The Right Touch: 13 Soft, Fuzzy Plants for Gardens and Pots

There are certain plants whose fuzzy leaves and flowers just beg to be touched. They make walking through the garden a delight for more than just the eyes. Fortunately, some of the most touchable plants are rela

Great Design Plant: Desert Museum Palo Verde Offers a Colorful Canopy

One can hardly find a more colorful tree than the Desert Museum palo verde, with its distinctive green trunk and yellow flowers that appear in spring. Although there are several species of palo verde, Desert Mu

Texture Talk: 4 Foliage Types for Distinctive Gardens

The word texture usually brings to mind the tactile quality of an object — how it feels to the touch — but here were talking about the visual aspect of texture. Texture is an element of design that can be used t

Great Design Plant: Roselle Tantalizes With Beauty and Flavor

I think its high time we brought back this old-fashioned dooryard fruit. Well, it isnt technically a fruit, but rather the bright red calyx formed around a seedpod — and unlike other real fruits, roselle is an a

Great Design Plant: Downy Serviceberry

The downy serviceberry (Amelanchier arborea) is an ornamental tree that changes dramatically yet gracefully with the seasons, providing year-round interest. Even when stripped of leaves during winter, its stunni

Common Myths That May Be Hurting Your Garden

Weve all heard them — those garden sayings that we take as truth. After all, if gardeners have been saying something for years, then it must be true, right? Not so fast. While your grandparent or neighbor might

Great Design Plant: Ogon Spirea for Radiance and Texture

I am always on the lookout for easy-care shrubs with great foliage that are drought tolerant and deer resistant. Ogon spirea is that and more — it is one of the earliest-blooming shrubs in my garden and one of t

Great Design Plant: Aromatic Aster Keeps on Blooming

I have at least a dozen species of aster in my garden, from shade lovers to sun lovers, drought tolerators and rain garden mainstays. But in my top three is aromatic aster, because it grows in even the worst soi

Moss: Natures Carpet for the Garden

Moss in a garden is like comfort food for the soul. There is arguably no other plant that conjures up primordial feelings of mystery, peace and nurture. Fossils have been discovered that date moss back to 400 mi

Shades of Vegetable Gardens: Growing Edibles in Less Sun

Yes, you really can plant a vegetable garden in the shade — and Shawna Coronado has the goods to prove it. Three years ago she ripped out all of the grass in her shady suburban Chicago backyard and replaced it w

6 Trees Youll Fall For

The leaves are changing, the nights are crisp. In much of the world, gardeners are laying down their tools, cleaning up their gardens and perhaps breathing a sigh of relief that another gardening season has come

5 Great Grasses for a New Lawn

Lawns have been coming under attack as of late — after all, they are high-maintenance, chemically dependent thirst mongers, right? Yes and no. Much depends on what type of grass you choose, and if you choose the

How to Prep Your Ground for a Healthy New Lawn

Low-maintenance lawn alternatives are growing in popularity, but many homeowners still love a bit of turf grass — lawns make great places for entertaining; kids can play and pets can run on them. But what if you

Flood-Tolerant Native Trees for Soggy Soil

Fall is the best time for planting trees, but you might be getting cold feet about planting trees in a garden with wet feet. Its easy to find drought-tolerant trees these days, but for those of us in areas that

Grow Your Own Privacy: How to Screen With Plants and Trees

We like to think of our home as our castle, a secure and private place where we can escape from the world. And although we cant all build moats around our homes, we can employ plants to enclose and screen our p

7 Low-Maintenance Lawn Alternatives

Lawns make sense in some areas of the U.S. — those regions that receive adequate rainfall, so additional heroic measures arent necessary to create that swath of green. But what if you live in an area with low ra

6 Fantastic Ferns to Enliven Shady Garden Spots

Living and working in the Pacific Northwest, I am regularly confronted with dark, moist sites that exist under a dense canopy of trees — perfect conditions for a garden accented with ferns. There are few other p

Great Design Plant: Sourwood Brings Fiery Fall Color

Sourwood is an outstanding yet underutilized tree for the smaller landscape. The layers of midgreen foliage resemble a froth of petticoats, especially when studded with drooping clusters of white flowers in July

How to Get Your Prairie On

I have to admit that the first time I saw a prairie wasnt until the spring of 2007, when my wife and I were looking for a wedding reception venue. We ended up at Spring Creek Prairie, a never-plowed 800-acre rem

Great Design Plant: Blanket Flower Brings Year-Round Cheer

A cheerful, native wildflower, blanket flower brightens Americas wild places from sea to shining sea — from the balmy beach dunes of South Florida to the Rocky Mountains, all the way through Canada into Alaska.Y