Dahlias: Why You Can’t Always Get What You Want
January and February are the peak selling season for dahlias. It’s still months before we start shipping tubers, but dahlia lovers are always eager to reserve their favorites. They know from experience that the only way to make sure you get the varieties you want is to order them early. ThereRead More
Acidanthera: Fragrant Flowers for Late Summer
Acidanthera is a lovely, summer-blooming bulb that deserves a place in every flower garden. Curiously, very few gardeners seem to know about it. Being burdened with an unappealing name doesn’t help. Just ask plants like chionodoxa, crocosmia and lisianthus! And to makeRead More
Late Summer Flower Bulbs Hit Their Stride
August is an exciting time in our trial garden. There’s something new to admire every single day. This month the stars of the show are summer bulbs, and in particular, cannas and dahlias. Here’s a quick peek at what we’reRead More
Love Hummingbirds? Grow Some Crocosmia!
Hummingbirds have a weakness for red flowers. So even though it’s not MY favorite color, I always try to have a few red flowers in the garden — just for the hummingbirds. Some years it’s salvias and hibiscus. Others it’s fuschias or geraniums. Always there’s CrocosmiaRead More
A Midsummer Tour of Our Trial Garden
August is just a couple days away, and in our New Jersey trial garden the heat is definitely ON! We are located in the eastern part of the state about 10 miles from the ocean and summertime temperatures are typically in the 90’s. This 3/4 acre garden,Read More
How to Grow Dahlias in a Cutting Garden
It’s midsummer and the dahlias are coming on strong. This year, my cutting garden is filled with 70 of these solar-powered flower-producing machines. Hopefully this is the peak of my dahlia obsession and I’ll be able to scale back next year. (Yeah,Read More
8 Tips for Growing Better Lilies
Lilies have an elegance few other flowers can rival. With such big, exotic-looking blossoms, it seems like they’d be tricky to grow. But they’re not! Here are eight tips for growing lilies that will help you succeed with these gorgeous summer-blooming flowerRead More
5 Tips for a More Bee-Friendly Flower Garden
Many years ago, I had a neighbor who was a beekeeper. We used to joke about him giving me a discount on honey, because I was sure his bees spent most of their time in my flower garden. I didn’t realize how trueRead More
8 Tips for Growing Better Dahlias
Dahlia fever is running wild through the gardening world and there’s no sign of it stopping anytime soon. If you have caught the dahlia bug, here are eight tips for growing bigger, better flowers this summer.
High Impact Container Gardens
If I were hiring a garden designer to plant the containers around my front door, I’d expect to get something pretty special. Big, dramatic plants in unique and surprising combinations. Container gardens that get talked about and that look fabulous everyRead More
