Clients will ask me if they should prune their tree. I am not a fan of answering a question with a question but in this case I will. Does your tree need to be pruned? Pruning needs to have a purpose and not “just because”. More often than not, I see around town trees have…
Category: Ornamental Gardening
Flowering Plants for the August Garden
When it comes to August’s garden, many gardeners, plant enthusiasts and landscapers are willing to skip the month entirely because of the challenge posed by the seemingly few plants that provide interest during August. I’d like to challenge that notion, mainly because August is a perfectly fine month of frost-free weather and why not make…
Double Trouble
Visit any of your favorite garden centers and you will see new introductions of old familiar favorites. For instance the purple coneflower is no longer purple. It comes a range of colors from red, yellow, orange, green, and white. You will even find cultivars where the traditional cone has been modified into flower petals often…
Yellow Nutsedge
“What is this grass growing in my flower bed?” is a question I hear quite often now. Rolling the stem between my fingers quickly determines this isn’t grass at all but the infamous yellow nutsedge. Sedges are grass-like perennials that have triangular shaped stems. If they grew at the same rate as turfgrass, many lawn…
Classic Color Combinations
The keys to success with patio planters and pots of all sizes are: Designing with the thriller, chiller and spiller concept in mind. The “thriller” is a plant chosen to “wow” you, to attract attention. The “spiller” is the plant that cascades over the edge of the pot, providing a softening effect, and the…
Gardening With Children
When gardening with children, it’s important to encourage use of all the senses. ▪For touch, experience plants that are soft, such as lamb’s ears (Stachys); prickly, like pumpkin on a stick (Solanum integrifolium); and stickiness of the native hedge apple (Maclura pomifera). ▪When it comes to fragrance, we often think of flowers, but leaves and…
Weeds in Perennial Beds
They seem to pop up everywhere – weeds. New beds, old beds; it doesn’t seem to matter. At this point in the season, a little moisture encourages growth of tons of weeds. Seeing these weeds makes you wonder several thoughts. Where did they all come from? Why are they growing as well or better than…
Newly Planted Trees, Shrubs, Perennials – Aftercare
You’ve installed some new trees, shrubs and perennials…now what? In order to keep them looking great, there are a few simple care steps that should follow planting, especially in June. A thorough soaking of water, followed by moisture monitoring. Nothing special here; use a sprinkler can to place water evenly throughout the entire root…
Going Soft
After cleaning up the damage to my plants from the hail storm on May 28th I didn’t cut back the damaged flower spikes to my German iris. Not sure why I didn’t. Probably because the flower stalks had injury but they didn’t seem to need immediate care. However, making that deceisoin I probably did more…
Unwanted Grass
Grass is usually a good thing; in lawns that is. However, if you’ve got grass anywhere else – a veggie garden, a flower bed, in groundcovers – then it’s a weed. Grass can get to the unwanted location through bird transfer, through misapplied seedings or through spreading. The rhizomes pictured here show this undesirable…