Articles written by Barbara M. Martin
Showing 1-100 of 136 Articles
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Descanso Gardens Visitor Guide
Tourists and local visitors alike will thrill to the flowers, plantings and natural areas at Descanso Gardens. Don't miss the blooming camellias, rosarium and lilacs!
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Garden Poetry and Quotes
Say it with flowers! Gardens have made the heart sing in poetry and verse, a natural inspiration since the beginning of time. Find your favorite gardening quotation here.
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Short Garden Quotes and Sayings
Words to garden by -- use these quotations and phrases to decorate your yard and garden with inspiration and fun, happiness and joy.
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Sensory Garden Design Tips
Increase the enjoyment of your garden by designing a better lay out to please all five senses -- touch, taste, smell, hearing and of course, sight!
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Garden Wedding Tips
An outside marriage ceremony in a garden setting surrounded by flowers is a romantic way for bride and groom to begin their life together. Don't stress over the flowers!
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Winter Flower Garden Indoors
Every winter gardeners crave blooms, color, flowers, green leaves and spring! Try raising some of these easy flowering plants inside.
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Flower Gardening Tools
The best basic tools gardeners need (or don't need) from tiller to pruner to spade and trowel. How to pick the right equipment for your essential flower gardening chores.
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Flowers Our Grandmothers Grew
Are you growing these lovely old time nostalgic flowers? Many terrific old roses, perennials, annuals, bulbs, and flowering vines have stood the test of time!
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Spring Flower Bulbs Grow too Soon
Spring bulbs sometimes grow too soon in spring or come up in the fall. Why they emerge now, what to do (and what not to do) when spring flower bulbs sprout extra early.
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How to Mulch the Flower Garden
Mulch is the flower gardener's number one tool, offering multiple benefits for your flowers and the soil all year long. Take advantage of this work saving secret weapon.
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Official Designated State Flowers
Each state in the United States of America has a formal flower. Some blooms are claimed by more than one place. Check this complete state by state listing.
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Flowers and Herbs for Halloween
Old fashioned cures, remedies, protections, amulets and charms from your herb and flower garden to make your Halloween trick or treat night a safe, relaxing experience.
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Protect Bulbs from Animal Damage
Ten simple ways to stop wild animals from digging, eating or stealing your newly planted tulips & crocus. Save your bulbs from hungry wildlife or destructive critters!
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Fall Flower Care after Frost
Fall is a busy time in the flower garden. Use this list of reminders and tips to keep up with your fall garden chores, prepare for winter and anticipate spring!
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How to Shop from a Garden Catalog
Buying plants and garden supplies by mail order from a catalog or web site is handy and can be educational but read flower plant and nursery catalogs carefully!
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How to Dig & Store Gladiolus Corms
Directions how to lift, divide, dig & save gladioluses for planting in your flower garden next year to increase and grow more of your favorite varieties or save money.
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Flowers Add Instant Curb Appeal
First impressions count! Curb appeal sells houses. Inexpensive pretty flowers in beds, border, pots and containers quickly fix up the street view appearance of your home
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Cottage Garden Annual Flowers
Cottage gardens should be filled with flowers all season long. Grow these pretty and popular annual flowers for masses of easy color in the cottage garden.
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Summer Flower Garden Weed Control
Whether you went on vacation and came home to weeds or you have been battling weeds in your garden all season, follow this guide to summer weed control now.
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The Frugal Flower Garden
Follow this simple how to guide to garden frugally and save money. Easy ways to grow beautiful flowers and stick to a limited budget.
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Flower Garden Summer Maintenance
A quick guide to flower care during the hot summer months -- and tips on how to enjoy your flower garden more, too.
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Red White and Blue Flowers
Use these tips and plant lists to select red, white and blue annual and perennial flowers to plant a traditional flower garden design with a patriotic theme this summer.
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Flowering Herbs for Flower Gardens
Many herbs have pretty flowers and should be grown in flower gardens. Many favorite flowers are also herbs. Do you grow these herbs in your flower garden?
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Cottage Garden Flowers
Learn how to combine favorite old fashioned flowers of all kinds to design your own colorful cottage garden filled with fragrant roses, lilacs, peonies and more.
