Shade Gardening
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Until April 11
Major changes are being proposed that will affect all plant lovers. Find out what they are and how you can make a difference.
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Plant Exchange
Q: What's more fun than sharing plants with another gardener?
A: Sharing with a whole group of gardners at a Plant Exchange.
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Corydalis
Corydalis. Some you love; some you hate and some will always be an unrequited lust if your climate doesn't suit them.
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Battling Bambi
It's difficult for the gardener to appreciate the finer qualities of Bambi while watching one knee-deep in a flower bed, munching away on precious plants. Success and failure in the battle with Bambi, including plants that my herd has not eaten.
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Spring Peepers
November is an odd time of year to talk about spring peepers, but given that this has been the year of the peeper around this house, they're on my mind.
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Variegation on the Green Theme - Part One
There's nothing wrong with green. Green, from spring's acid awakening to late summer's dusky hue, is the color of life on this planet. But, green, like life, can use a little spice. Variegated foliage is spice for the shady garden, where flowers are few in mid-summer.
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Wild, Wonderful Aroids - Part 5 - Pinellia
Compared to their close cousins, Arisaema, the genus Pinellia "don't get no respect". This is unfair. While most of them aren't as exotic as many Arisaema, they add their own charm to the shady garden.
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Wild, Wonderful Aroids: Part 4 - Arisaema
A gardener's love affair with a plant, or genus of plants, is very like that between humans. A first glance can be love at first sight, or a mild interest grows into admiration then fascination; obsession, culminating in long-lasting true love.
My relationship with the genus Arisaema has followed the latter course.
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Wild, Wonderful Aroids
Aroids! I've loved some for years, but have recently discovered more and passion is taking over. This diverse family, Araceae, which contains over three thousand species in about a hundred genera of mostly tropical and sub-tropical new-world plants, ranges from aquatics to vines. It is probably already represented in your house or garden - and you might not even know it!
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Planting Basics
Planting is a no-brainer...right? Wrong! One of the easiest ways to waste money is to buy a plant, dig a hole in what passes for soil in your yard and plop it in.Some plants will survive this, but a great many will depart to that great compost heap in the sky.
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Planting Basics: Soil
The first thing; the most basic thing about planting anything is what it's being planted in. The soil.
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Online Nurseries 2002 - WorldPlants.com
World Plants.com is aptly named. Their plant list includes unusual plants from around the world. As if that weren't enough, their site offers much more than a marvelous list of plants.
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Online Nurseries 2002 - Garden Vision
In January, Darrell Probst, owner of Garden Vision Nursery, spoke at the North American Rock Garden Society's Eastern Winter Study Weekend. It was my very great pleasure to be part of that audience and learn about the Epimediums he has discovered on his trips to China, Japan and South Korea. It is also my very great pleasure to feature his nursery as the first of my 2002 Online Nursery series.
I have so many images to share with you, that I will break this article into two sections so that each page has a chance of loading in your lifetime.
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Leaves - Shape Part 3
Leaves are the engines of life on this planet; their shapes, flat or round, smooth or rough, thick or feathery in infinite variation, create the form of our plants to our delight or despair. The answer to why there is such variation lies in the past, in the present and inside the leaves themselves.
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Leaves - Shape Part 2
When you stop to think about it, the variety in leaf shapes in the plant kingdom is rather astonishing. Why are there so many different leaf shapes in the first place? And, why do the leaves vary in shape on single species? The answers to these questions are both simple and extremely complex.
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Leaves - Shape Part 1
When autumn's high color is past, leaves rain down upon my garden, signaling weeks of raking and vacuuming to remove them from drive, paths and evergreen perennials. Shoveling leaves into a leaf vac by hand offers ample opportunity for close examination. It's also not exactly taxing mentally; the mind tends to wander. Mine started wandering down the path of wondering just why leaves take different shapes.
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Polygonum - Friends and Foes
This most fascinating and confusing genus of the buckwheat or dock family,Polygonaceae, contains marvelous garden-worthy plants and noxious weeds. There are lots of images, so please be patient while the page loads.
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Tropical Pleasures
Before frost's icy caress blackens their leaves, a handful of tender plants turn part of my garden into a tropical paradise.
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A Gardener's Lessons
The education of a gardener is a life-long endeavor. For some of us, lessons are learned to be forgotten and relearned when we repeat the same durn mistakes over and over again.
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Plant Descriptions - Actuality
We gardeners are always looking for something new for our gardens. "New" means we haven't grown the plant before and if we haven't seen it in another garden, we have to rely on plant descriptions written by authors or nurseries to sort out just what a particular plant is like and whether it is what we want
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Symphytum
There are about twenty accepted species of Symphytum, of which about ten or so and numerous named cultivars are grown in gardens.
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Invasive! ... ?
Exotic. Invasive. Native. Three descriptive adjectives seen more and more these days in gardening books and posts to email lists.
