Longfield Gardens Blog

It’s always such a long wait for spring’s first flowers. When they finally burst on the scene, the bounty of blooms combined with months of pent up flower energy is almost too much to handle! My favorite way to cope with this delightful moment of excess is to cut lots of stems and make lots of bouquets. Week after week, every room in my

Topics: Cut Flowers , Daffodils , Fall Planted Bulbs , How-To , Spring Blooming Bulbs , Tulips

If you love making fresh flower arrangements, planting a cutting garden is the best way to ensure you will always have lots of beautiful, homegrown flowers, ready for the picking. The purpose of a cutting garden is different from a regular flower garden. You don’t need to worry about design basics like style, flow, scale and symmetry. In a cutting garden,

Topics: Cut Flowers , How-To

Clematis have an important role to play in any flower garden. As they scramble up trellises, climb over arbors and thread themselves through other plants, these perennial vines weave a rich tapestry of color and texture. Read on for six tips that will help you be successful growing the “queen of climbers.” Do Your Research There are many wonderful clematis varieties to choose from,

Topics: How-To , Perennials

Orange is a color that’s not always easy to love — especially in a flower garden. It has a big personality and doesn’t seem motivated to blend in. This makes orange challenging to use well, but very exciting when you get it right. Orange is a color that’s fun and playful, happy and outgoing. Words such as warm, vibrant, lively and energetic are used to describe the

Topics: How-To , Inspiration

Gardeners often have a strong opinion about the color pink. In truth, it can be challenging to work with. Read on to learn why that’s true, and get some tips and techniques for using pink in your flower garden. Cultural biases are the first challenge to overcome. Pink is a color that’s often associated with sweets, babies, girls, cuteness, cotton candy and

Topics: Fall Planted Bulbs , How-To , Inspiration , Perennials , Spring Blooming Bulbs , Spring Planted Bulbs

Flower bulbs are incredibly forgiving. This fact is driven home to us every year when we start planting fall bulbs in our New Jersey trial garden. We always intend to get this project underway sooner, but have accepted the fact that for us, planting rarely happens before Thanksgiving.

Topics: Fall Planted Bulbs , How-To , Spring Blooming Bulbs

Raking leaves may not be your favorite thing to do on a beautiful fall day. But rather than thinking of it as a chore, think of it as harvesting! For gardeners, shredded leaves are the season’s most abundant – and most valuable crop.

Topics: How-To

Voles are cute little mouse-like rodents with long tails and big appetites. Unlike moles, which are carnivores, voles are strictly herbivores. They eat plant roots and tubers, mushrooms, berries, seeds and nuts, and the bark of shrubs and small trees. And, unfortunately, they have a special fondness for flower bulbs.

Topics: Fall Planted Bulbs , How-To , Spring Blooming Bulbs , Tulips

Wouldn’t it be fun to plant a LOT of tulips this fall? Maybe 200. Or why not 500? Enough to have your own spring cutting garden with a full range of flower styles and bloom times. To finally experience some of the varieties you have only seen in photographs. To inject a big shot of color

Topics: Cut Flowers , Fall Planted Bulbs , How-To , Spring Blooming Bulbs , Tulips

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 plant choices. It’s also about maintaining the plants so they always look their best.

Topics: How-To , Perennials , Summer Blooming Flowers