Garden Design

Today we’re visiting with Cindy Strickland, who lives in Raleigh, North Carolina. Hello, fellow gardeners. I wanted to share a variety of mostly dry plant forms with impressive persistence that look suitable for matrix planting or drifts of plants. I photographed them in winter or autumn in Zone 7b or 6b because of their beauty

Today we’re in Zone 6, visiting Lynne’s garden. Sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima, annual) makes low clouds of tiny white flowers. They can bloom all summer long as long as the weather doesn’t get too hot, and even keep blooming after the first frosts of fall. Here they’re paired with a brilliantly colored ornamental grass that looks

Today Cherry Ong is taking us on the road to a flower farm she visited earlier this year. I’ve been curious about flower farms and so tried attending a flower workshop from a local flower farm. It was hosted by sweet Amanda McCallister of Five Acres Flower Farm in Abbotsford, British Columbia. At the two-hour

Every garden has microclimates—small spaces that stay a little warmer or don’t catch the cold north winds, allowing you to grow a more delicate plant or provide extra care for success. When you’re planting for winter inter­est, it’s important to give winter-flowering plants a bit of protection from the extremes. Here are some tips on

As the last autumn leaves reluctantly drop and as bare seed heads stand tall in the field, we can no longer deny that winter is upon us. Our lush summer gardens are a seemingly distant memory now that many horticultural treasures stand stark, twiggy, or brown and ready to be cut back. What many see

The space at a glance Where: Stony Creek, Connecticut What: A shoreline garden that encompasses two smaller homes and a few outbuildings Zone: 7 Age of the garden: 29 years Size: 1 acre Conditions: Full sun to partial shade; moist, well-drained, somewhat sandy soil  An architect in the garden. The idea might conjure images of

Spring-flowering bulbs are still readily available in November, and this is a great time to plant them in our region. Daffodils, tulips, summer snowflakes, and Spanish bluebells all need as much chilling as they can get in this part of the country, so planting them early is essential for spring flowers. Plant bulbs with a

Carla Zembelli Mudry is welcoming us today to her garden in Malvern, Pennsylvania. November in my garden means fewer chores, and the garden is mostly put to bed. All of the bulbs are in the ground, and the cannas are out of the ground and nestled in pots in the garage. Overnight, we had a

In most people’s minds, humane traps are no-kill, cagelike devices that capture animals using bait. Some claim that certain snares and padded leghold traps are humane, as well, but these devices are more often inhumane because of the injuries they can cause as animals struggle to free themselves. It is important to remember that any

Today Cherry Ong is taking us to visit Hatley Castle in Victoria, British Columbia. This estate garden at the Royal Roads University in Victoria, British Columbia, is magnificent, regal, and majestic. You may recognize the castle from the movies or TV, and I will leave it up to you to figure out where you’ve seen

Well loyal listeners, it’s hard to believe, but this is our 100th episode! We cannot thank everyone out there who has stuck with us from the early days of trying to figure out what a podcast about plants should sound like, and still downloads episodes to this day (when we’ve only figured out a bit

Yesterday, beautiful little seedlings were just poking their heads up in the garden. This morning, tragedy! Some seedlings are missing altogether, while others have been beheaded, their fragile tops cut off, lying neatly beside them. If you’re wondering what horrible thing has befallen your plants, the answer is simple: cutworms. You may be able to

When my wife and I planted our gardens in Sandy, Utah, we knew we’d have to somehow irrigate our plants. For several years, we watered with a hose and sprinkler, but that got old in a hurry. We considered in-ground sprinkler systems, but they seemed costly and wasteful of water. Then I learned about the

Today we are visiting Mary Spaulding’s garden. I submitted photos of my emerging spring gardens in May 2020 (click here). I’d like to share some photos of our July-August Zone 3 gardens. Even though it was a very dry year, my husband’s diligent watering paid off. On the west side of the house, hosta cultivars

Today’s vegetable gardens may be Lilliputian compared with those of yesteryear, but new techniques return more bang for the buck in terms of space used and energy expended. Traditional gardens consisted mainly of widely spaced rows of plants. Instead, I suggest packing more into a space-challenged garden and reaping more from it using four different

