What to Plant?

Disease-Resistant Roses for Damp Coastal Climates

January 19, 2010
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It’s bare-root season, guys, and the roses are cheap and plentiful! I’ve written before about how to select a bare-root rose and about some disease-resistant rose varieties for the coastal Pacific Northwest. I wanted to follow up with some additional suggestions that our local rose expert, Cynthia Graebner of Fickle Hill Old Rose Nursery, left [...]

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Do Landscapers Listen to Our Own Advice? Plants We’d Never Plant at Home (Part Two)

December 28, 2009
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In part one, I discussed some of the beautiful and useful plants that landscapers recommend or maintain for clients, that we wouldn’t plant in our own home gardens. Whether hard to maintain, prickly, or just overused – these are perfectly good plants in many ways – but often have one fatal flaw us pro-gardeners just [...]

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Do Landscapers Listen to Our Own Advice? Plants We’d Never Plant at Home (Part One)

December 19, 2009
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I was gardening recently with one of my employees, and she groaned in the middle of pruning a Mexican Feather Grass and said firmly, “I will NEVER plant these things at my house. Never!” It’s not a bad plant – in fact, it’s fantastic – it has seasonal interest, adds a sense of motion and  [...]

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Delicate Flowers: What NOT to Plant in Fall

November 7, 2009
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Recently I read an article on Sunset’s website, suggesting that we all rush out and buy those discounted perennials to plant for fall. We all know by now that fall planting is a great idea, but is fall really the best time to plant everything, even perennials? Many perennials don’t actually live all that long [...]

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Forget Halloween: Try These Dark Beauties Year-Round

October 31, 2009
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I always wanted to be a goth girl -  wearing all black, dying my hair purple, and listening to moody music while pondering the deeper mysteries in life. Sadly, I had three strikes against me: I’m a total wuss, so piercings were out, I’m ridiculously cheerful, and since I started my landscaping business when I [...]

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Fall Color Container Planting Idea

October 24, 2009
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A client came up with this pretty container planting idea for summer and fall. The spiky Phormium/ Flax Grass makes a vivid centerpiece, then she used red Coleus and orange Impatiens to pick up on the Flax’s colored stripes. Last, she used some purple trailing Petunias to cool down the combination and spill over the [...]

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Fall-Blooming Heathers for Autumn Color

October 10, 2009
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Calluna vulgaris ‘Sister Anne’ In all the time I’ve been designing gardens, I have never had anyone tell me, “please, no heathers!”. Thank goodness, because heathers are my secret weapon for extending any season’s interest. By the end of summer many perennials have stopped blooming, but the winter bloomers and fall colors haven’t started in [...]

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Disease-Resistant Roses for the Pacific Northwest

July 20, 2009
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As a professional gardener, my philosophy leans more towards making organic and sustainable choices in the garden, not only because I’m afraid of what long-term repeated exposure could do to my health, but also because I have the power to help so many people make better choices for their gardens. The organic philosophy can be [...]

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Container Plants that Birds Love

March 21, 2009

Finishing off our series on planting to attract birds, here’s my love poem to container gardeners – some of my favorite plants to attract birds and hummingbirds to your urban or patio garden. Fuchsia thymifolia or Fairy Fuchsia This is the fuchsia that makes me go starry-eyed with love. Blooming all year  long on the [...]

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Nectar Plants for the Hummingbirds to Enjoy

March 5, 2009

If you’ve been following my series on Planting to Attract Birds, you may already have a few plants in mind to attract hummingbirds to your garden. Who wouldn’t want to bring that energy and life into their garden? Even though I’m a landscaper and get to see hummingbirds every day, they never lose their magic [...]

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