Give Your Garden an Arresting Point of View

Be it a grouping of ornamental trees or a fountain, a focal point is often displayed at the heart of a garden, lending a sense of importance or a calming balance to the design. Focal points lend order to chaos.

Let Nature Inspire Your Landscape: Ideas for a Woodland Garden

Forests, whether Tolkiens Lothlórien or the woods behind the schoolyard, hold a magic unequaled. They envelop amicably, protect from view and shelter from heat. Forests reveal themselves only gradually: The pros

Great Design Plant: Firecracker Penstemon

Pass by any landscape that has firecracker penstemon (Penstemon eatonii) and you cant help but be drawn in by its vibrant orange-red blooms. Native to arid regions of the American Southwest, this beautiful, low

How to Keep Your Citrus Trees Well Fed and Healthy

Growing citrus trees is incredibly rewarding, especially when you bite into a delicious slice of sweet, tangy fruit. Maybe oranges are your favorite citrus fruit, or maybe growing lemons is your cup of tea. Wha

Great Design Plant: Dudleya, a Dramatic California Native

Peeking through the cracks of California’s cliffs, along rocky outcroppings and inland valleys is another remarkable genus of succulents: Dudleya. Native to California, Arizona and even down to northern Mexico a

Northeast Gardeners March Checklist

Swings of temperate weather have brought patches of exposed earth, liquid puddles and soft expanses of mud that freeze and thaw, but winters grip is still with us. On mild days its possible to get out into the l

Southwest Gardeners March Checklist

The American Southwest is a vast area, covering all of Arizona and New Mexico as well as parts of California, Nevada, Texas and Utah. The regions of the Southwest are varied and include low deserts, high desert

Pacific Northwest Gardeners March Checklist

March is an exciting time in the garden. The birds sing, the borders become more colorful every day as trees and shrubs break bud, spring bulbs open up in the gentle sunshine and the greenhouse goes into full p

Southeast Gardeners March Checklist

March is a good time to drum to a different beat. As you plan your garden this year, think about doing something different. Flex your horticultural muscle and mix veggies with ornamentals, add a wildlife pond, g

Let Nature Inspire Your Landscape: Devise a Desert Garden

Deserts are some of the most extreme environments our blue planet offers. While they may bring to mind extreme isolation, a blatant lack of hospitality and boredom, we should reconsider our position and visit, a

Great Design Plant: Rocky Mountain Bristlecone Pine

Rocky Mountain bristlecone pine, Pinus aristata, is a slow-growing evergreen tree from the windswept ridges of the southern Rocky Mountains. Its native to Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, and specimens up to 2,

8 Take-Home Planting Ideas From Hawaiis Big Island

Face it, you cant duplicate exactly the lush look and blissfulness of Hawaiian gardens on the U.S. mainland — just as a mai tai at sunset wont taste the same off the islands. But its pretty easy to add some isl

Great Design Plant: Winter Daphne

As unmistakable and unforgettable as the smell of a leather baseball glove or Chanel No. 5, the first whiff of winter daphne lets you know that the seasons are changing and that its always great to be in a garde

How Low Can Hedges Go? Discover Unusual Garden Borders

People may have different ideas about what makes a hedge, but I see it as a linear planting kept regularly trimmed, compact and impenetrable, or consisting of naturally compact shrubs that require little or no c

Great Design Plant: Lilies

When is a lily not a lily? As it turns out, quite often. Many of the plants that we call lilies — canna lily, lily of the Nile, daylily and calla lily — are, in fact, not lilies at all. Although equally stunning

Great Design Plant: Dahlias

You have to love a flower thats a master of disguise. Dahlias are tricky that way — if you want a flashy bloomer that can look just like a cactus blossom, a waterlily, a peony or an orchid, then dahlias are your

Let Nature Inspire Your Landscape: Shape a Sea-Inspired Garden

Coastal habitats are mesmerizing. As visitors, we often keep our gaze on the sea, yet the plant life is worth our attention too. As residents, we cherish the view, but again we should carefully consider how to s

Great Garden Combo: 3 Wonderful Plants for a Deer-Resistant Screen

Gardeners face many challenges. The need to screen neighboring houses is a common one in smaller urban lots and is typically addressed with a 6-foot-tall fence or a row of arborvitae or similar columnar trees. B

6 Captivating Roses for an Alluringly Fragrant Garden

Whats that, you say? Arent all roses fragrant? And dont they all just smell like ... roses? The answer to all three questions, quite simply, is no. Some roses lack any kind of fragrance altogether, and the ones

Easy Ways to Manage Stormwater for Lower Bills and a Healthier Earth

If the crankcase in your cars engine leaked, you’d probably do something about it. Same goes for parts in your shower. But have you paid attention to what might be leaking off your property when it rains? In the