Beyond Geraniums….

Are you struggling to do something different with your sunny container gardens this year? Do you always seem to start off with a geranium, add  some pretty million bells (Calibrachoa) and then tuck in some trailing vbacopa to finish it off? Cheerful but not very imaginative is it?Yet this early in the season these are…

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Party Time for Hummingbirds!

Zzzzzzzzzzip. Zzzzzzzzzzzzip. Yes it's that time of year when hummingbirds can be seen, heard and enjoyed daily as they flit from one flower to the next. Like most gardeners I used to rely on hummingbird feeders to entice them but quickly transitioned to adding flowering plants that provided a natural food source and habitat to support…

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Taming the Front Garden

Eek! Where would you start? Pruning the overgrown rhododendrons and camellias? Removing towering, diseased conifers? Hauling away a pampas grass the size of a Volkswagen? Well maybe, but the biggest problem was actually the driveway, assuming you drove a vehicle larger than a Mini cooper. Besides some areas that were crumbling away, it was extremely difficult…

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Plant Whimsy

I always want the gardens I design to reflect the homeowners taste and personality. There are many ways to do this such as carrying through a key color from the interior decorating scheme or including signature art pieces in the landscape. However sometimes you can have fun with the plants themselves. This Under The Sea  garden…

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Designing with Water

In my last post A Change in Perspective, I showed you how I had taken advantage of the diagonal line across a rectangular lot to improve the function and make a small garden feel larger. Understanding how to use the line of sight – or axis – is a fundamental design principle no matter how large or…

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