With increasingly busy lifestyles, even keen gardeners find it hard to devote enough time to their garden. Here we discuss how you can create a low maintenance garden that still looks attractive. The Challenge Our client had moved to a brand […]
Mountain Laurel
Perhaps the most popular native shrub in the whole encyclopedia is Mountain Laurel. The eastern mountains from New England to Georgia are full of it, but nobody finds it tiresome. Its evergreen foliage is an asset, but what sweeps the […]
Protect your Pond from Predators
Where are the fish? You walk outside to feed your fish one day and when you reach your pond you find all your beautiful fish gone. How can this be? You look for Fred, Lucy, TA, and all your other […]
Chelsea Flower Show
Most of us can’t afford ‘grand design’ in our gardens, bringing in professionals for TV-style makeover. But we are always looking for hints, tips and ideas that will give our gardens a distinctive look. It can be as simple as where […]
Pumpkins are Cool!
Don’t just chop them up at Halloween, used in soups, pies, and stuffed, pumpkins make a delicious addition to our autumn menus. Fiona Lawrenson spills the beans I’ve seen grown men cry over the sight of a giant pumpkin, and […]
LET’S PARTY: A 12-MONTH PARTY OF FLOWERS
Whether you are planning a birthday party or a formal dinner for business associates, flowers can play an important role in the decorations. But you don’t have to settle for run-of-the-mill, one-color arrangements of carnations and daisies. Why not key […]
Is Crabgrass in your lawn?
I admire tenacity. It is a trait that I strive for myself and have tried to instill in my child. I am moved when I hear stories about people who overcome adversity or achieve great things by trying repeatedly until […]
Fabulous Fir Trees to Plant
Even if you’re not a gardener, you may know the fir tree from the popular balsam firs sold as cut trees over the holidays. This tree and other related fir trees make beautiful landscape plants, providing a habitat for birds as well. […]
Easy House Plants – Umbrella Plant
The umbrella plant may be seen as octopus tree—both names from the spreading leaves with large leaflets in an umbrella spoke pattern. It often goes just by the genus name of Schefflera (said as scheff-Lair-ah), named after the nineteenth-century German […]
Gone but not Forgotten
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN There is a beautiful, rather elegiac song by the American composer, Samuel Barber called “Sure On This Shining Night”. The piece has a particularly luscious phrase–“high summer holds the earth”. Right now in my garden, that […]