What you see is what you get
Look at your garden and describe what you see. Of course, there is color and perhaps a bird bath or gazing ball. Maybe you have a few gnomes wandering about or a green man or two handing from a tree or fence. Or perhaps you aren’t happy with what you see, but aren’t sure how to fix it. When we look at our gardens, the two main components that catch our eye are color and texture. For the past two weeks, we’ve discussed color in the garden and how it can be hot, cold, monochromatic, harmonizing or contrasting. Now we need to take a look at texture and see how it affects what we see when we look at our gardens. When we speak of texture, we are describing the different ways that plants can be seen or felt. Textures can be coarse or fine, large or small and airy or compact. Textures can be perceived visually or by the sense of touch.
» Full StoryDivide to thrive
If your once lovely perennial plant is
beginning to die out in the center, it is likely not a doomed plant but is simply in need of dividing.
Perennial, by definition, means to endure or to last for a very long time.
July vegetable garden
July in the vegetable garden is when the real harvest begins.
Neighbors are competing for the first ripe tomato of the season.
Growing skeletons in the garden
If you want to find hollyhocks in my garden, simply look for the tall stalks of skeletonized leaves.
There are flowers, too, and they are still in pretty good shape, but the leaves are nearly gone.
Children’s gardens
It was a garden that brought young Mary Lennox from her lonely shell in the classic children’s story “The Secret Garden,’’ written by Frances Hodgson Burnett in 1909.
» Full StoryWatch for mildew on humid days
What is making your plant unattractive? We’re gradually getting into the hot, moist part of summer.
» Full Story



