Garden Design

Today’s photos were sent in by Sandra Schaller. Sandra works at Wave Hill, a fantastic public garden in the Bronx in New York City. She recently took over care of the alpine house in the garden and is sharing some of the marvelous plants that grow there. Alpine houses are specialized greenhouses used for growing

Before we stopped traveling for the better part of two years, my favorite annual trip for Fine Gardening was to the Chicago Botanic Garden. Every year I’d visit Richard Hawke, director of ornamental plant research, and the massive trial gardens he oversees. My mission would be to photograph plants from one of the genera being

Hydrangeas (Hydrangea spp. and cvs., Zones 4–10) seem to be a necessary part of every Southern garden. Those big, billowy blue flowers under tall trees in shady gardens look cool even when the temperature is in the nineties. Since living in the Southeast practically requires you to plant a hydrangea, we are listing a few

Few plants can put on a spring show as elegant and impressive as wisteria (Wisteria spp. and cvs., Zones 4–9), but like many vines, this plant can be aggressive. Thankfully, wisteria can be tamed by training it into a tree form. This also has a secondary benefit of bringing the fragrant flowers down to eye

Today Angie Caruthers is sharing some beautiful photos of a favorite spring bloom. It’s dogwood season in Northwest Arkansas, and I finally got some worthy photos of my pink dogwood (Cornus florida, Zones 5–9) during a beautiful Saturday morning sunrise. Enjoy! The showy pink part of this bloom is actually a bract, while each of

Hi! I’m Tracy, gardening in the East Bay, California, Zone 9b. I’ve done 100% of the planting here; the space behind the house was just a pile of mud when we moved in. Oh, the possibilities! The front garden was full of typical new housing plantings and grass, which I have completely removed. The strawberry

The GPOD is on the road again, and today friend of the GPOD Cherry Ong is taking us on a visit to the gardens at the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific (HCP) in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She saw a lot of beautiful things there, which we’ll be sharing over the next few weeks, but

This garden pest is certainly making a name for itself—even several. Depending on where you are and who you are talking to, you may hear it called “the crazy snake worm,” “the Alabama jumping worm,” “the Asian snake worm,” or some other moniker, but all refer to earthworms in the genus Amynthas. Native to East

After living their entire lives in Alabama, and with a little encouragement from some friends, Phillip Oliver and his husband made their dreams a reality by retiring and relocating to the Pacific Northwest. They found the perfect property in Vancouver, Washington, with a landscape that was a blank slate, empty and ready for the many

Many gardeners have started to look more closely at mountain hydrangeas. This species is native to the mountainous regions of Korea and Japan, an environment that produces plants that are slightly hardier than most bigleafs, which are native to the milder Japanese seaside. The large flowers of bigleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea macrophylla, Zones 5–9) have long

We’re visiting with Jay Sifford today. We’ve visited his personal gardens in North Carolina before (Summer in Jay’s Garden) but today he’s sharing a garden he created for one of his garden design clients: I have been working with this client for over four years. She came to me wanting a contemporary garden with an

Today’s photos are from Nich, who works as a plant breeder and grower at Edward’s Greenhouse in Boise, Idaho, which is in USDA Zone 6. This beautiful view is from the Bogus Basin Recreation Area. This unusual little succulent is an intergeneric hybrid called Aloinopsis that was bred from species native to South Africa that

It is your GPOD editor, Joseph, here today, sharing some images of spring in my garden and around town where I live in northern Indiana. One of my favorite daffodil varieties is ‘Cassata’ (Zones 4–8), shown here blooming in front of the house. This type is called a “split cup” daffodil, because the central trumpet

Always give a gift that you yourself would like to receive. That’s excellent advice when it comes to life– and as gardeners, we can extend that sentiment to giving plants as gifts. Ask yourself: what plants would I like to get as a gift? We had a lot of fun on today’s episode, imagining the

When I was a child, my family cele­brated the first days of spring with a garden salad of nutty, dark green rosettes that we called feldsalat. Back then, my mother had the seeds mailed from Germany. These days, I share my love for those thick emerald leaves with my husband, who calls them la mâche.