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Plants for the Damp Garden - Lobelia
Some of the many species of Lobelia are truly candidates for the damp garden since they are native to wet meadows and damp ditches over much of North America.
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Plants For The Damp Garden - Primulas
While there is a growing assortment of plants in my damp garden bed, the primary objective in building this garden was to find a suitable home for my beloved and beleaguered candelabra primroses. I have lots of photos for you, so please be patient while the page loads.
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Building A Damp Garden
If you sink up to your knees when you go into your garden, you won't understand the longing for plants who like it wet that festers in the hearts of those who garden on dry ground. Share my trials and triumphs as I build my damp garden.
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Online Nurseries 2001 - Variegated Foliage Nursery
Stan Megos' Variegated Foliage Nursery, in Eastford, Connecticut, fosters the same type of uncontrollable greed in the heart of a variegated plant nut as a candy store does in the heart of a child. I have lots of plants to show you, so please be patient while the page loads.
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Online Nurseries 2001 - Avant Gardens
Avant Gardens focus on growing unusual plants ranging from alpines through perennials to woody plants. They also have a marvelous selection of annuals and tender perennials, perfect for creating the lush, tropical look so popular today. There are lots of photos, so please be patient while the page loads for you.
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'Quicksilver', a Heucherella for Dry Shade
What's a perfect plant for dry shade? Martha Oliver, guest author and co-owner of The Primrose Path Nursery, tells about Heucherella 'Quicksilver' and several companion plants for your garden.
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Online Nurseries 2001 - Completely Clematis Specialty Nursery
Clematis, the Queen of Vines, has been cultivated for many centuries in Japan and since the sixteenth century in Europe. While not strictly "shade" plants, and certainly not for that dank corner under the hemlock, many grow quite well and flower in some degree of shade. Completely Clematis Specialty Nursery has one that will suit your garden.
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Online Nurseries 2001 - Weird Dude's Plant Zoo
Weird Dude's Plant Zoo has a truly eclectic mix of plants, ranging from alpines to tropicals. There's something for most every climate, but a particular emphasis on unusual plants and plants for warmer areas. Their list is full of plants I haven't bumped into before...as well as many I know of and want to grow. Lots of pix, so please be patient while the page loads for you.
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Clearing Woods - Ferns and Other Forbs - Part 2
At ground level in my USDA zone 7 woodland, live the forbs. I started clearing in July, so any early spring residents may well have retired underground by then. Those visible were, with one exception, exotic rampant weeds.
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Clearing Woods - Ferns and Other Forbs - Part 1
The woodland floor is a secret place. Plants, often unnoticed in the profusion of greenery, go about their business quietly. Until you literally crawl a woodland floor, you never know just what plants are part of the jumble.
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Clearing Woods - Shrubs Part 5 - Brambles Part 2
Blackberry, raspberry, black raspberry. What's the difference? The names seem to be used with abandon to describe plants with fruit ranging from red to black. I'd always thought that raspberries had red fruit and blackberries had black fruit and that was that. But, this isn't actually the case.
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Clearing Woods - Shrubs - Part 2 - Rose
Who does not love the rose? For thousands of years, roses have been entwined with humankind, permeating song, myth and story. I love roses as well as the next gardener, but the second most numerous shrub in the understory of my USDA zone 7 woodland leaves me with very mixed emotions.
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Clearing Woods - Shrubs - Part 1 - Spicebush
Most woodlands have an understory of smaller trees and shrubs. Mine is no exception, but the palette is rather limited, I find. There are a goodly number of images, so please be patient while the page loads.
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Clearing Woods - Vines - Part 2
Like many woodlands in the eastern US, mine is full of vines. Vines connect the undergrowth in an impenetrable web of living steel and drape tree crowns in a smothering curtain that has caused many a tree to topple. The worst offenders in my woods are native vines; only one is a foreign escapee.
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Clearing Woods ...Observations - Part 1
When you spend every daylight hour possible for the better part of three months clearing and grubbing (crawling, actually) through the woods, you get to know your woodland on an intimate level.
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Deciduous Flowering Shrubs - Part 8 - Viburnum
Most viburnums have simple, oval or elliptical leaves with fine teeth on the edges. Three species have much different leaves. Two of them are quite similar, except for one odd difference.
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Deciduous Flowering Shrubs - Part 6
There are many species of Hydrangea for our shady gardens. Hydrangea quercifolia is one that I have and love; H. paniculata is one that I want. If you have access to hydrangeas - yours or someone else's - it's easy to propagate them by cuttings...I'll tell you how to do this.
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Deciduous Flowering Shrubs - Part 5
When shady gardens are in the summer doldrums, hydrangeas come to the rescue. They are the perfect shrub for shady gardens with two species particularly suited to gardens in cold climates . One of these, Hydrangea arborescens, is featured in this second part of the series on Hydrangeas which includes how and when to prune which hydrangeas.