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Shade Flower Garden Design Tips
Shaded flower gardens are a delight when done right. Learn how to design and plant a lovely shady flower bed to enjoy all season long. You'll have it made in the shade!
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Perennial Flowers All Season
Every perennial gardener wants a showy display of flowers all season from spring to fall. Here's how to get it. Follow this guide for your best perennial garden yet.
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Hanging Basket Tips
A hanging basket or pot of flowers is the perfect decoration for your porch or deck. Use this guide to grow your best looking hanging containers ever.
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Flowers for Butterflies
Flowers and butterflies (and caterpillars) go together. Plan your flower garden to attract butterflies and grow a magical butterfly habitat in your own back yard.
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Easy Care Perennials for Hot Sun
Every garden has a difficult hot sunny spot where most flowers fail. Plant some or all of these proven hardy perennial performers in your flower garden this summer.
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Problem Cats in the Garden
Problem cats can turn your garden into a litter box, ruin plantings, bring in disease, ticks or fleas. Try these humane ways to discourage and repel nuisance kitties.
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Top Five Flower Gardening Tips
Grow your best flower garden yet with these super tips on plant selection, soil preparation, watering, mulch, fertilizing and care for annual and perennial flowers.
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Garden Edging and Borders
Your landscape and flower garden look neat and professional with the right edging to border the flower beds. There are many choices. Which border edging is best?
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Five Fun Flowers for Kids Garden
Children's gardening or gardening with children is more popular every year. Get ideas for a child's garden and what to grow with your kids. Have fun gardening together!
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Staking Flowers
Many perennial flowers should be staked. Learn the best techniques and methods to use in your flower garden and when and why to stake your flowers.
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Staking Perennial Flowers
Top heavy floppy perennials need staking. Learn ways to stake flowers such as peonies, lilies, delphiniums or gladiolus to hold them safely upright in the flower garden.
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Shady Flower Garden Design Tips
Follow these practical design tips and planning advice to plant a flower garden in part or full shade.
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Flowers for Shade or Part Shade
Plant these beautiful, easy to grow flowers in your shady or partially shaded garden for colorful blooms all season from spring through summer and fall.
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Scented Geranium (Pelargonium)
Scented geraniums are heirloom plants still grown today for their fragrance, essential oil, culinary use and foliage. Learn about these fragrant, easy care plants.
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How to Grow Scented Geranium
Scented geranium (Pelargonium) is easy to grow. Learn scented geranium care: correct light, soil, watering, pruning, fertilizer, repotting, pest prevention.
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Collecting Scented Geraniums
Scented geraniums are highly collectible, fragrant plants. Children (and adults) love them. Find out what to collect and where to buy your scented geraniums.
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Plan and Construct a Raised Bed
Raised planting beds or planters offer many benefits and are easy to build. Learn how to plan and construct your own raised garden bed to enhance your landscape.
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Soil to Fill Raised Planting Bed
Once you install or build a raised garden bed you need to fill it with good soil before planting. How much dirt, top soil or compost do you need? What kind is best?
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Grow Flowers in Pots and Planters
Enjoy colorful blooms wherever you want them all summer! Instructions, tips, advice on how to select, design, plant and care for flowers in pots, planters & containers.
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ABC Theme Garden of Animal Flowers
An animal theme garden or plant zoo is fun to design and plant. Use this plant list of animal name flowers from A to Z to start your own pet theme garden.
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What Makes a Good Retail Nursery
How to find a good quality plant store or nursery when you shop for flowers and plants. Use this handy check list to evaluate retail nurseries in your local area.
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Plant A Fragrant Flower Garden
Plant these flowers to grow a garden that is deliciously, wonderfully, romantically fragrant, perfumed with floral scent and in bloom all season from spring through fall.
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Fairy Garden Flowers for Faeries
Design a perfect tiny fairy theme garden for flower fairies or flower faeries. Plant favorite fairy flowers, add the best fairy toys, treasures and trinkets.