Today’s photos are from Eric Shealy, a horticulturalist who works at Riverbanks Zoo and Garden in Columbia, South Carolina. Gardening in South Carolina means beautiful flowers can arrive any day of the year, like this lovely Camellia ‘Nuccio’s Cameo’ (Zone 7–10) which he photographed on January 1. What a way to ring in a new

Today we’re visiting with Eric Sternfels. I’ve submitted photos several times before from my personal garden in Northwest Philadelphia (Summer in Eric’s Garden). Here are some photos showing my increasing passion for Epimedium varieties , which have an amusingly wonderful collection of common names: Fairy wings, barrenwort, horny goat weed, and bishop’s cap—quite evocative imagery all.

Though technically a fruit, the tomato is the most popular homegrown vegetable, with thousands of tasty varieties available for the kitchen gardener to choose from. Tomatoes can range from big beefy slicers down to tiny, pea-size, pop-a-handful-in-your-mouth morsels. Vine-ripened tomatoes fresh from the garden are an incredible treat, and they’re quite easy to grow! Sometimes

My name is Heidi Steffes, and I’ve been gardening on six acres in Waukesha, Wisconsin, for 38 years. While I have many gardening areas, today’s photos are from our pool area that was added six years ago. My goal was to make the pool area a sort of sanctuary while also hiding (or blending in)

From time to time I get submissions to the GPOD that are just one or two photos—not enough to make a full post. Often, though, these photos are beautiful and interesting, so today I have collected a bunch of them to share together. This first one is from Tascha Raymond, who gardens in Central Illinois

Warming climate trends are creating more opportunities to add diverse succulents to Southwestern gardens. In Santa Fe, where I live, our USDA Zone has moved from Zone 5 in 1995 to 6b currently. This is quite a shift in only 27 years. I have been introducing succulents more and more into my garden designs for

Every gardener needs to grow at least one rose (Rosa spp. and cvs., Zones 2–11), although sometimes the only sunny spot in the yard is a concrete patch. Most roses can be grown in a container for at least a little while, depending on the size of the container. The best way to tell if

My first foray into gardening was many years ago when my husband and I joined another couple in renting a community garden plot in Arlington, Virginia. We inherited the worst plot in the garden, so we added lots of organic matter and moved the soil to build up large rows that were 8 to 10

My name is Karen Squillacci, and I’ve been gardening in Southern New England since I was knee high to a grasshopper. My family consists of a long line of avid gardeners who graciously passed down so much of their knowledge to me. I have been propagating plants since before high school and quite a bit

Many people think of soil as dead, decomposed organic matter and minerals. But it’s much more than that. Soil is full of life. Trillions of organisms live in soil, using and recycling the nutrients and chemicals found around them. More than that, these organisms have a symbiotic relationship with each other and with plants, which

Long appreciated for their airy blooms and charming, carefree nature, native heucheras (Heuchera spp. and cvs., Zones 4–9) were gleaned from their mountain and woodland habitats many years ago to prettily populate our shaded perennial borders. Plant breeders took note of heuchera’s hardiness, versatility and beauty. By combining the most attractive features of three native

This is your GPOD editor, Joseph, and a few days ago I drove up to Michigan to visit my friend Brigitta Stewart. She runs a small mail-order nursery called Arrowhead Alpines, and her personal garden is packed to the gills with fascinating and beautiful plants. Most of the plants were still dormant, but there were

Little kids have Christmas. Gardeners have spring. To us, this is the most wonderful time of the year. And with the start of the season, comes those inevitable trips to the nursery. In an effort to not max out their credit cards, this spring Carol and Danielle are making shopping lists of plants that they

When designing a garden, I am often looking for plant material that tolerates both full-sun and shade conditions. Perhaps the garden bed includes a young tree that currently provides very little shade but over time will shade more and more of the garden. In this situation, I want a plant that can tolerate full sun

I have lived—and gardened—in three countries: England, Barbados, and the United States. In the United States, I found myself settled on the eastern tip of New York’s Long Island, a grower’s paradise in USDA Hardiness Zone 7. Access is important, even in a tight space. Paths of 2×10 lumber enable the author to harvest his