That said – come learn why we need native plants to survive and everything you ever wanted to know about choosing them, designing with them, conservation efforts and teaching about them at The Native Plants in The Landscape Conference, held each June on the campus of Millersville University near historic Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We'll be celebrating [...]
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Posted by
Susan Harris on April 1, 2010 at 2:50 am This post has 35 responses.
According to Anna Pavord, there are as many as 150 different kinds of snowdrops. I’ll take her word. She only includes 14 or so in her new book, Bulb, and admits that to ordinary gardeners (like me) the differences between the various types are minimal at best. Indeed. Until...
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Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on March 16, 2010 at 5:00 am This post has 13 responses.
Annie’s is what every nursery should be: focused, specialized, and highly regional. That’s not to say that you shouldn’t check out her catalog if you’re outside of zones 9-10; as the name implies, she’s heavy on annuals, and you can probably grow a lot of them no matter where...
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Posted by
Amy Stewart on February 17, 2010 at 5:47 am This post has 29 responses.
But I like it anyway. It was somehow leaked that the 2011 perennial of the year is Amsonia hubrichtii “Arkansas Blue Star.” The Perennial Plant Association has not yet announced it, but I saw it in the 2/7/10 Newsday, and PPA prez Steven Still was quoted as confirming the...
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Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on February 16, 2010 at 5:05 am This post has 17 responses.
If you have ANY inclination to appreciate bonsai, this wonderful piece by Adrian Higgins in the Washington Post might just make that happen. I used to think of bonsai as a freakish avenue of gardening, but I dismissed that notion years ago. A bonsai needs continual care and the...
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Posted by
Susan Harris on February 6, 2010 at 12:51 am This post has 9 responses.
Guest Rant by Tom Fischer, editor-in-chief of Timber Press I live in Portland, Oregon, one of whose nicknames is “the City of Roses.” Why, I often wonder, couldn’t we be the City of Ferns, or the City of Large, Imposing Conifers, or even the City of Hardy Geraniums? All...
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Posted by
Susan Harris on January 28, 2010 at 4:43 am This post has 37 responses.
Admit it. You want it. Ordinarily, I am not the new rose type. Those plant breeders with their corporate conspiracies, out to breed a bombproof plant that anyone can grow, never stopping until there is one in every front yard and parking lot across America. Who needs that? But...
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Posted by
Amy Stewart on January 20, 2010 at 5:17 am This post has 26 responses.
But, as I am sure many of you have experienced, sometimes it can work all too well. Like when you wake up feeling like someone might have accidentally buried an axe in your head. In this case, it was my tazettas that had the hangover. For a few years...
Read more in: Designs, Tricks, and Schemes, It's the Plants, Darling
Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on January 12, 2010 at 5:00 am This post has 13 responses.
The Perennial Plant Association recently announced their choice of Baptisia australis as the next Perennial of the Year, and garden writers are asking: Had any experience with this? You bet I have. I've killed two of them and given up on the third. To learn more about the plant...
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Posted by
Susan Harris on January 9, 2010 at 4:59 am This post has 27 responses.
December 12 is National Poinsettia Day. I wasn’t sure if Susan would want to celebrate it then or not (she posts that day), so I’m jumping the gun a bit. There’s a cute post about these ubiquitous seasonal plants on Neatorama. Go ahead and read it, but here are my...
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Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on December 8, 2009 at 4:55 am This post has 11 responses.
Lacy's favorite, Orange Sovereign Hippeastrum. Amaryllis. Hippeastrum. Ama— Oh, who cares. Taxonomy is not the mystery I’m talking about. For many gardeners, the biggest mystery about these plants is how to keep them alive and blooming (as indoor plants) for more than one season. I know many who either...
Read more in: It's the Plants, Darling, Unusually Clever People
Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on December 1, 2009 at 4:45 am This post has 17 responses.
H. helix 'Ritterkreuz' is one of many slow-growing, well-behaved ivies that are good for containers. It is also the Ivy of the Year, 2010. Photo by Rachel Cobb, courtesy of www.ivy.org. While researching this topic recently, I was surprised to discover that bans on Hedera helix (the English ivy...
Read more in: It's the Plants, Darling, Ministry of Controversy
Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on November 24, 2009 at 4:10 am This post has 31 responses.
And for the first time in years. Thanks to early frosts, the Norway maple leaves on the front hellstrip, which normally I loathe even more at this time of year because of their reluctance to change color or drop, have obligingly turned rusty and fallen off, so we can...
Read more in: It's the Plants, Darling, Real Gardens
Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on November 3, 2009 at 9:36 am This post has 4 responses.
Guest Rant by Jim Freeman of Dean Street Orchids From tree pits, window boxes, front yards, back yards, pots on stoops; little eyes of pink and white stare at me as I pass, like mini floral video cameras recording my every move. I feel hemmed in, oppressed by their...
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Posted by
Susan Harris on October 22, 2009 at 5:28 am This post has 39 responses.
UPDATE: We have a winner! And it's Angela Treadwell-Palmer. Randomly done by someone else. I promise. Like so many garden writers, I'm curious about this new product. Like, what's "eco" about it exactly? Is it legit or just eco-marketing BS? Well, look who I ran into at DC's Green...
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Posted by
Susan Harris on October 19, 2009 at 4:42 am This post has 68 responses.
… is what keeps me going all winter, that and a spot of bulb forcing. And I won’t have long to wait for some of these spring species tulips. My goal: to have every species tulip you can buy planted somewhere in front of my house. This year, in...
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Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on October 13, 2009 at 2:01 pm This post has 9 responses.
WINNERS ANNOUNCED BY ECO-LAWN: - Michelle D. is the grand winner of two 5 lb bags of Eco-Lawn. I delight in the fact that she has done a huge amount of research into various types of lawn – seed, sod even artificial turf. I like the look of the...
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Posted by
Susan Harris on September 10, 2009 at 9:28 am This post has 38 responses.
This is not a flowering windowbox pelargonium and certainly not the (real) perennial one, which I use as a good-looking groundcover in partially-shaded areas. This is the scented pelargonium “Attar of Roses” that I stuck in the back of a sunny border, thinking it might cover the knees of...
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Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on September 8, 2009 at 9:03 am This post has 5 responses.
To illustrate the fun discussion of marigolds going on over Hanna’s Slut Plants post below, I went looking for them on Flickr. Turns out they’re pretty photogenic. But guess what! This photo of not just the flower but the whole plant and lots of them – the kind of photo...
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Posted by
Susan Harris on August 28, 2009 at 7:34 am This post has 9 responses.
The "Prairie Glow," which have orange/red markings, are hidden behind the "Herbstsonne." These hirta “Herbstsonne,” triloba “Prairie Glow,” and laciniata “Gold Glow” have me all, well, um, aglow. Never having cosied up to the “Goldsturm,” which were too short for my needs, I am finding that these 5-8...
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Posted by
Elizabeth Licata on August 19, 2009 at 9:55 am This post has 5 responses.
