thinking ‘slow flowers’ year round, with debra prinzing

These stunning Ground Covers with Yellow Flowers are a great pick for gardens and landscapes that’ll catch the eye with their beautiful and versatile charm.

There’s an ugly truth behind those beautiful alstroemeria, dahlias, and roses we adore—80 percent of them are grown overseas and imported on gas-guzzling jets—often soaked in pesticides—despite the fact that they can be grown right here in the U.S. These blooms are often called “fresh” cut flowers, but they’re anything but. 

Sedum spathulifolium make dense mats of grey foliage. The cheerful yellow flowers can be up to 3″ across.

There is a clematis for every season, every aspect and every place. The flower size and colour range is also wider than you may imagine. Update I have just bought (2.9.19) another clematis Madame Le Coultre for flowering june to august.

Trailing plants are a great addition to any garden as they provide visual interest throughout the year. In this article, we’ll explore the Best Evergreen Vines for Year-Round Interest, including their characteristics, growing requirements, and unique features.

Curly-leaf parsley is great for edging borders, and for planting as a “ruff” around the feet of bigger plants in pots, where it will be beautiful all season, even after substantial frost. But if you want to cook, go ‘Gigante,’ or ‘Giant of Italy.’ Flat-leaf parsley has more parsley flavor, to my taste.All parsley is extremely high in nutrients, particularly Vitamin C, folates and Potassium, as well as beta carotene. In fact, a quarter-cup of raw chopped parsley has about as much C as a quarter-cup of orange juice and double the folates (more that one and a half times those, even, of raw spinach). I include raw leaflets in salads, greatly boosting the nutritional value of

THE FLYER PIQUED MY INTEREST: Dan Benarcik, part of the creative team at Chanticleer Garden in Wayne, Pennsylvania (a must visit!), would be lecturing nearby about “The Art & Craft of the Garden,” and how to personalize a garden using artistic elements, found artifacts, and ornamental containers. I quickly got a ticket—you can, too, for the June 16 event, including garden tours and a garden market, in Spencertown, New York—but also asked Dan to share some of his ideas and images (including the bromeliad-artemisia- urn-and-melianthus moment at Chanticleer, above) with us, no matter whether we can attend. A Q&A with this enormously talented plantsman and garden artist.

Last year I had word that my website was nominated for a “best garden blog” contest, put on by “Better Homes and Gardens” magazine. Curious, I clicked over to the sites of all the other nominees—many of whom I did not know.One, in particular, stood out as a kindred spirit, and then a funny thing happened to seem to say, “Get in touch with that blogger” even more emphatically: A reader of mine emailed wi

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE CONIFER, the “beautiful one” to your eye? I could only narrow my list down to 10, plant-mad person that I am, but with hints of the winter landscape in the cooler air, I’m thinking of just how important evergreens are. And not just to me. Coniferous trees and shrubs also provide important winter shelter for birds, and many small mammals depend on their seed, as do various bird species. Conifers’ value as nesting spots is another reason to plant more.

Like a carefully crafted sentence, the garden needs proper punctuation to read well, and clearly convey what’s going on. On the November 28, 2016 edition of my public-radio show and podcast, Ken and I discussed design challenges that these tall and narrow things answer; the technical difference between the columnar and fastigiate plants; and some of his favorites.Read along as you listen to the Nov. 28, 2016 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).columnar tree and shrub q&a with ken druseQ. You got me thinking on our phone call the other morning—we were talking about earthworms and all these other crazy things…A. [Laughter.]Q. …and then you started talking abo

Few people have a more practiced eye about ferns than Judith, a.k.a. The Fern Madame, who joined me from Fancy Fronds in the State of Washington to introduce us to some distinctive favorites from among her vast collection: ferns with pink-to-bronze early color, with glossy foliage, with forked, divisifine-textured cresting (like the crested uniform wood fern, above).Read along as you listen to the March 5, 2018 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes or Stitcher (and browse my archive of podcasts here).fern q&a with fancy fronds’ judith jonesQ. I’ve known about you and your catalo

Dan Hinkley is a longtime plant explorer (that’s him in the Himalayas, below), nurseryman, teacher and gardener. Above all, he says, he’s committed to “above-average garden plants.” I found out from Dan just what, when the subject is hydrangeas, qualifies as above average and even exceptional, and we took a peek into the future of what traits hydrangeas of tomorrow might show off, too. Sneak peek: red flowers, or foliage that’s evergreen or felted or even purple are just some of the standout features we might see more of in hydrangeas of the future.Plus: at the bottom of the page, learn about how to visit Dan’s garden undertakings at Heronswood—the former specialty nursery he founded that is now a public garden—and at Windcliff, his home garden, both across Puget Sound from Seattle.Read along as you listen to our conversation on the August 28, 2017 edition of my public-radio s