Writer Designer Consultant
I have been attracted to vegetable gardens since I was a kid. I was always fascinated to discover how fruits and vegetables grew on plants. Last spring, I brought in peas, beets, carrots, asparagus, onions, lettuces, strawberries, and mint to my daughters third grade class.
Everyone loves the look of a golf course and often times, we try to recreate that in our own yards. Golf course maintenance however is very time consuming and costly. There are four basic components that really can make a dramatic difference in creating a healthy lawn. Proper site, correct mowing procedures, appropriate fertilizing, and assessing water needs, are the keys to healthy turf.
This is the perfect time of year for transplanting and planting, establishing new beds, and dividing perennials. During the cooler months, plants establish themselves by growing their root structures. This makes them much more prepared to handle the heat of our summers.
I find Herb Gardening to be one of the most rewarding forms of growing plants. Herbs are any plant that is valued for either its culinary, medicinal, fragrant or spiritual qualities. Many are easy to grow, perennial, and deer resistant. I have fond memories as a child of my mother’s gardens, filled with plants that she would use in cooking, or brew a cup of tea, or merely snip for its sweet scent. One day she sent me into the garden to pick oregano and basil for a spaghetti sauce. I returned with a fistful of snapdragons. This became the family joke when I went on to major in Horticulture. My own children love the herbs in our garden, often picking mint to chew on or even sprigs of chives. The freshness they provide is a welcome connection to nature.
September in the garden can look a little tired after our hot and humid summer. There is a wealth of fall blooming perennials that can be added to our gardens to spruce them up before the fall / winter planting.
Cottage gardens are often identified by their colorful flower borders. The goal in a well designed flower border is to achieve balance year round. This is a little tricky and where knowledge of plant heights, color, season of bloom, texture and form all come into play.
Designing with perennials is a bit like putting a puzzle together. Heights, color, texture, form, and bloom time are orchestrated into an ever changing plant palette. I like to start with a group of dependable, easy, and colorful perennials that are known to thrive in our area. I have created a Top Twenty List of perennials that I use often, with great success.
Spring Fever It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! ~Mark […]
March is the harbinger of spring when the air is filled with the sweet scents of Wisteria and our landscape begins to send out its lush new growth. The nurseries are brimming with fresh, colorful plants waiting to adorn our gardens. It is a busy month filled with planting and maintenance tasks. Knowing what to do and where to start in this seemingly overwhelming “to do list” can be a great help.
SHOWING OFF CAMELLIA’S One of the first flowers I fell in love with when moving to Hilton Head Island were Camellias. I thought they were incredibly enchanting and exquisitely beautiful. The season of bloom for these charmers is between fall and spring which I find […]