Even with the recent downturn in garden product sales, plants are still a multi-billion dollar business. We gardeners love plants–old plants, new plants, easy care plants, drought tolerant plants, shade loving plants and quirky plants. Some of us like to be the first in the neighborhood to install a new hybrid. Others want so many … Read more
Never underestimate the power of a woman with a good pair of loppers. Armed with those loppers, plus clippers, a pruning saw and a stout pair of gloves, I finally triumphed last week over the dastardly privet hedge that runs along one side of my property. The process has taken just this side of forever–almost … Read more
More than a few garden pundits have decreed that the most sublime and dramatic horticultural effects occur only in all green or mostly green gardens. Flowers, they say, are ephemeral, and therefore superfluous, with gaudy shapes and colors that disrupt the harmony inherent in a plant collection that showcases the many shades and textures of green. … Read more
A great, recently-deceased English garden expert never failed to recommend that weeding be done from a kneeling position. One of his equally great American counterparts, who is still among us, dictates that weeders should never kneel. What’s a diligent gardener to do? Kneeling is hard on the knees and bending can be torture for the … Read more
The longer that I toil in the soil the more I appreciate versatile plants like digitalis, most often known as foxglove. Planting a selection of foxglove species and cultivars in the garden will provide you with many weeks of colorful bloom in the spring and summer, but that is only the beginning. The plants also … Read more
