Tropicanna: Wow Plants for Your Summer Garden
If you want to add a big splash of color to your garden with a very small amount of effort, plant some cannas. Their bold foliage, impressive size and brilliant red, yellow and orange flowers always get noticed. Cannas look fantastic planted in perennial gardens and makeRead More
How to Use Pink in Your Flower Garden
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.Read More
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 get the varieties you want, is to order themRead 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
