Welcome to Sid and Jackie Pogue’s garden in Edmond, Oklahoma. With age, Jackie and Sid Pogue downsized in 2020 and are now learning the joys of accessibility and careful plant selection. This new chapter of their garden history, which they call “Less Is Fine but Make It Count,” means building a treasury of Oklahoma-tough favorites
Garden Design
I’ve grown a fair share of hardy and tender plants from the genus Euphorbia, but truth be told, I’ve only scratched the surface. Comprising one of the largest plant families in the plant kingdom, Euphorbiaceae, commonly referred to as the spurge family, contains approximately 300 genera and about 7,500 species. The best part of spurges
Today we’re in Lake Bluff, Illinois (north of Chicago), visiting Nicki Snoblin’s garden. I am often attracted to pristine garden beds filled with colorful and unblemished flowers and foliage. This is real life, however, and my garden rarely looks that way. It’s been really helpful to me to follow GPOD and see what other people
Privacy is a goal many gardeners have in mind when landscaping their backyard. But many people limit themselves to planting boxing hedges or a row of monotonous trees. When landscape designer Austin Eischeid came across this property in Carroll, Iowa, he was tasked with creating a backyard garden from scratch while shielding the property from
Today we’re visiting with Keegan Clifford, who is a vegetable gardener extraordinaire, producing huge amounts of beautiful produce. Keegan lives in Middletown, Maryland (Zone 7), a small town with just 4,500 residents, and he grows all of his vegetables in raised beds: twelve 6-foot by 3-foot beds and one 2-foot by 17-foot bed. A huge
I’ve always thought about redoing the lyrics of “Santa Baby” by Eartha Kitt to make it more gardener-friendly. Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting a ’54 convertible in light blue, but I’d rather have an Ariens mechanical edger in bright orange. And I have no use for a ring under the tree. I’ve already
Everyone likes an upgrade. Whether it’s a faster car or a more efficient cell phone, it’s hard to turn down a better version of something you already like. Plants are much the same. If you already love that gorgeous catmint that flowers all season long, what not try one that not only has all the
Today, as part of our occasional series visiting great public gardens, Kevin Kelly is taking us to Wayne, Pennsylvania, just northwest of Philadelphia, to visit a truly spectacular garden. I recently made a trip to visit Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania. The Chanticleer estate was the country retreat of Adolph and Christine Rosengarten and was built
We’re in Wendy Lagozzino’s beautiful garden today. I have an English-style cottage garden surrounding a house built in 1900. Back in the 1980s, I changed the landscape during a remodel to a two-tiered backyard and a roof garden over a garage in the front. The side yard has a plastic grid planted with ground covers
Today Bas Suharto is sharing a beautiful front garden with us. I live in Ottawa, Ontario (Zone 5b), and today I’m sharing pictures of my front garden. It is a parterre garden, 25 feet by 18 feet, facing southwest. The boxwood plants are the extra-hardy variety Buxus ‘Mont Bruno’ (Zones 4–9) from Quebec. The hedge
Johanna here from Aiken, South Carolina. (See a previous visit to her garden here.) Fall is my favorite season, and I especially love how my garden looks at this time of the year. It appears more alive than ever. My shrubs, grasses, ornamental trees, hollies, and mums seem to explode with shape, texture, and color.
Today we’re off to Wales to visit Alan Challoner’s garden. I have a semi-woodland garden in Anglesey, and it is almost always giving me flowers no matter the time of year. This year there has been a tremendous display of old man’s beard (Clematis vitalba, Zones 4–8). Like other members of the Clematis genus, old
The real superpower of compost is that it gives life to soil. Compost is made from material that is digested by organisms and microbes that occur naturally in native soil. Worms, beetles, nematodes, and bacteria all play a role in creating compost. You can make compost using a simple recipe. Get to know the compost
The past few Fridays we’ve been tagging along as Cherry Ong takes us to visit some wonderful public gardens, but today she’s welcoming us into her home garden—specifically, the narrow, side garden she calls the Fern Fairway. It is a difficult space that she has transformed into a beautiful feature in her garden, and today
My name Krishna Cappa, and I live in Syracuse, New York. I put a small 125-gallon pond in this year. I then put three comet goldfish in the pond and many aquatic plants. Pickerel (Pontederia cordata, Zones 3–10) has showy spikes of purple flowers and is native to wetlands over much of eastern North America.
