You can grow wildflowers in a border, a pot and a window box as well as in a meadow.
08.08.2024 - 08:36 / southernliving.com
Growing up in the Lowcountry, Drew English, High Hampton’s head gardener, was a hobbyist gardener well-versed in the plants that thrive in South Carolina's long and humid summers. But, as many hot weather residents do, English began to spend more time escaping to the cooler temperatures of the mountains.
He fell in love with the lush landscape of Cashiers, North Carolina, a resort town tucked away in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and, on one trip, a friend's great aunt delegated the younger contingent to go over to the dahlia garden and collect a few blooms for the dinner table. «I emerged through the rhododendron hedge and saw this sea of color,» recalls English.
The dahlias would become a life's calling. When English moved to Cashiers full-time, he dove headfirst into learning all about dahlias and perfecting his gardening approach to the luscious blooms. Soon, he added award-winning dahlia grower to his resume, and the clients came calling. He launched his business, The English Gardener, and was asked to take over the heralded High Hampton dahlia garden.
Today, he tends to the hundreds of blooms in the High Hampton dahlia garden, and he's sharing his top gardening lessons for growing dahlias.
Before you start your dahlia garden, make sure you're getting tubers from a reputable grower. There are diseases that can strike your tubers, and you may have no idea until they sprout that you've bought infected plants.
«Gall is tuber based, and it rapidly produces through cellular regeneration,» explains English. This disease can cause misshapen shoots, but there's no way to spot it ahead of time—a trusted source
You can grow wildflowers in a border, a pot and a window box as well as in a meadow.
There is no way to sugarcoat the challenges many of us in the Mid-Atlantic region have faced this summer. The inconsistency of rainfall and the extreme high temperatures have greatly impacted our efforts to garden successfully. Even with valiant efforts to apply supplemental irrigation, I have witnessed a wide range of plant material showing signs of drought stress that I have rarely witnessed in my 15-plus years of gardening in this region. To say it is cause for concern would be an understatement. As a result, in the last few months I have been repeatedly asked how we can prepare our beloved gardens to reduce heat and moisture stress for future growing seasons. One answer to this conundrum is to add organic matter to the soil in the form of compost.
I heard a rustling behind me and turned to see a huge tortoise disappearing under a shrub! That was 25 years ago in South Africa. I was thrilled to see the creature but my fellow gardeners quickly loaded it onto a wheelbarrow bound for the veld (the open grassland) beyond the garden.
Flanking our waterways in great mops of silver green, the willow is the most poetic and mysterious of trees. In many cultures – including ancient Egypt and ancient Greece – it was associated with immortality, death, and the underworld; old English folklore states that if you sit beside a willow and shed tears, the tree will cry with you. In China, where the weeping willow hails from, it represents strength and resilience, reflecting the instruction in the Tao Te Ching to have a flexible attitude: 'A tree that won't bend, breaks easily in storms.' Being pliant and strong, willow is used for weaving, and its light weight and hardness make it the best wood for cricket bats.
When tapped to design a series of planters for our2024 Idea House in the Kiawah River community on Johns Island, South Carolina, plant pro Steph Green of Contained Creations in Richmond, Virginia, knew exactly what the waterfront property needed. “We wanted to create the most beautiful and biggest statement container gardens, but they needed to be durable and last a long time with minimal upkeep,” says Green. “That’s why picking evergreens or really tough perennials from the Southern Living Plant Collection was kind of the launching point for each individual design.”
Join us this summer as we explore some of the UK’s best 2-for-1 Gardens to visit in August, for fun days out with all the family. Whether it’s an adventure playground or woodland trail for the kids, or a rose garden or restored Elizabethan garden for the horticulturalists, there is plenty to enjoy at these gardens. Visit using your 2-for-1 Gardens card to save money on your trips to all these wonderful gardens.
This small woody shrub belonging to the mint family is grown for its fragrant, edible, and medicinal leaves and flowers. Growing hyssop has a host of health benefits and is also useful in maintaining a thriving, pest-free garden. Let’s dig in!
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