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Deciduous Flowering Shrubs - Part 4, page two continuation
Hydrangeas are some of the most sumptuous summer-flowering shrubs for our shady gardens. These faithful summer bloomers are regaining the popularity they somehow lost for a time. And rightfully so. We'll look at several species in depth and since there are a lot of photographs, this series is also broken into two pages for each part, so they will have a chance of loading in your life time.
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Deciduous Flowering Shrubs - Part 4
Hydrangeas are some of the most sumptuous summer-flowering shrubs for our shady gardens. These faithful summer bloomers are regaining the popularity they somehow lost for a time. And rightfully so. We'll look at several species in depth and since there are a lot of photographs, this two part series is also broken into two pages for each part, so they will have a chance of loading in your life time.
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Deciduous Flowering Shrubs - Part 3
Old-fashioned plants are survivors. In most cases, they're the plants who require very little from the gardener to keep on growing, thriving and blooming. It's for the very features that are denigrated by the plant snob set that I value some of the old-fashioned plants I grow, among them is Weigela.
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Flowering Deciduous Shrubs - Part 2
Some authors rather look down on the easy, work-horse shrubs as not being of sufficient interest year around to warrant a place in the "proper" garden. However, my personal opinion is that, having the space, one should not ignore plants who are tough, tolerant, easy to grow and provide lovely flowers in season. Spirea are among these easy shrubs for sun or shade. There are lots of pix, so please be patient while the page loads for you.
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Deciduous Flowering Shrubs - Part 1
Woody plants are the backbone of a garden - the bones - providing form the year around. While evergreens make a strong winter statement and can create a glorious show of flowers in their season, deciduous shrubs are not to be overlooked - especially if they provide flowers, too.
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Early Weeds - Part 3
As gardeners, we spend more time handling weeds than we do the plants we grow on purpose. One of the reasons plants are considered "weeds" is that they are incredibly successful at the task of survival. Here are some more weeds that survive all too well in my USDA zone 7 garden. There are lots of pix, so please be patient while the page loads.
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Early Weeds, Part 2
When is a weed a weed and when is it a wildflower? I guess, like beauty, it's all in the eye of the beholder. Beware, nonetheless, before you encourage the aggressive little beauties...you may rue the day as I have done in my USDA zone 7 garden.
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Early Weeds
Part of gardening is dealing with "weeds". A weed, by definition is "a plant growing where it is not wanted". However, there are certain plants that few want to have around. In my USDA zone 7 Maryland garden, I consider some of these bad guys "early" or cool season weeds. Maybe you have some of these, too.
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Online Nurseries 2000 - Crownsville Nursery - Bridgewood Gardens
The last nursery in the spring 2000 series is two nurseries in one. The Crownsville Nursery has been growing great plants since 1979 when they started as a local garden center. Bridgewood Gardens is their retail outlet and their online Hosta heaven. There are so many plants to tell you about, as well as both nurseries, that I've broken this into three parts so that the pages have a chance to load in your life-time.
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Online Nurseries 2000 - Roslyn Nursery
Roslyn Nursery has been supplying a vast range of plants to gardeners for quite a number of years. Their catalog (and web site) list over 2,000 plants, from rhododendrons, azaleas and camellias to conifers, shrubs, vines and perennials. My copy is full of markers and getting really dog-eared. There are so many plants I want! I've got quite a few images, so please be patient while the page loads.
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Online Nurseries 2000 - Woodside Gardens, continued
Continuation of article about Woodside Gardens,a small, family operated nursery with a lovely list of plants. Browsing their web site was like being six years old in a candy store. My eyes were bigger than the space available to tell you about all the plants I lust for. I had a very tough time narrowing down selections to what still turned out a pretty substantial list. There are a lot of photos, so please be patient while the page loads for your viewing pleasure.
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Online Nurseries 2000 - Woodside Gardens
Woodside Gardens is a small, family operated nursery with a lovely list of plants. Browsing their web site was like being six years old in a candy store. My eyes were bigger than the space available to tell you about all the plants I lust for. I had a very tough time narrowing down selections to what still turned out a pretty substantial list. There are a lot of photos, so please be patient while the page loads for your viewing pleasure.
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Online Nurseries 2000 - Specialty Perennials
Specialty Perennials is a small nursery with a wide range of plants for our gardens. Their list of plants will be especially suited for you northern gardeners. Of course, most will do well in warmer climates, too.
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Online Nurseries 2000 - Foliage Gardens
It's that time of year again! Time to tell you about more mailorder nurseries who are online with marvelous plants to feed our gardener's lust. Foliage Gardens is a nursery that all shade gardeners should know about. There are lots of lovely images, so please be patient while the page loads for you.
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Where in the World - Plant Provenance
Hardiness zones are only a rough indication of whether a plant will do well in our gardens. If we really want to have a good idea about a plant's suitability for our conditions, we have to know its provenance, or where in the world it calls home.
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What's in a Name? Taxonomy
Plant names can be frustrating, especially the scientific names (botanical epithets or binomials) and especially when those change once you've finally gotten them to stick in your brain. Why are they important? Where did they come from? And, why do they change all the time? Join me on a journey of discovery.
