Trees Ideas, Tips & Guides

In a perfect world, we'd all have a nice healthy-sized budget for adorning our outdoor spaces. But interior home projects and repairs pile up, and our shelter often takes priority over the outdoors.

We all know Bridgerton as this fantastical world of Regency pomp and floral splendour. Many of its key scenes – from lovers’ trysts to moments of self-discovery – take place in moonlit glades and romantic rose gardens. What was it like filming in some of the most beautiful and iconic stately home gardens? We caught up with star of the show Adjoa Andoh to find out.

You must be careful when you enter the backyard of garden designer Jeff Epping. No because you’re likely to trip on something but because you might be dive-bombed by a pair of nesting hummingbirds, or a bevy of butterflies, or any number of other pollinators that make this shady Midwestern garden their home. Jeff Epping is the principal designer at Epping Design & Consulting and the former director of horticulture at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin. Given this background, it’s no surprise that his home landscape is something special. He writes about this beautiful space in his article, Design an Engaging, Naturalistic Garden in the Shade.

Twenty-five years ago when my wife Kathy and I started searching for a new home for our growing family, she focused on all the qualities one looks for in a new house. I, of course, looked at what every gardener considers imperative—the lot. Thanks to Kathy, we ended up with a wonderful new place. And much to my delight, the property had one particularly important feature—good soil. The other nice bonus was that the backyard bordered a small city park, with lots of open space for the kids to play, so my garden design did not have to include an area for kicking a soccer ball. Plant-wise, however, there wasn’t much other than invasive shrubs and trees. So after removing all the nasty invasives, I had a clean slate to work with.

Starting a new garden from scratch can be daunting, but it’s also a fantastic opportunity to create exactly what you want. The vision I had for my new garden (two decades ago) was based on the many small English gardens that I was lucky enough to visit—not the gardens with impeccably maintained lawns and neatly clipped hedges, but those that had plants spilling out of every nook and cranny. Since its inception, the landscape has been slowly undergoing a transformation over the past decade, from a traditional shade garden to a more naturalistic one that embraces an ecology-first mindset. This evolution, however, hasn’t sacrificed the original intention of my dream garden—that it be a visually appealing space with plenty of activity.

There is little you can do to control how much shade or sunlight a garden bed gets. Sure, you can cut down a tree to let in more sun or build a pergola for shade, but you can’t adjust the tilt of the earth. To find plants that will thrive in your garden, you need to get a handle on how much sunlight reaches each bed throughout the day and in all four seasons. Fortunately, with good observation skills and perhaps a new app on your phone, you can gather all the information you need to choose plants that will grow well in your garden’s brightest sun, deepest shade, and all the partially shaded places in between. 

This plan represents a bed along a property fence between the west side of a house and a large canopy tree. The edge of the border is curved because I find that adds visual interest. This plan includes many plants that are adaptable to sun and shade as well as some supporting players that add interesting textures and forms to the design and that provide repetition and rhythm. The plants are placed according to their needs:

Spring cleanup can be a real mess. If you cut your own ornamental grasses, that’s especially true if it’s a windy day and you’re dealing with taller ­grasses (e.g., Miscanthus, Panicum) blowing everywhere as they’re cut and fall over.

For years I’ve heard the same refrain: You can’t have a good-looking garden that is also eco-friendly. It seems that many folks think native plants are too wild looking and that taking a lighter approach to garden cleanup or care will lead to a messy, unkempt landscape. I argue that there are small steps everyone can take to encourage greater biodiversity in their space, all while keeping it attractive.

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At the back of the house, Adirondack chairs are placed beside a border with a small standard wisteria, a box spiral and purple Iris ‘Art Deco’ set off by lime-green euphorbia. An unknown red rose on the wall is from Mark Rumary’s 1960s scheme.

When we picture geraniums, we think about plants that are growing in the border, or small pots, or window boxes, thriving with beautiful flowers. However, do you know that these can be trained to grow as mini trees, too?

A couple of weeks ago we saw the bulbs and buds growing in Carla Zambelli Mudry’s garden in Malvern, Pennsylvania. (Check those posts out here and here.). She’s already back reporting on the flowers (some way ahead of schedule) that have emerged since then.

Do you know there are some plants that have a natural tree-like appearance, making them a great alternative to bonsais that can be hard to maintain!

