Garden Design

In elementary school I was told that it was poor form to use more than one exclamation point at the end of a sentence. However, when I design gardens, I’m always looking for strong, vertical elements that will act as exclamation points in the landscape, and I’ve found that it’s very effective to use more

Looking to brighten up the fall and winter garden? Consider adding fruit-producing shrubs to your plant palette. Flowering shrubs that develop colorful fall and winter berries not only add beauty to the landscape but also invite pollinators and birds into the garden at different times of year. The berry-covered stems also look lovely in cut-flower

Haters have been around for a long, long time. They existed well before the late great legend of hip-hop the Notorious B.I.G. helped popularize the term to the mainstream in the 1990s. One might even argue that the first hater was a farmer named Cain who killed his brother Abel. In the case of Charles

Keep your equipment handy in this luxurious tool bag Nick Pence is a horticulturist and leatherworker who has designed a beautiful and functional collection of leather sheaths, holsters, and bags through his company Seed & Sawdust. He field-tests his pieces in his own garden to adjust and enhance them before bringing them to market. I

Today’s photos are from Carla Zambelli Mudry in Malvern, Pennsylvania. It was a beautiful late October day after several gloomy days. I’ve been busy in the garden, and I even extended a bed because I needed a home for shrubs that I wasn’t quite sure would fit anyplace else! The last trees and shrubs went

I’m Bonnie Phipps Moninger from Boulder, Colorado, and these photos were taken in November 2021. I’ve been gardening since 2006 in Boulder and had never seen our fall colors so beautiful in our garden (Zones 4–5), and it lasted way into November. The Japanese forest grass (Hakonechloa macra, Zones 5–9) turned such a beautiful copper

Planting spring-flowering bulbs in fall is an easy way to bring joy to the garden in the following year. This group of plants brings with them tremendous excitement and early color. Regional knowledge when selecting individual cultivars for your garden is particularly important with this category of plants. Unfortunately, plants that may not be the

The Northeast is well known for its native maple trees (Acer spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9). They are commonly used as forestry plants or sidewalk trees and are invaluable contributors of colorful fall foliage and maple syrup. Yet it’s the Japanese maples (Acer palmatum and cvs., Zones 5–9) from northern Asia that often are considered

My name is Syd Carpenter. I am a home gardener in Philadelphia. Two years ago the Woodmere Art Museum asked me to design a garden for their site. Along with my husband, Steve, I created two raised beds using a hugel garden as a mode of planting. Hugel is German for hill or mound. We

Even though we like to think much in our lives is predictable and at least somewhat under our control, everything is continually changing, and the garden is a perfect teacher of how all life must continually adapt in order to thrive. We are currently experiencing a period of global changes that are creating a perfect

In October and November, apple-green, grapefruit-size fruits of female Osage orange trees (Maclura pomifera, Zones 4–9) fall from their canopies and hit the ground with a hearty thump. This North American native species is part of the mulberry family and has a long history of use throughout the Midwest for its wood, and more recently,

My name is John Markowski. I garden in Zone 6B, in rural New Jersey, where I’m surrounded by deer and the soil is wet clay 24/7. Because of that, I focus on native shrubs, perennials, and my personal fave, ornamental grasses. It is all about seed heads and fall foliage in this photo. Tall Japanese

While many of us may recall learning in school about the phenomenon of bird migration, some in the Pacific Northwest may not be aware that our area is a migratory bird destination for many species. As the gray, rainy days continue and the leaves fall in autumn, we get to observe birds more closely and

Depending on where you live in North America, fall in the garden can bring anything from a flood of vibrant color to just the slightest hint of a new hue. Here in New England, we’re pretty lucky to get an explosion of autumnal colors most years. But today we decided to talk about those plants

Today we’re visiting Veronica Labate’s garden. When I was a child my mother would give me Jack-in-the-pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum, Zones 4–9) to take to school for show and tell. I have moved it to each house I’ve lived in. It now resides in Lewes, Delaware. The small garden was started five years ago from a

We’re visiting with Terrie Lewine today: I live in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, in a rowhome. I call my garden the Urban Sanctuary. The garden is a work in progress (as I imagine all gardeners say!). I’ve been here for more than six years, and I adore it. The garden is a mix of

