Establish A Community -- In Your Shade Garden Part 1: What Is A Plant Community?
I love lush beds of hostas! I love the variety of colors and shapes and sizes and bloom stalks. I love how hardy they are and how little maintenance they need. Unfortunately, our neighborhood deer love them as much as I do. After losing plant after plant to their voracious appetites, I knew I had …
Design Your Perfect Pathway
My granddaughter and I were playing in the backyard the other day. One minute she was chasing me and laughing and the next she was frozen in one spot with huge tears streaming down her cheeks. I figured her brother had something to do with it (not unusual), but it turned out that I was …
What’s In Bloom Today?
The pink Missouri Primrose is in bloom here in Kansas City. This tough little native perennial, also known as pink ladies, eagerly rambles over tough terrain and rewards you with masses of fragrant flowers that begin as white blooms and gradually change to pink, blossoming profusely from early to mid-summer. This primrose loves the …
"Bee-Friending" Insect Populations
Insect populations around the world are rapidly declining. Within the next 20 years, 40% of the earth’s insect species may be extinct and within 100 years insects could disappear completely. Insects are the foundation of the planet’s ecosystems. When just one type of insect disappears, dozens of other species, including humans, are directly …
Plant A Patch: Celandine Poppy -- (Stylophorum diphyllum)
The celandine poppy, or wood poppy, is a lessor known native perennial perfect for humus-rich shady rain gardens. This low growing spring bloomer features generous clusters of bright yellow blooms standing above its blue-green foliage. It naturalizes well by self-seeding, but will go dormant in overly dry weather.
Plant A Patch: Wild Ginger -- Asarum canadense
Looking for a ground cover for that consistently moist, totally shady spot where nothing else seems to grow? Wild ginger may be what you are looking for! This moisture loving native perennial is grown primarily for its stemless,heart-shaped, dark green leaves, but also features attractive ground hugging purplish -brown flowers in the spring. …
Rethinking Lawns -- Part 4: Groundcovers
Life without turfgrass can be both beautiful and surprisingly easy to maintain …. Just ask the designers and crews at Embassy Landscape Group who have created landscapes that are attractive, painless to care for and environmentally friendly. Utilizing a wide range of native and introduced plants, ground covers, shrubs and trees, Embassy’s design staff are …
Rethinking Lawns -- Part 3: But I Like Green!
As excited as I have been about the renovation of our front yard, I have to admit that I’m still a little leery of a yard without at least a few patches of green grass. When I shared my reservations with my husband, he assured me that eliminating turfgrass doesn’t mean eliminating the lawn; it …
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