Cool-Weather Plantings for Spring Containers

We design gardens in northwestern Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills, and many of our clients’ properties have sections that are rocky and steep. Embracing the unique contours of each site, we have built rock gardens, terraces, and plantings that flow downhill. We see each hillside as an opportunity to put together a satisfying plant palette that is easy to maintain and beautiful to behold. A bonus with slopes is that they provide good drainage by their very nature.

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.

Colorful Summer Plantings for Sun and Shade Attract pollinators and wildlife to your garden with these colorful combinations for sun and shade gardens. Dreaming of summer

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

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If you have limited space indoors, there is still a range of house plants you can buy to add greenery to your home. Succulents and cacti offer the biggest choice of small house plants, but there’s a wealth of other varieties to enjoy, from air plants that grow without compost to the carnivorous Venus flytrap. As well as small plants, look for slow-growing house plants that take time to reach their mature height, such as the nerve plant. Windowsills, desks, hanging planters and shelves can all be enhanced by space-saving house plants.

Irvin Etienne is the curator of herbaceous plants and seasonal garden design at Newfields, a 152-acre campus with art galleries, performance spaces, world-class public gardens, and a nature park in Indianapolis. Irvin has been a frequent contributor to Fine Gardening, sharing his horticultural expertise through informative articles like A Bright Idea for Spring Containers, Big and Bold Plants for the Back of the Border, and Bring It In!, a primer on overwintering all kinds of tropical plants. In this episode he delves into the path that brought him to horticulture, the lessons learned from decades of gardening in public, and some of the (many, many) plants that earn their keep in his home garden.

People who are living in an apartment are always looking for plant options that are easy to maintain and can be grown in a limited space. if you are one of those, this list is curated especially for you!

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Are you looking for inspiration on the best perennial plants for pots?

Putting plants together is the most creative and joyful part of making a garden. With colour, shape and texture, you can conjure up a living work of art, something that not only gives you sensory pleasure but also benefits wildlife and the environment. But with so many options available to us, where do we start? I always think back to the plantswoman Beth Chatto and her mantra ‘right plant, right place’ when conceiving a plan, because there is no point in rushing to place your favourite sun-loving flowers in a shady spot at the back of a north-facing house. ‘Plants, like people, have their preferences and don’t like being thrust into the nearest available hole,’ she observed.

For small spaces like shelves and cabinets where you would like to showcase green specimens, you want plants for shallow pots, so that they can be displayed in a limited room. For that, we have the most beautiful ones!