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Acclimation - Why Did My Plant Die? Redux
Plants die for myriad reasons. Winter injuries, of various kinds, are high on the list. We can all understand why tender plants die when it gets too cold for them, but why do our supposedly hardy plants join the list of winter injuries and fatalities? Come with me on a visit to the secret life of plants to find out...
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Garden Time
Time whizzes by; as anyone over forty can testify. But garden time isn't quite the same as people time. As the year and the century come to an end, time (and the passage thereof) has been on my mind.
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Holiday Decorations From The Garden
December is the holiday month. No matter which ones you celebrate, decorations of some sort are likely the order of the day. Using Nature's bounty is easy, I've been doing it for years. I've lots of images to share, so please be patient while the page loads for you.
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Subtle Pleasures - Bark
All woody plants have bark, but it's not something most gardeners think about much until after autumn leaf fall when form and bark become prominent. If the enchantments of bark have eluded you, come along with me on a little tour of only a handful of the many species and cultivars of woody plants whose extraordinary bark enriches our gardens.
This is rather a photo essay, so please be patient should the page load slowly for you.
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Subtle Pleasures - Autumn
Despite the brief glory of flaming leaves, autumn is really a subtle season. Flowers change to seedheads, pods and berries. Sometimes these are brilliantly colored but in many plants, these final gifts of the season are tinted with elusive hues only seen on close inspection. There are lots of images, so please be patient while the page loads for you.
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Autumn Crescendo
The music of autumn is played in a different key than that of spring. Although both begin softly and build to a crescendo, spring's song is sweet and high, while autumn's is a more complex ballad, changing key and rhythm as the music builds. Autumn includes the mellow minor keys, totally absent in spring, as well as a touch of melancholy among the brassy highs. It's a subtle season and spring is not. Spring's changes burst upon us; autumn's are wrought more slowly as our plants descend into winter's sleep.
Lot's of images, so please be patient while the page loads for you.
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Vines Part 6 - More Ivy Plus
Ivy is an remarkably variable plant. Leaf size, shape and coloration differ tremendously among cultivars, most of which have been found as mutations rather than having been bred on purpose. Not only do cultivars vary, individual plants, depending on their level of maturity, can have leaves that bear almost no resemblance to others growing a few inches away. There are also other vines I grow or want to grow plus a lot of photos and images in this article, so please be patient while it loads.
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Vines - Part 5 - Ivy
A lot of plants are called "ivy", but only those belonging to the genus Hedera are really ivy. Most of us know ivy as a rather rampant and somewhat boring evergreen ground or building cover, but once you discover the shapes, forms and colors of ivy, be warned, it can become addictive. As a vine for shade, it is unsurpassed. I have lots of photos for you, so the page may be slow to load.
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Vines - Part 4
I grow several vines on purpose and a few unwelcome ones bestowed by Mother Nature. One species starts out very shrub-like, another twines, some are annuals. Some thrive and bloom in shade and some will grow but not flower. There are also vines in my past and some that I hope will be in my future. My garden would be incomplete without the soft high notes of vines.
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Vines - Part 3 - Clematis
Vines are amazing plants. With their ability to either climb vertically or spread horizontally, they enable us to create many-layered interest in our gardens. If you've avoided using vines because you think they can get out of hand and become weedy pests, think again. While this is true of some, it's also true of many garden-worthy plants that none of us would be without. With some exceptions, weediness is not a characteristic of Clematis, the Queen of the twining vines.
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Vines - Part 2
Vines come in all sorts of types, sizes and vigor. There are annual vines that you plant each year from seed and woody vines, some of whom make a statement all year around. Some vines have Attila The Hun tendencies and will take over the world (or at least your patch of it) if not watched and some require no end of coaxing to keep alive and flourishing. Some vines do very well in shade; some require sun to thrive and some will grow in shade, but not flower well. The variety is almost endless; here are a few more that you may know and grow or that may tempt you.
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Vines - Part 1
Curling, twining, clinging or snaking along the ground, vines of one kind or another play a big part in my garden. Vines provide shade; they also grow in various degrees of shade. Vines are especially valuable for gardens where space is tight, since they occupy little ground when grown vertically. Vines vary from annuals, planted from seed each year to woody plants providing interesting structure the year around.
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Hot, Hot, Hot Garden
Is it hot enough for you, yet? It certainly is for me! Like my plants, I droop when the temperatures soar. Gardening tasks are done in slow motion, if done at all...plenty of time to contemplate the weather and its effect on plants and the gardener.
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Heuchera - Fantastical Foliage
In the last few years, we foliage nuts with shady gardens have been blessed by plant breeders, such as Dan Heims of Terra Nova Nurseries, who have given us the marvelous new foliage Heuchera to play with. I've started a modest collection to share with you, and lust for more. There are lots of images, so please be patient while the page loads for you.
