Category: Gardening

First Day of Spring in the Garden

Gardeners woke up and groaned throughout the northeast on this first day of spring.  Just when we were celebrating the emergence of daffodils leaves, winter aconite flowers, snow drops, and a chance to do the glorious job of spring cleaning.  It snowed. I was scheduled to do apple tree pruning. I drowned my sorrows on …

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Landscape Design in the Snow

The snow is melting….maybe…so it’s time to begin making plans for your gardens, which sure beats watching for signs of spring, since like a watched pot that doesn’t boil, spring comes slower when you stare at the ground. Here’s a plan: go inside and enjoy a grey day by going through your gardening books and …

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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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