If you live in a community with a homeowners association (HOA), maybe you don’t mind a committee of others deciding what you can and can’t plant. But sometimes, these rules get a little persnickety… like the case of the Maryland couple who spent $33,000 in legal fees on an HOA mailbox dispute. Dubbed the “$500 […]
It might seem a little early to be making New Year’s plans while the temperature is sweltering outside, but a July 29 deadline is coming up soon for our 6-night, 7-day trip to sunny southern California. This trip is a Collette Vacations tour with garden add-ons engineered by Lowee’s Group Tours and me. […]
Every growing season brings some good things and some not-so-good things. So far this year, it’s been mostly good. The end of June was especially impressive… 2 inches of rain, then four beautiful, sunny days in the 70s. It doesn’t get much better weather-wise than that for gardeners. I’ve heard a few […]
One of the highlights of June is that it’s a peak month for garden tours. In the past week, I got to see a dozen excellent home gardens in Cumberland and Perry counties – plus one under-appreciated local public garden maintained by a home gardener. Six of the gardens were ones we […]
I ran into plenty of intriguing readling material last month on our Lowee’s/Collette tour to northern California. Maybe you’ll be as fascinated by the following as I was: No-wash produce. The oceanic fields of vegetables in California’s Salinas Valley (where America gets the majority of its cool-season produce) was incredible for its scale […]
Here’s a job you can largely eliminate if you’re trying to cut work in the garden – staking perennials. By going with some of the new compact varieties that are now available or by doing a spring cutback of the floppers you already have, you can get away from the stakes, cages and rings that […]
You can’t blame a lot of plants for not wanting to grow in central-Pennsylvania gardens. We’ve gone as high as 107 degrees in summer and as low as minus 22 degrees in winter. We can go from 85 degrees on a fall day down to below freezing the next night… and vice versa in spring. […]
Most public gardens are the work of wealthy benefactors or universities. Very few are started by “ordinary” people. The finest example of the latter that I’ve ever seen is the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens near Boothbay, Maine, a 248-acre waterfront gem that’s on my top 10 list of favorite American gardens. Coastal Maine has only […]
Flower pots, you might assume, were invented so that people without in-ground space could grow plants. While that’s the main idea, there’s no rule that says decks, porches and patios are the only places you can use pots. Plants in containers make good sense in many other spots around the yard – including in garden […]
Lots of good plants are available these days to serve as the centerpiece plant or “star” of a big container. Some people call them the “thriller” in the classic thriller/filler/spiller design of a pot arrangement. If you’re looking for ideas, here are 10 showy choices that I like: * Elephant ears (Colocasia esculenta). This tropical […]