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Hardy Euphorbias - Part 2
There's a hardy Euphorbia for just about every garden and every garden situation, from dry and sunny with sharp drainage to cool, shady places. There's even at least one that prefers damp soil. They range from short, sprawling plants to shrub substitutes reaching several feet tall and wide. Many are evergreen, lighting up the garden even in winter. There are lots of photos, so please be patient while the page loads for you.
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Hardy Euphorbias - Part 1
Hardy Euphorbia are one of my loves in the plant world. The foliage, form and flowers are all soul satisfying. As Dan Hinkley of Heronswood Nursery said, "you can't have too many euphorbs". In this two part series, I'll tell you about the ones that I grow, have grown and some I want to grow. Plus, I'll tell you which nurseries online list which plants. There are a lot of photos, so please be patient while the page loads for you...
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Building A Raised Bed Garden
Gardening is a never ending series of "projects" - that's part of the fun; planning and scheming about what we are going to do. Some of them are small and get done fairly quickly and others take a bit more time. Some of mine have been going on for years and still aren't finished. My raised bed garden is one of these. It's been a "work in progress" for nearly ten years.
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Raised Beds
If you haven't used some type of raised bed in your garden, you really should consider doing so. I've got several various and assorted kinds of raised beds. When I used to grow vegetables, my vegetable garden consisted of a series of raised beds. This type of bed is good for sun or shade; open space or woodland gardens.
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Spring - Beauty and Beast - Part 2 - Beast
Spring's beauty ripens as the days lengthen and the sun strengthens. But, as there are two sides to every coin, so there are two sides to Spring. The Yin and Yang of Spring, so to speak. If the Yin is the beauty, the Yang is the beast.
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Spring - Beauty and Beast - Part 1, Beauty
Spring is my favorite time of year - no question about it - but it's also the most frenzied time of year in my USDA zone 7 garden. Especially in years like this, when the weather doesn't let me get that much needed head start on cleaning up winter's debris. In my garden, spring is beautiful, but it's also a beast in many ways.
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Hellebores - Part 4
This week, I've got a special treat for you. Graham Birkin, a hellebore breeder in the UK, has lent me slides of some of his plants to share with you. There are a lot of them, and I've made some a bit larger than usual, so please be patient while they load.
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Hellebores - Part 3
Of all the hellebores found in gardens, various hybrids of the Lenten Rose probably constitute the majority. Many have bought plants in this group under the name of Helleborus orientalis. The true species is seldom found in gardens.
There are lots of photos, so please be patient while they load for you.
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Hellebores - Part 2
Hellebore fever is relatively recent for me. Not that I haven't enjoyed those I've had for many years - I just hadn't crossed that threshold from liking them to being a bit nuts about them. It's an easy leap to make, these are such marvelous plants. Most of them are so easy to grow and burnish our gardens in the dreary days before Spring truly arrives.
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Hellebores - Part 1
For years, I had one hellebore; then I grew another from seed. I liked them, but it was not a passion. Recently, however, I've gotten well and truly hooked on hellebores. These are marvelous plants for shady gardens. I've got a lot of images, so please be patient while they load for you.
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Growing From Seed
Most real seedaholics have pretty much finished sowing perennial and woody plant seeds until late summer begins the process again. However, I'm always off sinc. I tend to do things when I have the time, not when I'm "supposed" to. As seed is on my mind, I thought some of you may be wondering how to go about growing plants this way. It's a great way to have large numbers of the same plant for making swathes and drifts or sharing with friends. It's also about the only way you can actually get your hands on some plants; those that are rare or slow and are not to be found in nursery catalogs
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Mailorder Nurseries Online and Off, Part 10, The Primrose Path
The Primrose Path in Scottdale, PA, is another nursery that all of us who garden in shade need to know about. They've been providing gardeners with "shade plants for every need, from difficult dry spots to moist swales, as well as a selection of many plants for sun and intermediate situations" since 1985. They've got a lot of plants I want and I know you will, too. There are lots of photos, so please be patient while they load.
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Mailorder Nurseries Online and Off, Part 9, WE-DU Nurseries
WE-DU Nurseries in Marion, NC, has been sending plants to gardeners for eighteen years. If you haven't discovered the lovely list of nursery propagated natives, rare bulbs, bog plants, perennials and woody plants, let me tell you about some of them. (There are lots of photos, so please be patient while they load).
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Mailorder Nurseries Online and Off, Part 8, Potpourri
There are so many resources for us, both online and off - so many nurseries just waiting to stir, and then satisfy, our plant lust. This week, I've got several to tell you about; some you may know and some you may never have heard of.
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Mailorder Nurseries Online and Off - 7, Underwood Shade Nursery
This week, I want to tell you about a small nursery especially for all of us who garden in shade. It's not online, yet, but Russ Bragg, co-owner with his wife, Connie Wick, of Underwood Shade Nursery in Massachusetts, tells me that a web site is in the planning stages.
