What to Plant?

Coastal Gardening: Perennial Flowers for the Sea Coast

April 28, 2010 8 comments
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Recently I discussed some of the challenges people face when gardening in windy coastal  conditions, and some counter-intuitive tips for gardening on the sea coast. The biggest struggle is finding plants that will thrive and bloom even with all that wind and salt. Trial and error is a big part of gardening, but it’s nice [...]

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Callunas, Ericas, Daboecias, Oh My! Demystifying the Different Kinds of Heather

April 17, 2010 19 comments
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I first heard about the heather plant when I was 10, reading an old-fashioned British book about a group of children who escaped their abusive guardians and made a home together on a secret island. They built a willow house out of live willow stems, so their home grew lush and protected, and they used [...]

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Victoria, B.C.- Style Hanging Flower Baskets

March 17, 2010 8 comments
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The city of Victoria, British Columbia has the most decadent flower baskets hanging from the lamp posts in the shopping district all summer long. They’re bright, they’re cheerful, and most importantly, they guide tourists down the streets and show shoppers which areas they’re likely to find most interesting. How can you use this idea at [...]

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Podcast on Natives with Doug Tallamy

February 16, 2010 9 comments
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Douglas Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home, wants to change the way we landscape- radically. He’s a native plant buff and makes a scientific case for planting more natives in our gardens to preserve biodiversity. This five-part podcast (it’s only about 45 minutes long all put together) presented some game-changing info that’s making me really [...]

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Disease-Resistant Roses for Damp Coastal Climates

January 19, 2010 7 comments
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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 7 comments
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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 4 comments
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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 10 comments
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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 7 comments
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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 7 comments
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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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