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
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
Midsummer Maintenance Tips for Perennial Gardens
Part of what makes public gardens like Sissinghurst, Kew or Longwood so impressive, is how well the plants are tended during the growing season. Keeping a perennial garden looking good from May to September is about more than good design and smart plantRead 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.
Spring Garden Checklist for a Low Maintenance Flower Garden
Boost your garden’s beauty and reduce on-going maintenance with a bit of early season care. This spring garden checklist will help you focus on what matters most. Recently I met a horticulturist who practices “cocktail gardening.” She learned the techniqueRead More
Attract Butterflies to Your Garden with Liatris
Would you like to see more butterflies fluttering through your garden this summer? Based on what we’ve seen in our New Jersey trial gardens, it’s very easy to do — just plant some liatris! Last summer we planted several hundredRead More
New Dahlias and a Sneak Peek at This Year’s Cutting Garden
I know January is only 31 days long, but this year it seemed to last forever. Thankfully that cold and dreary month is in the rear view window and I can start looking ahead to this year’s cutting garden! As usual, I’m reserving about 80% of the space for dahlias. TheRead More
Midsummer Update from Our Trial Garden
For Longfield Gardens, home is the Garden State: New Jersey. Our offices and warehouse are located in the eastern part of the state, less than 10 miles from the ocean. About 5 years ago, we put in a ¾ acre trial garden out back,Read More
Planting Tuberous Begonias: Which End Is Up?
Begonias were named the National Garden Bureau’s 2016 annual of the year. This family of heat-loving and mostly shade-loving plants, includes rex begonias, wax begonias, Begonia boliviensis (‘Bonfire’) and our favorite — tuberous begonias. A single begonia plant can produce an astonishing number of flowers. With tuberousRead More
How to Plan for a More Colorful Flower Garden
Like most flowers gardens, yours probably looks its best in June. That’s peak bloom time for classics like peonies, bearded iris, Asiatic lilies, clematis, campanulas, baptisia and delphiniums. As summer progresses, we all struggle to maintain that same intensity of flower power. Continuous color is whatRead More