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Mailorder Nurseries Online and Off,Part 6, Forestfarm Nursery
Over the years, I've ordered from a lot of nurseries. Some of them were disappointing, but not Forestfarm. It has been one of my favorites since I discovered it somewhere in the 1980's. I am so totally delighted that they've finally come online. This is a nursery you simply have got to know about. There are a lot of photos, so please be patient while they load.
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Mailorder Nurseries Online and Off, Part 4 -Naylor Creek Nursery
Before the net, if you ran across a new mailorder nursery that sounded interesting, there were only two ways to find out if they were worth ordering from. Either one of your gardening buddies had experience with them or you just took a chance and sent in your order. Not any more - at least for those of us who garden on and off line. A post on an email list led me to Naylor Creek Nursery. I knew I had to share this one with you all. Anybody with a shady garden has got to see this list! Warning! There are lots of photos, so please be patient if they're slow to load for you
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Mailorder Nurseries Online and Off - Seneca Hill Perennials
There is a whole world of small, specialty nurseries out there who not only grow their own, they grow truly unusual and hard to find plants. Slowly, many of these nurseries are coming online, to the great good fortune of all of us greedy gardeners. Seneca Hill Perennials in Oswego, New York, is one such nursery. Owner Ellen Hornig grows what she fancies and has fun doing it. It just so happens that what Ellen fancies takes my fancy, too. This is another list of plants that brings greed to the fore. Let me tell you about some of them. Warning! Lots of photos in this article, so it may load slowly for you. Please be patient, I think you'll find them worth the wait.
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Mailorder Nurseries Online and Off, Part 2 - Munchkin Nursery
We web gardeners not only have access to plants and goodies, we can get to know the people who operate the nurseries, too. If any of you subscribe to the Gardens-L, Shadegardens, or Perennials email lists (to name a few) you probably feel like you already know Gene Bush, owner of Munchkin Nursery in Depauw, Indiana. If you haven't had the pleasure, find out about Gene, his nursery and some of the plants he has for your shady garden.
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Mailorder Nurseries Online and Off, Part 1 - Plant Delights
It's that time of year again. The time when the bleakness outside our windows is transformed, in our mind's eye, by the luscious photographs of plants and mouth watering descriptions in the mailorder nursery catalogs arriving at our doors. This is a perilous time for the confirmed plantaholic, when greed and lust war with whatever common sense we can muster as we mark plants we just simply must have for our gardens. Plant Delights is one of my favorites, let me tell you about it.
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Galanthus - The First Sign That Spring Will Come
The wind may howl (as it's doing as I write this), sleet may fall and ice and snow cover all, but Spring Will Come. The first sign that the season has turned in my USDA zone 7 garden is my patch of snowdrops (Galanthus).
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Form in the Garden - Part 2
Last week, I used the simple shapes in the title graphic to illustrate massing based the "magic triangle" concept. Playing with these shapes will help you develop good bones for your garden. But, what plants can be used to make these shapes in the garden? A simple answer is that many will. You aren't limited to evergreens, although they are in my mind since it is winter in my USDA zone 7 garden.
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Form in the Garden
For those of us in the northern hemisphere, winter is the perfect time to take a really good, dispassionate look at our gardens. What we see may not thrill us. With no flowers to distract us and all the deciduous trees and shrubs bare, it's rather like looking at a black and white photograph. Some of my first articles focused on the "bare bones" of the garden, but that was nearly two years ago and I think it's time to revisit this topic from a slightly different perspective.
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Essential Identity
I don't know about you, but I'm a mystery fiction fan. Nothing (except a new plant or seed catalog) is more soul comforting to curl up with, on a dreary winter day, than a good who dunnit.
Whether you actually like mystery fiction or not, you embark on solving mysteries as soon as you fall in love with gardening. The biggest continuing mystery in gardening is identity. I've been musing on this recently.
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Late Color - Part 3
Subtle variations in tone and tint add a richness to the sepia of our November gardens and conclude this series on Late Color.
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Late Color - Part 2
Last week, I shared some late color from my USDA zone 7 garden in the green and yellow range; this week, we'll blaze out! Get out your sunglasses and enjoy the color. Warning! Lots of images - may load slowly for you.
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Late Color
As November wends it's way into December, bleak becomes the adjective to describe the landscape for gardeners in the northern hemisphere. This week, I have some eyecandy to stave off color starvation for winter frustrated gardeners. Warning - this one is photo intensive and may be slow to load for you.
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Wintering Plants in Pots - Part 2
Cold frames of some sort are an indispensable part of gardening once you get into propagation of any kind. This week, I'll tell you about some of the kinds of frames I've used to protect my hardy potted plants over the winter.
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Wintering Plants in Pots
I don't know about you, but I keep a lot of plants in pots. I'm not just talking about houseplants or seasonal annuals, but plants that would be hardy in my USDA zone 7 garden - if they were in the ground. This week, I'll tell you how I've wintered plants in pots.