One of the best things about vegetable gardening here in Northern California, is that there’s seldom any true downtime. Whether it is winter, spring, summer, or fall, there are chores to be done, delicious and nutritious homegrown vegetables to be harvested, and seeds or transplants to be planted. Late fall can be a particularly busy

When you’ve gone to the trouble of finding exactly the right tree for your garden, it makes sense that you’d want to give it every possible advantage at planting time. The first few years after planting are a critical time for a young tree to grow, establish sufficient roots, and become resilient. Fortunately, there are

They’re creepy and they’re kooky, mysterious and spooky. They’re all together ooky. Nope, it’s not the Addams family; it’s the array of wicked plants on today’s episode. It’s Halloween season, so we’ll be talking about an assortment of plants that are spiky, darkly pigmented, stinky, or perhaps even the most wicked of all—invasive. But don’t

My name is Ann, and I garden in Zone 6b in Newtown, Connecticut. I have been gardening since 2004 when I lived in Buffalo, New York. I moved to Newtown in 2014. My garden style is English cottage in pinks, purples, and whites. My favorite flowers are my grandmother’s ‘Sarah Bernhardt’ peonies (Paeonia ‘Sarah Bernhardt’,

We’re visiting with Beth Britt today. I have been gardening on a tiny lot (about an eighth of an acre) in a western suburb of Boston for the last 25 years. I had helped my parents and grandparents in their vegetable gardens when I was a kid in North Carolina, but I didn’t know anything

As the gardening season comes to a close in the Midwest, there are some important tasks we should consider to protect our gardens from the harsh conditions of winter. Protection efforts in our gardens in advance of the onset of cold and blustery weather goes a long way in helping to safeguard our investment of

Today’s photos are from Joel, who gardens in the Pacific Northwest. The big purple flower heads of an allium have attracted a honeybee looking for pollen and nectar. This brilliant red-and-yellow bloom comes from a red western columbine (Aquilegia formosa, Zones 4–8). While different species of columbines are native to much of the Northern Hemisphere,

Today’s photos come from Maxine’s garden in Rotterdam, New York. It’s so sad to watch the garden go dormant. Yet I love the fall colors. There was still a lot of green in the garden when Maxine took these photos, but one of the standbys of the fall garden, the Autumn Joy sedum (Hylotelephium spectabile

Today we’re visiting with Sharon Danovich Lupone in Pittsburgh. We’ve been to her garden before (Sharon’s Pennsylvania Garden, Part 2 and Sharon’s Pennsylvania Garden), and today she’s sharing some views of the garden is it moves into fall. As summer winds down, the blooms of the panicle hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata, Zones 3–8) take on rosey

It might sound counterintuitive, but when the possibility of cooler weather arrives in fall, it’s time to think about spring flowers. Some of the best spring bloomers only do well if the seed is planted in the fall. The seed is surface sown after any mulch is applied and once the temperatures are cool. Sometimes

Hello, this is Cindy in Chicago. A good friend was expecting her first baby this past spring. I knew she would be busy with an infant, so I volunteered to help her grow some of her favorite plants—sunflowers (Helianthus annuus, annual). Three years ago, we started a spring cleanup tradition of pulling weeds and amending

We’re traveling with Deborah Dorman today, who is taking us to Mendenhall Gardens in Juneau, Alaska. A flurry of golden bidens flowers (Bidens ferulifolia, Zones 9–11 or as an annual) accentuates the beauty of these rock formations. Blue lobelia (Lobelia erinus, annual) is a beautiful little plant that thrives best in cooler temperatures, so it

Shallots (Allium cepa var. aggregatum and cvs.) are expensive to purchase in the store, which is one reason I like to grow my own. A member of the allium or onion family, shallots have a subtle yet distinctive flavor and clumping growth habit. They are surprisingly easy to grow; however, gardeners may face some challenges

A tree is a big investment, so it is worth taking some time to find exactly the right tree for your garden. Before you begin shopping, it’s a good idea to research the cultural needs of any trees you are considering and think about how well these needs match up with the conditions at your