Family garden makeover

2020 had many of us re-defining what was important. With movements and social interactions severely reduced, our homes became far more than just a place to eat and sleep, but also an office,  a home schooling center, and often a necessary oasis from the chaotic world beyond our borders. When a lovely family in Snohomish,…

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Planning Fabulous Fall Combinations

Stop what you're doing for a moment, look out of the window, and take a long, hard look at your fall garden.  What do you see? I'm sure there are individual trees or shrubs that are breathtaking, but are they shown off to their best advantage? Do they read as random sparks here and there,…

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Fall Clean Up for Lazy Gardeners

I refuse to be a slave to my garden, which is why I designed it to be low maintenance; employing a variety of strategies to select plants that were both reliably easy care and suited to the space I had planned for them. Yet, there's no denying that even for me, fall is a busy…

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Short Term Groundcovers for Hot, Dry, Deer-Prone Areas

Deer-Resistant Garden Design

Generally I'm not a huge fan of groundcovers. While they do suppress weeds they also prevent me adding soil amendments such as compost and in some case they are downright thugs, covering every spare inch of ground and smothering everything in sight! Some of those thugs are also very difficult to remove as they grow…

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