Summer Crops: How to Grow Corn

The sweetest corn is that which is picked and immediately cooked. So if you want the best-tasting corn, try growing it yourself. Traditionally, corn has required heat, long summer days and a lot more space than

Great Design Plant: Betula Populifolia

With their architectural presence and the striking contrast of their white bark against a dark background, a few carefully placed gray birch trees (Betula populifolia) add color, beauty and wildlife habitat to a

Designing With Conifers: Finding the Right Garden Bedmates

Conifers provide reliable and hardworking structure and texture in the garden. Historically they have played the strong silent type, blending into the background to allow others to bask in the spotlight. But the

How to Grow Your Own Sweet Summer Crops

Summer is the height of gardening season. Farmers markets and roadside stands are filled with fresh produce, while home gardens are at the peak of production. It’s a time when eating fresh and healthy is easy an

Great Design Plant: Arbutus Menziesii

The West Coast native madrone (Arbutus menziesii) tree richly deserves all the admiration and reverence it receives. It has a reputation for being finicky but is actually quite sturdy and carefree, as long as it

Great Design Plant: Sporobolus Heterolepis

Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis) is an adaptable warm-season bunchgrass that is extremely drought tolerant and loves hot, dry soil. It has a delightful fragrance while in bloom but won’t self-seed and s

How to Install a Drip Irrigation System

Drip irrigation is often the first choice for an edible garden. It provides slow and consistent water to the roots of each plant, where they need it the most, and prevents fungal diseases and weeds. It saves you

Great Design Plant: Trillium Ovatum

Pacific trillium (Trillium ovatum) is surely the Pacific Northwest’s most iconic and beloved springtime wildflower. The glistening tripartite white flowers make a welcome appearance on the forest floor between l

Great Design Plant: Taxus x Media ‘Hicksii’

Spring brings out our impulsiveness. After a long, cold, dreary winter, the brightly colored frilly plants that earn their spot on center stage at the garden center flirt with us as we yearn for longer, warmer s

Great Design Plant: Polemonium Reptans Paints Woodlands Blue in Spring

The large, light blue flowers of Jacob’s ladder (Polemonium reptans) provide color and a unique texture in the spring shade garden. Use this easy-to-grow, reliable native plant in any shady garden, whether under

10 Ideas for a Creative, Water-Conscious Yard

Whether you’re looking to cut back on water use in the garden because of drought (hello, California!), or simply because you’d like to spend more time enjoying your yard and less time watering it, making the mos

Great Design Plant: Stylophorum Diphyllum

Celandine poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum), or wood poppy, is native to the woodlands of Appalachia. The bright yellow flowers and persistent blue-green foliage can brighten up the ground plane in a moist, shady w

Great Design Plant: Bouteloua Curtipendula

A garden that supports lots of wildlife is thick with plants at every layer, from the surface up to flowers, shrubs and trees. Sideoats grama (Bouteloua curtipendula) makes a great base for any sunny and dry gar

Plant a Garden That Can Move With You

With lifestyles and professional demands continually evolving, owning or living in a home as a long-term proposition is becoming less of a priority for many. This may seem to make owning or planning for a dream

Great Design Plant: Aloe Vera

Aloe vera is often considered for its medicinal qualities, but it is also a beautiful drought-tolerant plant that makes a great garden addition. Spikes of yellow flowers irresistible to hummingbirds herald the a

Summer Crops: How to Grow Sunflowers

Summer and sunflowers are a natural pairing. A row of sunflowers marking the end of a summer vegetable garden is a classic look that has the added advantage of attracting butterflies and birds. Sunflowers are a

Great Design Plant: Sambucus Nigra Caerulea for the Birds

Blue elderberry (Sambucus nigra ssp caerulea) is tough, fast growing and unfussy, and is one of the best wildlife plants for a garden. Showy, fragrant spring flowers are followed by bluish fall berries. Both the

Designing With Conifers: How to Unite Your Landscape

Conifers are a diverse group of plants, much more complex and interesting than the Christmas trees that immediately spring to mind. Such diversity is admired by some gardeners, causes obsession in others and int

Tour 5 Gorgeous California Gardens

This Friday and Saturday, visitors will have the opportunity to visit five private residential gardens in Palo Alto, California, that will be open to benefit the Elizabeth F. Gamble Garden, a horticultural nonpr

Great Design Plant: Amelanchier Signals Spring With Airy White Blooms

The beautiful white clouds of serviceberries (Amelanchier spp) in bloom are one of the first signs of spring here in central Massachusetts, flowering in the New England woods in mid-April, even before the daffod