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Special Seed Germination Tips
The secret to successful seed starting. Step by step instructions how to pretreat many flower and other seeds with special needs so they germinate and grow.
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How to Cold Stratify Chill Seeds
Many perennial flower seeds (tree and shrub seeds, too) need to be chilled or cold stratified to germinate. Step by step instructions using refrigerator to stratify.
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Recycle Seed Starting Containers
Tips on finding and planting cheap or free, recycled or improvised seed starting containers from seed pan to individual plant pot to waterproof tray. Garden green!
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Seedlings Need Bright Direct Light
Seedlings need light. To grow healthy seedlings or transplants indoors, grow them under lights, not on the windowsill. Fluorescent or gro lite? Here's how.
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Indoor Seed Starting at Home
How to plant and start seeds to grow transplants for your garden. Practical step by step seed planting directions.
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How to Test Seed Viability
Keep old seeds or throw them out? Are they worth planting? What's the shelf life of seeds? Will seeds you already have still sprout or germinate and grow? Test them!
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Garden Journal of Ideas
Keep a garden journal as a garden record, reference and resource full of factual information but pack it full of personal garden design ideas and inspiration, too.
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Gifts for Flower Gardeners
Whether you need a holiday gift or a birthday gift or a thinking of you gift, here are ideas for the perfect gardening present for the special gardener on your list.
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Select A Healthy Poinsettia
Follow these simple poinsettia buying tips to purchase a fresh and healthy poinsettia for the longest lasting display this holiday season for yourself -- or as a gift.
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Alcohol Keeps Paperwhites Short
If your paperwhites usually grow too tall, flop over or need staking, water them with a little drink of alcohol to stunt their height by half to a third. It works!
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Blue Garden Decor
All gardens need a bit of blue, the all blue theme garden needs more. Decorative blue accent pieces as well as the creative use of blue paint continue the blue theme.
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How to Rebloom An Amaryllis Bulb
Would you like to keep your amaryllis so it can bloom again next year? Follow these simple care instructions to keep your amaryllis bulb healthy and flowering every year.
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Vines with Blue Flowers
Blue flowered vines offer a unique way to bring more blue flowers into your garden, whether to complete an all blue flowers theme or to provide a blue accent.
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Daffodil Care
Daffodils are easy to grow with minimal care. Nurture the bulbs in your yard or flower garden by correct fertilizing, mulching, deadheading and division.
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Specialty Non Hardy Blue Flowers
If you live in a warm climate or if you enjoy container plants, consider adding some of these special, tender, non hardy or exotic blue flowers to your flower garden.
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How to Grow Paperwhites
Plan ahead and plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs in a pot to grow showy fragrant flowers indoors this winter. Easy fun project for decorating or holiday gift giving.
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Amaryllis Bulb Growing Tips
Having trouble with your potted amaryllis? Follow these practical tips and suggestions for better amaryllis bulb growth and blooming year after year.
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How to Grow An Amaryllis Bulb
Amaryllis bulbs are sold in the fall for forcing into flower around the holidays. Learn how easy it is to plant, grow & bloom your new amaryllis bulb successfully.
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Daffodil Planting Tips
Daffodils are long lived flowers so plant them right! Learn some shortcuts and avoid mistakes using these planting tips and tricks from a long term daffodil gardener.
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How to Plant Daffodil Bulbs
Fall is daffodil (Narcissus) bulb planting time. Learn where to plant, how to plant, and how and where to purchase good quality bulbs to plant in your garden or landscape
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Blue Flowered Shrubs
Blue flowering shrubs are unusual but welcome accents to the flower garden. Use them alone or use them to form the bones of an all blue themed flower garden.
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Blue Annual Flowers
Flower gardeners are always looking for more blue flowers. Grow these blue flowered annuals in your garden either in a blue themed planting or mixed with other colors.
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Shady and Native Blue Flowers
If you like blue flowers and need blue flowers for shade or prefer native plants with blue flowers, try planting some of these unusual flowers in your flower garden.
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How to Dig and Store Canna Roots
Save your cannas for replanting next spring! In fall, canna rhizomes or roots are dug up after frost and stored for the winter. Learn how to dig and store canna roots.
