Experience Spring This Weekend -- Visit A Nearby Botanical Garden
By Sandra Nelson I am over it! Six inches Wednesday and another inch or two tonight. Grey skies and more snow expected tomorrow. The trees are drooping under the weight of the snow and my early spring bulbs that were beginning to peek through the ground are once again covered over. I need a …
Set Your Sights On Spring
By Sandra Nelson To many in our part of the country, January and February (and sometimes March) are prime months for happily hibernating indoors. For those of us who are tried and true gardeners however, being out of the dirt and away from plants is akin to being held hostage by Mother Nature. In …
What Is A "Sense of Place"?
Last week I promised that we would explore the principles of designing a shade garden using the concept of a designed plant community. And we will be doing that — just not today. Today I want to answer a question that was posed to me after last week’s blog. A reader contacted me and …
Green Spaces for Cities -- Part 2: Living Walls and Green Roofs
One of my favorite sessions from the recent Perennial Plant Conference I attended in Chicago was on Living Walls. It had been a reluctant choice at first — a lesser of two evils type of choice. Surprisingly though, after the first few minutes, I was hooked. The presenter didn’t try to teach me how, instead …
Green Spaces for Cities -- Part 1
Perspectives change over time, don’t they? We were on I -90 headed to Chicago’s Union Station when I glanced out the window and noticed the downtown skyline. Ten years ago I would have commented on how exciting it was to see all of the sleek buildings dominating the landscape. This time the view made …
Intimate Spaces in Large Places
Our eldest daughter is a textbook type A personality. She finds it difficult to just sit and relax because there is always another task to be completed. Her ability to keep going and going and going is truly amazing and somewhat exhausting. The other day, while she was at our home, she …
Dining Out -- In Your Own Backyard
Every year, the National Association of Landscape Professionals (NALP) and other groups publish a list of the top landscaping trends of the year. For the past few years, adding an outdoor kitchen to the landscape has been one of the top ten trends; this year was no exception. By combining an outdoor kitchen with a …
Go Native -- In Your Container Garden
I was bound and determined to get my patio pots planted last weekend. I had all ten of them cleaned and ready to be filled, my color scheme picked out and each placement imagined. I knew exactly how many would have to survive in the brutal midwestern sun and which ones would sit in complete …
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