soldier on, yucca ‘color guard’

David Tsay

Penguin Random House LLC

Because color is so personal, it’s often one of the easiest design elements to nail down; people immediately know which colors they like and dislike. However, when choosing your garden color palette, don’t forget to consider the mood or atmosphere you wish to evoke. Cool colors have a calming effect, while warm colors grab your attention and elicit feelings of excitement.

It may feel like a cliché to say that kitchens are the heart of the home, but there’s an undeniable truth to that statement. Kitchens are where we gather with friends and family and where we whip up delicious meals and refreshing drinks—they’re a central location around which our home lives revolve. 

If you’re in talks to potentially sell your home, Zillow is here with another tip for future sellers: Go dark. By that, they mean opt for moodier colors in every room—especially dark gray.

Yuccas, Yucca spp., are succulents that grow in full sun and rocky, dry soil in USDA Hardiness Zones ranging from 3 to 11. We link to vendors to help you f

Whether you're revamping a certain space within your home or are moving into a brand new house, you may be wondering how to best select a color palette for a given room.

Introducing the Best Colorful Hedge Plants, a vibrant selection of foliage that will add a burst of colors to your landscape. These eye-catching hedges combine beauty and functionality, making them a perfect choice for any garden or outdoor space.

Want to brighten up a shady spot in your summer annual containers? Caladiums are an excellent choice. Due to their insignificant flowers, caladiums are grown for their colorful foliage. The leaf colors range in a wide variety of red, pink, white, and green combinations with contrasting leaf margins.

While I’ve spent a fair amount of time tending to outdoor plants, my experience with indoor plants was relatively non-existent. The curiosity of the feline members of my household was such that having plants or even cut flowers was not prudent. After one incident with a broken glass vase, I decided cats and indoor plants did not make a good combination.

Some of my favorite natives for fall leaf color grow in abundance in the Piedmont, and when the weather cooperates, we are in for a spectacular show. Sugar maples occur naturally further north of here and are a favorite for fall color. We can grow sugar maples here, but we have a little-known, although common, maple species native to our region. Chalkbark maple, Acer leucoderme, does not grow overly large and is commonly found as an understory tree in the sunny margins of our deciduous forests. Chalkbark maples grow to about 25 to 30 feet high with a rounded canopy and are found in dryer, upland soils. The fall color rivals the best that a sugar maple can put out.

One of my favorite native plants in South Carolina isn’t a typical spring emergent full of bright colors; it’s a species that starts to turn heads as we head into the cooler months. Chasmanthium latifolium, also known as river oats, turns a beautiful bronze in my favorite season, fall, and is found in an area I’m passionate about protecting streamside riparian areas.