Are gardeners notoriously hard to buy gifts for? My husband would say, “Absolutely.” I would argue the opposite. Grab me a gift certificate to a local nursery and a pair of heavy-duty gardening gloves, and call it a day. But that’s where things get complicated, according to my spouse. Which nursery is my favorite? And

Today is part 2 of our visit to the Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham, North Carolina, with Teresa Watkins. Birdhouses in the gardens Vegetable gardens with the fire of fall foliage behind them Huge, beautiful, yellow chrysanthemums with Japanese maple (Acer palmatum, Zones 5–9) foliage behind them beginning to color up Chrysanthemums are incredibly

Today we’re on the road with Teresa Watkins, visiting a beautiful public garden in North Carolina. A quick two-day trip to North Carolina provided the opportunity to capture the beauty and richness of autumn at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens in Durham. Located on 55 acres with five miles of pedestrian paths, I strolled through

We’re visiting with Barry Friesen today, who is sharing photos of his beautiful garden, which he has named Dawn Gardens. Here are some photos of Dawn Gardens in Grass Valley, California. These are from the fall season, but I have many photos of the spring season, with 50,000 daffodils blooming, and of the summer, with

My name is Diane Smith, and I am a member of the 20-person Beautification Committee in New London, Connecticut. This is a city-appointed board, and we are all volunteers with various levels of gardening expertise. The members take care of 24 sites located throughout the city. Each member has one or two sites that are

Today Priscilla King is sharing some of the beautiful fall colors in her garden. I live very close to mile marker #1 at the entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway in Central Virginia. The fall colors this year have been better than any recent year I can remember! These are pictures from my own yard

To extend the season on your porch or patio, containers built for winter are invaluable. But planting pots for cooler weather takes a little extra insight and planning. Proper hard goods are the key to success The temptation when planting winter containers is to think about the plants first, and give little thought to the

Today Carolyn Hirning is taking us along on a trip to a beautiful garden she visited in June. I thought you might like to see photos from a visit to Akron, Ohio, in June 2021. This was my first trip since the start of the pandemic, so that in itself was pretty exciting. Our first

The thought of restricting most gardeners to only three of any plant might sound cruel. After all, what makes us happier than heading to the nursery to fill a shopping cart? But limiting your plant palette has many advantages. In many cases, less variety means less chaos. And when it comes to trees, limiting yourself

Today we’re visiting Patty Eckels’s garden in Charleston, South Carolina. We’ve visited with Patty before, and it is great to see how the space has developed in the past few years! The pineapple guava (Feijoa sellowiana, Zones 7–10) was gorgeous this year. A bit of pruning in the fall helped. And here’s the full pineapple

With its delicious blooms and abundant yields of late season fruit, pineapple guava (Feijoa sellowiana, Zones 8–11) definitely deserves a spot in the orchard or kitchen garden. But this tree is so much more than “just” an edible. Pineapple guava is also one of the most easy-care, attractive, and versatile ornamental landscape plants a Northern

Today we’re in Kensington, New Hampshire, visiting with Robin Hess. Here are some photos from my seacoast New Hampshire garden this September. I have been gardening for about four years and especially love hostas. My garden is mostly sun with hardly any shade, which has been a challenge. Coneflowers (Echinacea purpurea, Zones 3–8) A stunning

Today’s post is from Amy Birdsong, who is sharing with us a trip she took to an amazing private garden in Virginia. Bill and Linda Pinkham are artists, daylily breeders, horticulturists, and landscape design experts who retired from the nursery business over twenty years ago. Since “retirement,” they created and continue to grow and nurture

We’re visiting Lindsey Cline’s garden today. My husband and I bought a log cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia about eight years ago. The property was a field of Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum, a highly invasive annual weed), which we transformed into a cottage garden with many edible and pollinator plants. Along with

Friend of the GPOD Cherry Ong is sharing a cool decorating project for the fall season. I’ve been making succulent-topped pumpkins for several years now after reading about it for the first time in Debra Lee Baldwin’s book and watching Laura Eubanks (the creator) on YouTube. I also enjoy and refer repeatedly to the Fine