Category: Gardens

Winter Garden Bursts Through in Berkshire Landscapes

Confusion about hydrangeas in the garden

  Why aren’t they blooming? Why are they pink when I want blue? When do I prune? Well, the link below from Proven Winners tells all including when to have patience. Now of course, plants don’t always read gardening books so if you have hydrangeas that are not behaving     give them more light, water, …

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Landscape Design Now for Spring

Okay, you can’t begin planting, but don’t let the snow stop you from planning your garden. Instead, use these frosty days to to take stock of your landscape. Since you have to be inside anyway, start with the windows you look out most. What would you like to see? A lot of people have windows …

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Warm Berkshire Words

It was in the low 20 degrees today, and I was missing working in the garden, but then was warmed by this note from a special lady! I enjoyed it so much and feel so energized for all the projects that now lie ahead. I can’t tell you how reassuring it is to have someone …

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Stick with Karen in the Garden- Azalea

Azalea ‘Karen’ is one of my favorites…the name is a coincidence……This wonderful shrub lasts a long time, thrives in our Berkshire winters, and is maintenance free. The magenta flowers jump out, particularly against white plants such as Dicentra Alba (white bleeding heart). I also love it, because the way it feels like an impressionist painting. …

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A New Garden for a Great Client

Low maintenance, natural looking, and color. For low maintenance we filled the area with perennials, groundcovers, shrubs, and trees. We also took down a a very sickly spruce that was block the view of the garden from a terrace.

Edible Berkshires – The Best of the Garden

We don’t have to separate veggies or fruits from flowers. Blueberries like soil that is really acid or low pH, and that’s just what hydrangeas with blue flowers love…so I love putting them together. Read my article in the spring issue of edible Berkshires and learn so many wonderful tips and so much more. Enjoy!

Long Division (landscape design-wise)

In a matter of weeks you can begin adding plants to your landscape design for free…yes free! Often when I visit a new client’s home, I will point to hostas, astilbes, echinacea (coneflowers), irises, and more plants and explain that by dividing perennials, they can have at least 10, sometimes 20 free plants. While hostas …

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Rugged Lenten Rose in Your Landscape

How’s this for a resume: Lenten Rose or hellebores prefer shade or part shade, bloom in very early spring, oftentimes popping out of a light snow cover in zones 4 to 9; the shiny green leaves stay luscious throughout the summer and most of the winter (except when I accidentally step on them); they are …

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Whoosh in the Landscape

Wind, like the mythical and elusive town of Brigadoon, appears only occasionally, and when it does, magic happens. Nothing celebrates that magic element like tall grasses. Grasses also can provide privacy as they do for this firepit by the water, and they come in all sizes and can even grow in the shade like Hakone grass, …

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