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When we think about fruit trees, we are all like one had to wait for a minimum of 6-10 years before they could be ready to pick the harvest from. What if we told you there are some that get ready to fruit in no time?

Happy Monday GPODers!

If you have a tree in your garden that’s on the verge of dying, and despite your best efforts, is not showing any signs of improvement, then don’t worry. We will help you revive it!

Most gardens have some dry shade, at the foot of walls where foundations draw water from the soil, or under eaves where little rain falls. Trees also create dry shade, as their roots take up a lot of water.

We have had some very pleasant days this week, warm and mostly sunny and never uncomfortably hot, so lots of gardening jobs have been done – perhaps as well, as our open days are suddenly creeping up really quickly.  I still took time out to go for a walk on one of the days, choosing a route I have avoided for some time because it crosses fields which will have been muddy and difficult to walk through for many weeks. Taking a slight detour, I entered a small woodland which from experience I know is host to naturalised bluebells. Unfortunately, a fallen tree and overgrown paths meant I failed to get the full experience this year, but it made me aware just how realistic our own little woodland is. Despite being planted with trees, bluebells, wood anemones, wild garlic, fritillaries, snowdrops, comfrey and more, many other things have arrived uninvited and there is a real woodland feel to it, even more so at this time of year, as the green canopy closes in and brings an air of coolness and greenness. Lovely…

I have often thought of myself as “gardening against the odds.” My rural Black Earth, Wisconsin, garden is adjacent to a marsh and pond and is technically in Zone 5a, but the open farmland and subsequent winds around me place it closer to Zone 4b. I’ve lost plants to harsh winters, deer, rabbits, and woodchucks. I’ve had snapping turtles till up my garden beds to make nests and beloved woody plants destroyed by beavers. As if all that weren’t enough, the majority of the shade in the garden is from black walnut trees, which cause lots of problems, like robbing moisture and nutrients from surrounding plants.

If you buy your garden border plants from the people who grow them, you’ll benefit from their expert advice and knowledge.

Shangri-La Paris

Creating an entryway that truly works is a worthwhile investment. You will enjoy how it makes your home look and feel, and providing a welcoming first glimpse of your home and property will increase that all-important ‘curb appeal’ if and when you sell your home.

What is this red-eyed creature found crawling up a pine tree?

Wisteria flowers can help you showcase pretty meanings, and they look absolutely gorgeous on your skin. Don’t believe us? See for yourself with these designs.

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There are a tonnes of trees in the nature with some having really interesting names, while some have funny ones. We have 15 of the latter examples!

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With basils, we always think about a stubby plant that’s growing in a small pot on a sunny windowsill. What if we tell you that it can be trained to grow like a 4-6 feet tall specimen? Sounds impossible? Well, it’s not!

When you first arrive at the home of Curtis Steiner, you’re not exactly sure you’ve found the right address. His storybook home sits off the main street, and the entrance is only accessible from a small alleyway that is not large enough for cars. But once you open the tall front gate, you are immersed in a purely magical garden oasis filled with whimsy and plants of every imaginable shape and color. The fact that you’re in an urban setting is instantly forgotten thanks to the dense foliage that envelops you from every angle.

The garden room at the back of the Buchanan's inner-city London garden

Brazil’s rich floral diversity, with over 55,000 plant species, offers a plethora of options that you can add to your garden and home. Here are some of the most eye-catching Brazilian flowers you can grow!

From online services to big box stores and local nurseries and garden centers, there are tons of different ways you can find and purchase plants to add to your landscape. Often, it’s a matter of finding the balance between convenience and quality. But is one option truly better than all the others? 

As the temperature starts to rise and the days get a bit longer, it’s easy to skip from spring into a summer frame of mind. But to enjoy the most that summer has to offer when it does arrive, there are some tasks homeowners should tackle now.

People often talk about the ‘May gap’, when spring plants begin to fade and the burgeoning summer growth is yet to appear. Though if, like me, you allow a little room for some wildness, May can be one of the most abundant months, with cow parsley, bluebells, hawthorn blossom, foxgloves and columbine alongside cultivated Solomon’s seal and the first hardy geraniums and delphiniums in your borders. For me, the impact of this is breathtaking: soft, green and zinging.