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Planting Under Trees - Part 10
Some plants who are happy and some who are not, growing under an oak (Quercus>) and four dogwoods (Cornus florida) in my USDA zone 7 garden.
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Planting Under Trees - Part 5
For those of you just joining this series, it's about planting in that inhospitable soil directly under mature deciduous trees. In previous parts of the series, I've shared my methods of dealing with the soil and some tough no-coddling groundcovers that do well in these conditions.This week, we'll look at a few more plants that I have found, over the years, will tolerate the rooty conditions under these trees - with a bit of extra TLC and water.
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Planting Under Trees - Part 4
Last week, in this series devoted to planting in that inhospitable environment under mature deciduous trees, I talked about some tough groundcovers that grow well with little effort on your part. But, what if you want more than that? In parts of my USDA zone 7 garden, I wanted more, too. This week I'll tell you about one of my mixed borders. There are several photos, so please be patient while they load
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Planting Under Trees - Part 1
Most of the shade in my USDA zone 7 garden, and I daresay most in your garden, is cast by mature trees. Planting directly under these trees - around their bases - is the greatest shade gardening challenge.
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Wildlife and Gardens - Part 6
If you want to attract wildlife to your garden, you need to consider plants that will provide food for the critters the year around. You need to use plants that are appropriate for your garden and where you are in the world.
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Wildlife and Gardens - Part 1
Spring is a time of garden crawling as winter's debris are removed and early weeds given a swift pull. Garden crawling brings the gardener's eye right down to plant and earth level so it's easy to observe the activity of normally invisible residents as they go about their business of turning plant debris into humus.
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Ornamental Grasses for Shade - Variegated Bulbous Oat Grass
Variegated Bulbous Oat Grass (Arrhenatherum elatius var. bulbosum 'Variegatum') is a new kid on the block in my USDA zone 7 garden. I just planted it late last season, so it hasn't bloomed yet for me. So far I really like it and hope it fulfills its reputation and starts spreading.
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Ornamental Grasses for Shade - Bamboo
Yes, bamboo is a grass. Like all true grasses, it's a member of the Poaceae family. There are over seventy genera and between seven hundred and a thousand species of this most versatile of grasses.
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Online Nurseries - Part 1
More and more mailorder nurseries are coming online. This is great for us because we can at least see what they have to offer, even if we can't buy it online -- and we can on several of them. Just who is out there on the wild world web? It's hard to find out because most of the nursery sites are not well indexed by the major search engines. I've surfed a lot of them; some with an excellent web presence, some mediocre and some that shouldn't be taking up the band width. This series reviews some of the best and the worst.
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Why Did My Plant Die?
The refrain from Geoffery B. Charlesworth's delightful poem "Why Did My Plant Die?" offers some answers to this gardener's lament...but there are also other reasons.
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Foliage: The Living Palette - Part 3
As we dream of our gardens and what we want to do, we need to keep our aesthetic tools in mind. Foliage is one of the primary tools available to those of us who garden in shade. With it, we can weave a living tapestry. I've finally gotten a scanner and I've been playing with it. One of these days, I'll figure out the best way to use it. In the meantime, please bear with me if my page is slow to load.
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Foliage -- The Living Palette Part 2
As I write, an icy rain beats relentlessly on my sleeping USDA zone 7 garden. This makes it doubly pleasurable to turn my mind to the many nuances of foliage. Let's explore more facets of our living palette.
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Foliage - The Living Palette - Part 1
Plant foliage creates the form and texture of the garden. True, many plants also have stems and branches that contribute mightily to form and texture, but during the growing season, foliage is King.
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Perennial Foliage For Early Winter
The tree and shrub leaves have drifted over my borders and most perennials in my garden have retreated underground, or into tight rosettes, for the winter. Nevertheless, a jaunt around the garden found several perennials whose leaves are still very much in evidence; aiding the evergreen trees and shrubs in furnishing the early winter garden.
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Arum italicum 'Pictum'
When the weather is chilly, wet and dreary and leaves are covering the ground instead of tree branches, fresh foliage is hard to find. Arum italicum is just starting to hit it's stride.
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Putting the Garden to Bed for Winter
If the shade in your garden is provided by large trees,
then dealing with leaves is, no doubt, high on your list of "things to do" in putting your garden to bed for the winter.
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Harbingers of Fall Part VI: Cimicifuga
If there is such a creature as a "perfect plant", I think Cimicifuga simplex var simplex (originally sold to me with the invalid name of (C. ramosa 'Atropurpurea') is the one.
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Harbingers of Fall - Part V - Asters, Part 3
Right now, my garden is frothing with white flowers from the species asters that I grow. I only grow very few of the many that are really worthy of space in the garden. Here are a few more to add to the list of 'must haves'.
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Harbingers of Fall - Part I - Eupatorium
I don't know about you, but I tend to garden merrily along, somehow feeling that the gardening season will just go on and on until, one day, I look up and certain plants have come into bloom that always warn me that time is getting short. Fall is just around the corner. Eupatorium - Joe Pye Weed - is one of them.
