweetness that store-bought varieties will never have.

Bringing Herbs Indoors for Winter

Summer vacation is wonderful for people with culinary herbs.  While you enjoy longer days and uninterrupted stretches of shorts-and-sandals weather, your plants are basking in summer sunshine and warmth.  Basil grows bushy, thyme exudes powerful fragrance, and mints threaten to take over the landscape.  You can harvest herbs whenever you need them, secure in the knowledge that the summer garden will provide an ever-ready supply.

Growing and Harvesting Everlasting Flowers

Flowers are nature’s most beautiful and ephemeral gifts to us.  But for gardeners, especially those living in cold-winter climates, the gift is seasonal.  Winter comes, flowers fade, and the bright colors of spring and summer are just a memory.

Beating Tomato Pests and Diseases

Nothing’s better than a happy, fruitful tomato, but keeping pests and diseases at bay can be a challenge.

All winter long, tomato lovers suffer, eating supermarket fruit with the taste and texture of foam packing peanuts.  Finally, summer arrives, bringing a harvest of tart, sweet, sunshiny tomatoes.  You can buy these edible jewels at the local farmers’ market, but there is something incredibly satisfying about growing your […]

Flowers for Coastal Gardens

Rugosa rose is one of the classic hardy garden plants for coastal gardening.
The phrase “coastal gardens” evokes a host of memorable images, billowing daisies flanking gray-shingled cottages, bright “dune roses” blooming against an ocean background, or pots of brilliant red geraniums on a wooden pier.  North America has an abundance of coastal areas that are home to a wide array of coastal gardens.