My gardens are the big love of my life this time of the year. I spend hours outside tending them. I have 10 garden beds on a block that is about 1/2 acre and I do things to improve the look of them each year. These summer garden tips will ensure that you have …
Perennials
The red hot poker is a showy and dramatic plant. If you love growing perennials that give color all summer long, this is the plant for you. Other names for this showy plant are torch lily and poker plant. The botanical name for this plant is kniphofia uvaria and there are more than 70 known …
These astilbe companion plants like the same moisture and light conditions and will make a beautifully coordinated garden bed. Astilbe is a gorgeous perennial that is right at home in a shady moist garden. You can grow it alone, but a well designed garden looks better with more than just one type of plant. Keep …
There are many chocolate colored flowers available, but Chocolate Cosmos gets a special boost. I give it this rating because, not only does it have a lovely dark chocolate fragrance, but it is also one of the top 10 rarest flowers in the world. The plant is a perennial and is easy to grow and …
Are you an avid gardener? If you are, you may have wondered about the various seed types available for planting. The vegetable and flower growing season is getting closer with each passing day. Here in NC, we have had unseasonably warm weather. It SEEMS that spring has sprung but I still don’t dare really get gardening …
Astilbe is one of my favorite perennials for a shade garden. There are not many plants that really like the shade that also flower beautifully, but Astilbe is one of them. Astilbe colors could even be called the stars of a shady garden. Astilbe makes a wonderful border edging plant for a large garden bed. …
Biltmore Estate Gardens are a highlight of a visit to this iconic estate in Western North Carolina. The gardens, while not classified as a Botanical Gardens per se, is a fabulous place to see plants of all types. My husband and I recently spent several days in the mountains of North Carolina with our daughter. …
I thought it would be fun to share some of my favorite daylilies in a garden tour. When it comes to versatility, blossoms and easy of care, very few perennials can match daylilies. They give a magnificent show of flowers, and sometimes more than once during the summer season. They can be managed by …
We recently had visitors from the UK who are gardeners, so we took them to JC Raulston Arboretum in Raleigh for a visit. One of my favorite parts of the gardens is The White Garden. It is a wonderful place to spend a day. You can walk around and enjoy Easter lilies, white agapanthus and …
Follow some of these plant propagation tips and you will have a whole slew of new perennial garden plants without the outlay of cash at the garden center. If you garden, you will know that the cost of buying new plants can get very expensive over time. You don’t have to spend a lot of money …
My North Carolina winter garden is a sight to behold right now. Winter storm Jonas has been all in the news this week. It left a blanket of snow and ice from the South in the US right up the corridor to New England. Winter storm Jonas may break some records on the east coast! …
This year, we spent the summer on a garden make over. I thought it would be fun to share the tips that I learned during the process. It’s that time again. Time to transform one of my garden beds that just won’t seem to keep to a single design. I call it my “what will …
There is nothing quite like the flavor of fresh herbs for cooking. Growing herbs is something that many cooks try their hand at, to have them on hand all the time. Do you know whether the one you are growing is an annual, perennial or biennial? This can sometimes be confusing and the answer is not …
Baptisia Australis perennials are rugged and easy to grow. Their lupine-like spires of bloom are real attention getters and they have season long interest from foliage too. They are also often referred to as wild indigo. Baptisia Australis is Easy to Grow I have transplanted divisions of my original small plant many times in my garden …
I’ve always considered strawberry begonia plants as an indoor plant, since that is the way that I have generally grown them. But I had a surprise this year when I discovered that the plant is a hardy perennial for me here in North Carolina. Growing Requirements for Strawberry Begonia Plants I purchased several small strawberry …
My local garden center does not often have plants that are too much out of the ordinary, so I was delighted to find this Mexican Hat coneflower right here for sale in Raleigh. This interesting variety of coneflower is also called the “Red Prairie Coneflower.” The perennial served as a dye source for Native Americans …
These tips for growing clematis will help you give this vining plant a home in your back yard. Last spring, I repurposed an old mailbox into a place for my garden tool storage. I planted a few different plants around the base, but I was never happy with the look of it. I decided I …
My family has long loved gardening. It all started with my great-grandmother (and I am sure her mother before this but I never knew her). She loved vegetable gardening, particularly yellow pole beans. The seeds from her pole beans have been passed down from generation to generation and are now growing in my garden. Since …
Growing herbs adds a ton of flavor to all your recipes, but keeping track of what is growing can be challenging. These wooden spoon herb plant markers are both functional and decorative. Herb Identification might seem easy but those tiny seedlings have a frustrating way of looking the same! I have a large group of herbs …
My husband used to buy me lilies all the time because he loved the look of them so much. I love them too, but not as cut flowers indoors (they have a stinky smell inside that I don’t like.) I never had the inclination to tell him that they were not my favorite cut flower …
It’s time for my front garden make over! This has been a year of garden make overs for me. I spent so much time last year dealing with my squirrel problem and tending my vegetable garden that I did not have a lot of time to deal with my flower garden beds. And I can …
Trying to get color and interest in a shade garden can be a challenge. But there are some that don’t mind it at all . In fact, these 20+ perennial and annual plants love the shade. There is a lushness about them that I really enjoy, too. Keep reading to learn what you an grow …
Let’s test your garden smarts. I thought it would be fun to take a photo from my garden, and enlarge it to show only the bloom, and see if you can name it. A few hints: it does not mind if the soil is dry it flowers all spring and summer the flowers come in …
I love vegetable gardening. There is nothing quite like harvesting and cooking vegetables that you have grown. If you like to grow vegetables but are a beginner, be sure to ready my post about how to troubleshoot vegetable garden problems as well as some solutions. It is helpful in learning what to do about problems …
Anyone who has priced hardscaping lately knows how expensive it can be, particularly if you have large areas to cover. I am redoing my whole area that I used last year for veggies. Long story short, the squirrels were a nightmare for me and I don’t plan to go through that experience a second time. …
This DIY Bean Teepee is a fun vegetable garden hack, and gives great support to climbing beans. This year, I changed my vegetable garden into a combined perennial/vegetable border. It’s a long story but basically, the squirrels got the better of my veggies last year and I swore never again. Since I will have flowers …