Plant a Tree – Your Gift to the Future
2019 saw a lot of big stories. But the biggest was the final realization by people (most politicians still have some catching up to do) that we are in danger of leaving our…
Discover Our World
Get all the latest insight into the world of plants, from experts.
Grow Versatile Tree Roses in Your Garden
There are many kinds of roses – Hybrid Tea, Floribunda, Landscape Rose, and many more – but the same rose can come in different ways too. Typically, they are grown to produce stems…
The Taming of the Mountain Laurel
Across the hills of a large part of eastern North America, carpeting the forest floor beneath trees, growing on slopes, or edging streams, grows the mountain laurel. Found all the way from southern…
Some Great Alternatives to Boxwood
Boxwood plants – as hedges or clipped specimens – are a classic. They bring a look of calm, organization and structure to any garden space, and with older homes they give just the…
Two Level Rose Growing – What a Display!
Everyone loves roses, and it is impossible to have too many in your garden. Except for the work, right? If you think that way you probably grew roses a while back, because a…
Pine Trees – Some Great Choices for Your Garden
Pines are certainly the most easily recognized evergreen, with their distinctive long and thin needle-like leaves and large cones. For the garden they offer a wide range of trees and shrubs, that fit…
Design Your Garden – Part 3
In this series of blogs, we have been looking at a different approach to designing your garden. Forget about drawing plans, and work instead right on the ground, thinking out your garden right…
Shrubs for Planters, Pots and Boxes
With the gardens of new homes getting smaller and smaller, and particularly with more and more of us living in town homes and apartments, there is a lot of interest in growing plants…
Plants for the Beach
The days are beginning to lengthen, and although we are still in the grip of winter in most areas, spring cannot be far away. Within a few weeks it will be time to…
Winter Landscaping Tips
You invest love, energy and money into your garden, so why enjoy it for only part of the year? Winter is a season too, and despite the cold and rain or snow there…
Look Up When You Plant – Trees and Utility Lines
With fall advancing, we are into peak tree-planting season, and all across the country gardeners and home owners are choosing shade trees, ornamental trees, or planning to plant trees to screen their property…
Plan Ahead for Winter Interest in the Garden
While we enjoy the last balmy days of summer, it is hard to think of the winter to come, but it will come, and our once-green gardens will be a lot barer when…
Groundcover Plants for Shady Places
Shady parts of the garden are often welcome in the summer, as cool refuges from the heat. But most plants don’t find them so welcoming. When we put in a new garden it…
Agave & Yucca – Cool Plants for Hot Places
Wherever you garden, even in cooler climate zones, you can have hot, dry areas in your garden. Those places that bask in the sun all day, perhaps with sandy or rocky soil that…
It’s Plant a Pine Tree Time
Spring is the big season in the garden, and this is when we all go out and look at our gardens, to see what we can grow that will make them more beautiful….
