Evergreen Perennials for the Mountain West

How to Grow and Care for Mexican Fan Palms Washingtonia robusta

Most gardeners would agree that the best pastime for cold winter days is looking through seed and plant catalogs imagining the growing season to come. With that in mind, consider these four strong summer blooming perennials for the midwest when you are ordering plants in the coming weeks.

Some people are particular about the garden tools they use. Others take it less seriously and are content with the cheapest things they can find. I’m somewhere in the middle. I’m not one to waste money on overpriced brands, but I do want durable tools that last a good while. Just as important, they need to do the job and be up for the conditions under which I’ll be using them.

Kathy Sandel sent in just a few more photos of hercurrent garden in Sacramento, California, and I couldn’t resist sharing them:

HO-HO-HO: It’s seed season, among other festive reasons to celebrate in December. Today I invited a similarly seed-obsessed friend, Jennifer Jewell, to help me curate some seed-catalog recommendations you might not otherwise browse, and to talk seeds in general.

Tropical evergreen shrubs of the Verbena family can be a vibrant addition to any garden, offering a blend of lush foliage and vivid flowers.

Last week Kathy Sandel shared her former garden in Calabasas, California, and today we’re back visiting her current garden in Sacramento:

When to Plant Succulents in the Northwest

Seed saving is the art of collecting the seed from your crop and using it in subsequent seasons to grow new plants. Even if you save only small quantities of a few crops, understanding more about the life cycle, breeding tendencies, and botany of your crops will help you manage and care for them more effectively. 

While some may be familiar with Japanese sacred lily (Rohdea japonica, Zones 6–10), Rohdea pachynema is an uncommon species that is indeed a Rohdea less traveled. Found only in the Chinese provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan, it is an intriguing member of the Asparagaceae family that is slowly becoming more available to gardeners. It was formerly known as Campylandra sinensis or C. pachynema, but recent DNA work has moved it into the genus Rohdea, whose name commemorates German botanist Michael Rohde. We can find no documented common name for this species, so we have dubbed it “yellow thread rohdea” since pachynema means “thick thread” (referring to the colored central stripe on the leaves). 

The Isles of Scilly are like an idealised version of England – where the sun always shines, the food is wonderful, there’s no traffic and no one locks their doors! To say the sun always shines is an exaggeration, but they’re among the sunniest and mildest places in the UK – sea breezes mean it’s never too hot or humid and thanks to the Jetstream, they almost never have frost.

We’re back in Calabasas, California, today, looking at the garden Kathy Sandel created. She is a retired landscape designer, and this is the garden she created for herself at the home where she lived for more than 20 years. She moved away from this garden a few years ago, so these photos are a chance to look back and remember a beautiful and much-loved garden space.