Try Summer Hyacinth (Ornithogalum Candicans) For Floral Sparkle

As an experienced and respected professional florist, Róisín Godfrey has spent the last eight years working alongside some of the biggest names in the industry in the UK and Ireland, a career that has taken her to some of the most beautiful private houses, hotels and art galleries in the world.

As 2023 winds down and gardening activities slow down a bit, what else is there to do but dream of what we can achieve in 2024?! Like every year, we’re keen on following top gardening trends to help you grow the garden of your dreams.

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

You might not typically consider holiday cheer high on your list of necessities for a new home, but, if you do, Zillow has the place for you.

I have stored my seeds in many ways—in jars, in plastic storage containers, in used bubble mailers, in cute “binder” gift books, in Ziploc bags. Keeping seeds organized can be a challenge, especially when you grow an extensive vegetable garden. There’s the question of how to organize and categorize. But did you know that your seed storage conditions can also affect the viability and germination rate of your seeds? In this article, I’m going to share some tips on how to keep seeds and container options for storing them.

If you are not so good at maintaining green specimens and always end up murdering one, then don’t worry! Here’s a list of resilient plants that refuse to give up, no matter what!

Blaine Moats

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). 

On the first day of August 2006, my botanizing companion and I were making only our third trip to a barrens on a farm owned by friends in Kentucky. We already knew that this spot never looked the same twice, so we had few expectations as to what we might see. Our delight on arrival can hardly be described. As far as the eye could see was a sea of shades of purple, pink, and white. My designer brain immediately kicked in—if only I could replicate this in someone’s garden!

Mandy Melnyk has made some changes to her egg and poultry business in the last few months. The owner of Meadow Creek Farms in northern Alberta serves about 200 families a month with her egg subscriptions and broiler chickens—but now, instead of customers coming to pick up their orders from Melnyk directly, she’s spending a lot of time in the car, delivering them herself. 

Few plants generate more revulsion in the garden than junipers. The mere suggestion of planting one often musters a similar reaction to that of saying a dirty word. Maybe we’ve grown weary of their use as ever­green blobs in foundation plantings. Perhaps the thought of meticulously shearing them into the perfect shape sounds daunting (see pruning tips). It could be an early memory of an itchy rash from an up-close encounter with a juniper’s prickly branches. Or it could be boredom with the sea of creeping blue rug junipers (Juniperus horizontalis ‘Wiltonii’, Zones 3–9) planted in every big-box-store parking lot. Although junipers are a midcentury-modern garden staple, generations of gardeners have since decided they have had enough of these controversial conifers. While it’s easy to dismiss them for their deeply ingrained negative traits, junipers have many merits that make them worth reconsideration.

‘Marian Sampson’ hummingbird coyote mint