Elle Ronis in Stamford, Connecticut, has a stunning garden that we’re always excited to see. If you’ve missed previous visits to this garden, start here! Today’s photos look back at some highlights from the past gardening season. In the spring, a saxifrage (Saxifraga hybrid, Zones 4–8) puts out clouds of bloom. Saxifrages are classic inhabitants
Today we’re in the Ozarks, visiting with Susan Esche. A dear cousin was having difficulty finding a wedding venue for early October this year. We have a beautiful pavilion suitable for hosting a crowd, but early October is not usually the best time of year for my garden. It is a little early for the
Today we’re in southern Massachusetts at Dandelion House Gardens, home of Debbie Bosworth. I’ve been gardening for 30 years, and my gardens in this home are about 10 years old, with some annual tweaks here and there. I have herbaceous beds and about 800 square feet of raised beds for cut flowers. I’m a gardener-florist
We’re back with what is going to be a semi-regular feature of taking the GPOD on the road to visit great public garden spaces. Today friend-of-the-GPOD Cherry Ong is taking us to visit the incredible Butchart Gardens in British Columbia. Specifically, she’s taking us to see the Rose Garden, the Perennial Borders, and Enchanting Arches
Here at Let’s Argue About Plants we’re big fans of native plants. Our gardens are filled with them and for good reason: native plants are essential to the preservation and health of the local ecology. Aside from their benefits to the environment, many native plants are built to thrive in the conditions where you live,
Annual and tropical plants can add extraordinary colors and textures to any garden, especially from late summer through early autumn, when many perennials fizzle out. In Fine Gardening Issue #177, garden designer Laura Trowbridge wrote a feature article about the process of creating the long, deep, mixed border that wraps around the western side of
Today we’re visiting with Chuck Flower. I wanted to share pictures of my gardens, which I refer to as Highland Manor. I live on 3/4 of an acre just outside of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and have been gardening here for over 11 years. I have a total of 10 water features, a garden room, and a
I am Surinder Chadha, I live in Old Tappan in northern New Jersey. Gardening has been my hobby since childhood. In Old Tappan, we are overrun by deer, chipmunks, and squirrels, who do not make growing flowers easy. Most of the annuals I plant are in more than 150 12- to 24-inch planters on the
I enjoy the brightness and warmth of true red in sunny garden designs, although I prefer it in moderation. ‘Strawberry Fields’ globe amaranth (Gomphrena haageana ‘Strawberry Fields’, Zones 11–12) has been part of my landscape designs for over twenty years. While actually a tender perennial, this plant is generally grown as an annual. The stunning,
My name is Alice and I live in Sweaburg, which is in southwestern Ontario. This year I had trouble again finding all the bedding plants, such as salvias, that I would have liked. But now the yellow marigolds (Tagetes sp., annual) are putting on a show, and they look cheery with the hot pink geraniums
Patricia Eckels is sharing photos of one of the most extraordinary gardens in the United States today, which was created by Pearl Fryar, an entirely self-taught sculptor of trees. The Pearl Fryar Topiary Garden in Bishopville, South Carolina, is a 3-acre garden with 400 sculpted, trimmed, and shaped shrubs, trees, and plants. Mr. Fryar has
It is Friday, so time for another garden tour with friend of the GPOD Cherry Ong! Today she’s taking us to Tofino Botanical Gardens, on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. The 12-acre garden has different garden rooms, many with unique themes and beautiful pieces of garden art. According to the garden’s guide, many of
Today Julie Esteves, a garden designer in Massachusetts, is sharing a garden she restored for Susan Lemkau in Osterville, Massachusetts. We were hired to restore her garden starting last fall, so it’s been a process, with many planned steps for an evolving spring, summer, and fall garden. This was a restoration of an existing parterre
Today we’re visiting with Bonnie Plikaytis. Here are a few images of spring arriving in our Zone 7 woodland garden in North Georgia. Nothing denotes spring as much as the blooms of bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis, Zones 3–8). In late March or early April, the blooms of this native plant bring immense joy with their stunning
My name is Beth O’Brien, and I live in a Zone 6b location in Fort Erie, Ontario. We purchased this new home five years ago, and the yard was a blank slate. It has been a constant learning experience to find plants that rabbits don’t eat, that are fairly drought tolerant, and that can grow