This time of year presents the perfect opportunity to discuss plant hardiness and perceptions on our climate’s growing zone. Following the cold spell last week, it may be time to…
Fleece Flowers - long blooming and easy to grow perennials
Variety Is The Spice Of Life
It’s funny how the meaning of some words can change over time. In a garden setting, having a “diverse” collection of plants is generally a good thing. One could say that the gardener embraces “diversity”. Likewise, if that same gardener “includes” many different genera in the landscape, you could state that the gardener embraces “inclusivity”. Now, before you get your hackles up, I have no intention of…
Make Your Garden Look “Hellaciously Good” With Heleniums, Helianthus, AND Heliopsis
We are moving into the later part of summer when all of the spring and early summer perennials have finished up and it is time for those mid to late summer bloomers to take front stage. Keeping the show going in our gardens can be tricky, especially if we are prone to only do our shopping in the spring months and focus on what is in color at that time…
Don't Be Annoyed, Fill That Void!
I am going to go out on a limb here and make a brash statement: “perfection in the garden is fleeting”. Yes, it is sadly true… Earlier this spring I was congratulating myself on how nicely all of my many perennials (probably too many if I am honest with myself) were knitting themselves together and gradually obliterating any bare, visible soil. That is still happening, to be sure, but along the way some of my early bloomers have “gone over” and it is time to take another look at what I can plop in and around them to keep things looking colorful and interesting…
June Is Perennial Planting Month
There is no shortage of things to do in the garden in the month of June. Hedges need to be pruned, warm season veggies should be planted, spring-blooming plants (like Forsythia, Heather, and Rhodies) should be deadheaded, weeds of course need to be controlled, it’s time to start thinking about watering, and all those annuals we planted in May need to be fed. But, one of the most important tasks for every gardener is to KEEP PLANTING. There are always holes to fill in and beds to rejuvenate, and in June the best choices usually come from the perennial department of the garden center…
Get Some Color In Your Garden, For Pete's Sake
May is high season in the garden center, when all levels of gardeners venture out for their annual spring ritual of adding some color to their yards. Whatever level of gardener we might happen to be, I think it is safe to say that we all get the same rush of endorphins whenever we interject colorful plants into our gardens. It is a feel-good kind of activity…
4 Great Reasons To Visit The Garden Center In August
I was in the nursery the other weekend looking for some ideas for my next column, when it occurred to me: “What is it that draws shoppers into the garden center this time of year?”. Considering that there is nary a shy bone in my body, I thought, why not ask a few customers why they were there. This is what I found out…
As we head into the peak spring season and the temperatures continue to rise, more and more of our landscapes are popping with spring color. Another shrub all gardens should contain is a deciduous Azalea. Us gardeners have plenty of evergreen options to help with our Azalea and Rhododendron addictions, but a deciduous Azalea specimen offers…