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 …
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 …
Design Principles for Shade Gardens
Ask five “weekend gardeners” to name the plants they would put in a shade garden and you will most likely get a series of sighs and shrugged shoulders and then five variations of hosta, ferns, impatiens and begonias, with possibly a few caladiums thrown into the mix. The overall attitude usually implies that …
What's Your Style?
Designing a shade garden that is inviting and interesting throughout the entire year takes serious research and planning. As we have previously discussed, you have to thoroughly understand everything about your site — everything from its ecoregion and soil, climate and native plant communities to the specific types of shade and their locations. Once …
What's In Bloom Today?
Ornamental grasses are at their best in the fall and Dwarf Fountain Grass is no exception. At it’s best in the full sun, dwarf fountain grass is easy to grow in average, moist soil. It will tolerate part shade, but may not flower well. The 2 1/2 foot to 3 foot clumps have …
Establish A Community -- Part 3: Design Principles - The Layered Look
The technique of planting in layers is neither new or revolutionary. For years, designers have considered the front, middle and back as layers in residential bed design, making sure that the three layers work together harmoniously. Rainer and West, co-authors of the book Planting in a Post Wild World, add an additional dimension to …
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