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Landscape Design & Maintenance

Line, Form And Texture In The Garden

By Sandra Nelson   For years, I thought that color was the most important element in garden design. I thought that if only I could learn to get the colors right, then I would finally have that show-stopping yard I had been dreaming about for years. It’s only been in the last few weeks that …

Designing Beds That Delight

By Sandra Nelson   I don’t know how you are handling stress these days, but I find myself drawn more and more to my yard. When I feel anxiety building, I stroll through the yard, stopping every few seconds to discover the changes from the day before and to soak in the calming power of …

Stachys "Hummelo:" A Must Have For Your Garden

By Sandra Nelson   This week’s pick is by Dan Nelson, Lead Designer   Stachys ‘Hummelo’   “The 2019 Perennial Plant Association’s Plant of the Year, this is a great plant  for the perennial bed and as a ground cover. “     Largely undiscovered by today’s homeowners, Stachys ‘Hummelo’ is a true “Must Have.”  An …

Designing A Border That Delights

By Sandra Nelson   As much as I love plants and gardening, I have always felt that my gardens were  — to put it bluntly — markedly mediocre. The individual plants were lovely, but somehow they just didn’t fit together to make the dramatic impact I dreamed of. So, with all of the extra time …

English Cottage GardensĀ  -- The Original Rambunctious Garden

By Sandra Nelson   Although it was never called by name, in retrospect I realize that my grandmother’s wild and free style of gardening that I talked about last week  — her rambunctious garden — was her personal version of what we would call an English cottage garden.      Cottage gardens can be traced …

Connect To The Past With Heirloom Plants

By Sandra Nelson      

  My grandmother was famous in our neighborhood for her rambunctiously beautiful flower gardens. To my knowledge, she never purchased a commercially produced seed or plant. Instead, each fall she carefully collected and saved seeds from her favorite flowers, dug summer bulbs and took some cuttings to grow on …

Spring Clean-Up, The Environmentally Friendly Way

 By Sandra Nelson   We had a quick taste of spring this past weekend.    It was warm and sunny and people in our neighborhood were out in full force taking advantage of the beautiful days to begin their spring yard clean-up. Leaves were raked and bagged, perennials chopped back to the ground, trees were …

Plants for Your Shade Garden

  Selecting the right plant for your shade garden can be a challenging task, especially if you are new to shade gardening. To get you started, Dan Nelson, lead designer at Embassy Landscape Group, has shared ten of his favorite shade plants with us.     To make the choices even easier, we have divided …