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But, First ...
Despite what some "experts" would have you think, there is only one immutable gardening ‘Rule’. It may have other names in other places, but to me it is the "But, First" rule.
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Ferns For The Shade Garden - Part IV
More hardy ferns. I have two other members of the Polystichum family that are quite different from Christmas Fern and from each other plus Woodwardia, the netted chainfern.
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Ferns For The Shade Garden - Part I
No shady garden is complete without some of these most ancient of plants. Ferns are found all over the world in just about every type of climate and growing condition.
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Jacks And Relatives - Arisaema
Many of you are probably familiar with our native Jack-in-the-Pulpit (Arisaema triphyllum), but are you aware that there are many relatives from around the world, some of whom are incredibly exotic looking and most of whom are perfectly hardy in temperate gardens? Let me tell you about a few of them...you might just find a new plant love amongst them.
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Groundcovers - Self-Seeders
Most plants that set viable seed will seed around a bit if they are happy. Some plants can cover a fair amount of ground via self-sown seed.
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Covering Ground At A Trot
Some groundcovering plants that don’t exactly gallop. There pace is more of a steady trot. These are all very easy to control if they put themselves where you don’t want them. Better manners, but steadily increasing cover without any effort on your part.
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Even More Galloping Ground Covers
"The first year it sleeps, the next year it creeps and then it leaps." I may not have quoted this saying accurately, but it is exactly what ivy does when planted in the garden.
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Groundcovers for The New Woodland Garden
So many lovely perennials, biennials, bulbs and corms either tolerate or demand shade that I had no problem coming up with a list of more than 40 that would be suitable for this new garden.
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"The Wilderness": A New Garden From Wild Woods
Extending the garden into the ‘Wilderness' is a large project entailing major clearing to turn this weedy, rooty bit of ground into a proper garden and the fun of selecting new plants to take the place of Nature's weedy bits.
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Blocking the Gap : What To Do When The Woods Disappear
I’m facing a long term project in the garden, namely blocking the view of a tennis court that replaced the woods next door. I need something evergreen that grows fairly rapidly to at least 20 ‘ tall while remaining fairly narrow in diameter. Here's what I've found.
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Broad Leafed Evergreens - Kalmia
Kalmia, or Mountain Laurel, is one plant whose buds are just as neat and lovely as the open flowers. Sometimes the buds are a completely different color from the open flower, and since the flowers don’t open all at one time, the effect can be very lively. It is one of the most beautiful of native U.S. shrubs in flower.
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Broad Leafed Evergreens - Aucuba
If you need an evergreen shrub for that really dark shady spot, then Aucuba is the one for you.
Belonging to the same family as Dogwoods (Cornus), Cornaceae, but not resembling them in the least, are a small group of 3 to 7 species of evergreen shrubs native mostly to Japan.
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Broad Leafed Evergreens - Rhododendrons & Azaleas
If the Rhododendron is King of the broad-leafed evergreens, then the Azalea is Queen. While I do have something blooming all season, there is nothing like the concentrated flower-power of the "Rhodies" and Azaleas in May. Actually, both are Rhododendrons and members of the ericaceae family like heaths and heathers.
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Broad Leafed Evergreens - Pieris
One of my favorite broad-leafed evergreens, Pieris or often mistakenly called Andromeda, is perfect for the shady garden. A member of the Ericaceae and closely related to Rhododendrons, it thrives in the same kind of moist, organic, acid soil.
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Broad Leafed Evergreens - Hollies
Hollies (Ilex) belong to the family Aquifoliaceae. There are over 350 species native to North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, the Orient and Brazil. They range in size from dwarf shrubs to huge trees. Both evergreen and deciduous ones are readily available from local nurseries and by mail order. The evergreen varieties are the most useful as ‘bones’ for the garden. Many will also provide the added bonus of berries, which can be red or yellow.
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Broad Leafed Evergreens - Boxwood
The term ‘broad leafed’ doesn’t really mean large leaves. It just differentiates between needled evergreens and those with leaves. Boxwood (Buxus) has been associated with formal gardens for centuries.
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Living Walls - Borders & Hedges: Yews and Hemlocks
I guess you could call any dense planting a ‘living wall’, but I’m thinking more in terms of plantings made to enclose a space with a purpose in mind. This could be a border or hedge of evergreens or one of mixed evergreens and deciduous plants.
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Soil - Part I - Types of Soil
Soil is the material that covers the earth’s crust. It’s made up of minerals and organic matter in various combinations, plus liquid (water) and gas (oxygen). What type of soil you have is one of the first things you need to find out about your garden.
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Gardening In Shade - Introduction
Shade:. Shade can be cool, dappled, heavy, light, dank, dry and wet. It gives relief from summer’s unrelenting heat. Shade provides a home to some of the most beautiful of plants.
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