Grow Living Fossil Trees in Your Garden
Most of us grow plants in our gardens simply for their beauty, and that surely is the best reason of all. But many plants also have a story to tell, perhaps of how…
7 Top Plants for Japanese Gardens
Japanese and Asian-themed gardens are amazingly popular – and no wonder. They combine beauty with serenity, and by using just a few carefully chosen plants they create low-maintenance gardens, turning a few plants…
The World of Japanese Maples
Spring brings life back to our deciduous trees, and the delicate unfolding leaves are beautiful, no matter what the tree. But the most beautiful of all are undoubtedly the new leaves of Japanese…
An Update for the PG Hydrangea
Travel in late summer through the colder states, especially in the north-east, and everywhere – in parks, private gardens, and even cemeteries – you will see a bush with large white flower heads,…
5 Amazing Shrubs That Flower in Winter
If you live in warmer parts of the country, where winter is shorter, and days above freezing are common, then your garden doesn’t have to be a blank canvas of twigs and leaves…
5 Steps to Know Your Garden Better
This quiet time in the garden, when not much is happening, is the perfect time to check out your garden, and learn more about it. The biggest stumbling-block in creating a beautiful garden…
Garden Plants for Holiday Decorating
The ideal garden is one for all seasons, and that includes the most important one of all – the Holiday Season. Many people decorate a spruce or fir in their garden with lights…
Flowering Evergreens for Year-Round Interest
Winter is a time when the garden is quiet. Few shrubs or trees bloom, although in warmer areas there are a number that do – the fascinating Paperbush (Edgeworthia) for one. But for…
Japanese Maples for Fall Color
Fall color is one of the great highlights of the year. Tourists come from around the world to see the colors of eastern North America, and almost everywhere, as the summer comes to…
Fall – the Ideal Season for Planting Trees
With Labor Day just around the corner, we have reached the traditional end of summer – even if, in some areas at least, hot weather will continue through September. There is nonetheless a…
How to Choose a Shade Tree
When you move into a new home, especially a newly-built home, the garden is often left, while you settle into the house. That is only naturally, but there are two things that you…
Butterfly Bushes for Every Garden
The Butterfly Bush, once a favorite plant with children for the hordes of beautiful butterflies it attracts, has had some bad publicity in the last few years. Beautiful as it is, these plants…
Understanding Shade in the Garden
When choosing plants for the garden, the words shade-tolerant, or grows in shade are regularly seen. The true situation with shade is a little more complicated than that, and a better understanding of…
Fir Trees – An Attractive Alternative to Spruce
In colder areas, spruce trees are a common sight, and they are widely used in landscaping. Despite their beauty, the fact that they are so widely used can make them slightly boring options….
Plants for Early Spring Blooming
At this time of year, we look anxiously for the beginning of spring, especially those of us who live in cold areas, where April is merely the month when all the snow finally…
Roses as Landscape Plants
Let’s be honest, roses have a reputation for being difficult. While most people love those big blooms, especially from the flower shop, growing them in gardens has faded from a high-point reached perhaps…
What Shrubs Should be Pruned in Spring?
As the warmer weather arrives, and our plants start to show signs of waking from their winter sleep, we start to wonder how to get the best from them in the coming season….
Deer Resistant Trees and Shrubs
As winter turns to spring, many gardeners are out inspecting their gardens, and all too often they are finding plants damaged by winter. Cold and ice is one thing, but when animal damage…
Flowering Trees and Shrubs for Early Spring
Spring is the great highlight of the gardening year, always with a profusion of color, scent and interest from all kinds of flowering plants. Just when exactly that great moment arrives depends on…
Best Plants for the Coast
Gardening in sight of the sea presents special challenges. Most plants are sensitive to salt, which draws water from the leaves and roots by the process of osmosis. However, as the saying goes,…
The Paradise Garden
Developing and laying-out a garden can be difficult, and the results may not always be what you were looking for. Part of the job involves choosing different varieties of plants, but that can…
Choosing the Right Boxwood for Your Garden
Boxwood is undoubtedly the most functional plant in garden history, as well as being attractive and easy to grow in sun or shade, and in a range of soil types. It has endless…
Plant in Winter for Summer Flowers
In winter, most gardeners put up their feet and dream of the coming year. Experienced gardeners do more than dream. They plan ahead so that when the glorious seasons of spring and summer…
Some Unusual Evergreens for Your Garden
Evergreen trees make the structure of most gardens, giving permanence to what designers call the ‘bones’ of your garden, while flowering plants come and go through the seasons. Many are used for neutral…
Get to Know the Hollies
There are a handful of trees and shrubs that most people – even non-gardeners – feel they know immediately. Holly, that popular plant for the festive season, is probably one of them. Everyone…
Planting for Winter Interest and Color
When summer is in full swing, and even in the excitement of fall, it is easy to forget about winter. This may be a long or a shorter season for you, depending on…
All About The Cherry Blossom Tree
Gardening Tips: The Cherry Blossom Tree The Cherry Blossom Tree is famous for its blooms, which have enticed writers, artists, and filmmakers alike. The light pink to ivory white blossoms flower in spring,…