Visiting Spring in North Carolina

Six DVD’s in a boxed set ‘A Year at Kew – The Collection’ (Series 1-3) with Alan Titchmarsh is available from Amazon  in time for a Christmas gift. Over 1000 minutes of gardening in a month-by-month journey via the BBC through the world’s greatest botanical garden.

Collaborative post

The first day of spring (March 19) is quickly approaching, and with that comes time for spring cleaning, spring gardening, spring weather, and spring pollinators.

We recently visited Carol’s winter garden in Hendersonville, North Carolina (Carol’s Winter Garden) and today we’re headed back to see more of her beauties. Carol’s been gardening here since 2009, and the garden has evolved and matured in beautiful ways in that time.

For some, spring cleaning is a satisfying ritual that freshens up a home, making it feel lighter and more organized. But for others, it can be intimidating and time-consuming.

While we always welcome the chance to deep clean and declutter our homes each spring, we also could use a refresher on how best to approach a huge, home overhaul.

Since last autumn, I’ve regularly discovered fresh holes in the lawn as well as scratch marks on a favourite tree. I suspect my garden is being visited by a badger. Is this damage likely to continue – and what should I do? Anna, Co Wicklow

Colorful Spring Garden Bed with ‘Hino-Crimson’ Azalea Start your growing season by showcasing the vibrant blooms of 'Hino-Crimson' azalea along with other shade garden favorites. Add a burst of spring color with ‘Hino-Crimson’ azalea

If this is the first time you’ve come across the phrase “crevice garden,” it won’t be the last. This style of gardening is on the tongues of every gardening taste maker I know and is an approach to gardening whose time has come. Crevice gardens bring together a number of elements that make them must-haves in the modern garden. They are water wise, architecturally striking, perfect for small gardens and containers, and provide ideal conditions for growing a wide range of beautiful and unusual plants. Most critical, it is a style of gardening that not only brings a striking, fresh aesthetic to the garden, it also provides ideal conditions for a wide range of plants and helps them survive whatever extremes our climates throw at them. So whether you garden in steamy North Carolina, high-and-dry Denver, or frigid Maine, crevice gardening will work for you and allow you to grow a wide range of fascinating plants.

Starbucks | Design: Better Homes & Gardens

Joseph in northern Indiana here… where a string of warm days has pushed my garden over into the earliest flowers of spring, despite the early date.

The oldest anthology of Japanese poetry refers to ‘seven plants showing green through the cold earth as harbingers of spring’.