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Blue Flowers for Fall Color
Grow blue flowers that bloom in the fall season whether you are planting an all blue theme garden or just enjoy a few blue flowers in your flower garden.
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How to Dig and Store Dahlia Tubers
Save your dahlias for replanting next spring! In fall, dahlia tubers or roots are dug up after frost and stored for the winter. Learn how to dig and store dahlia tubers.
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Blue Flowered Ground Covers
Blue flowered ground covers offer another opportunity to add the color blue to your yard and flower garden.
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Blue Perennial Flowers
If you want a blue flowered theme garden or just like blue flowers in your flower garden, be sure to plant some of these blue flowering perennials.
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Blue Flower Bulbs
Blue flowers and spring naturally go together, so begin your spring bulb display with as many blue flowers as possible.
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The Blue Flower Garden
All kinds of blue flowers for the garden: plant all blue flowering plants and accessories in blue for an overall blue theme or plant a few blue accents. We all love blue!
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Fall Division of Perennial Plants
Divide perennials for propagation, to renew plant vigor, or limit spreading. Tip: Many plants may be divided in the fall. Do it now and have more time next spring!
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Harvesting Flower Seeds to Save
To save flower seeds successfully, select and save seed from your best plants. Learn how and when to collect your seeds so they are fully mature and ready to harvest.
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How To Save and Store Flower Seeds
It's fun and easy to save seeds from your flower garden to plant next year. Learn how to select, collect, harvest and safely store your own flower seeds.
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Saving Flower Seeds
Many gardeners save their own seeds each year. Some do it to save money, some to preserve genetic diversity, some to hybridize, some do it for fun .... Start saving now!
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Dahlias for Garden and Vase
Dahlias are easy to grow. Follow these quick tips to growing perfect dahlias and enjoy dahlias blooming in the flower garden and as cut flowers, too.
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Growing Dahlias
There is a dahlia bred for every taste, from simple to exotic. Every flower garden should include dahlias for color and excitement from July until the first fall frost.
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Mulching the Flower Garden
Spreading organic mulch on your flower garden keeps plants and soil healthy. Mulch naturally prevents weeds, keeps soil cool and moist, and supplies organic matter.
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Flowers for Summer Color
Plant these summer flowers to keep your garden looking fresh and blooming all season: choose from annuals, perennials, shrubs, bulbs, vines and tropical plants.
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Perennials: Design to Impress
Design with big, easy perennials: eye catching, attention grabbing plants that bring excitement to the flower bed or mixed border. Special plants that say "Look at Me!"
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Perennial Flowers Summer Care
Flower gardeners know perennial flowers respond to basic care with better blooms and vigorous growth. Follow these summer care tips for your best perennial garden ever!
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Annual Flower Varieties
A marigold is a marigold, but what makes one a "Snowman" and another a "Jaguar"? Knowing about varieties (cultivars) helps you pick the best one for your flower garden.
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Annual Flower Variety Names
Select the right named variety of annual flower to grow a specific color or height flower, complete a theme garden, or to try something new and improved -- or different.
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Eight Easy Perennials
Design a perennial flower garden with these easy to grow perennials: widely adapted, easy to grow in a sunny garden, long lived flowers, and they look beautiful, too.
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Designing the White Garden
This is the final article in the series about how to design the white garden or moon garden by planting white flowered plants and silver or blue foliage in a theme garden
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The White Garden in Shade
A shaded white garden or moon garden can be the most magical of all: sharp contrasts of white flowers and silvery foliage against deep shadows and dark corners. Oooh!
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Shrubs for the White Garden
Every white garden or moon garden needs white flowered shrubs, either as a surrounding hedge or within the garden itself as an accent. Consider some of these!
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Trees for the White Garden
Trees bring gravitas. Every white flower garden or moon garden needs a special white flowering tree, either nearby or in the garden itself.
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Roses for the White Garden
There are so many white roses just perfect for the white garden or moon garden. How can you pick just one?! Here are a few suggested white roses for your flower garden.
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More White Garden Roses
More white roses perfect for the all white garden or moon garden. Every flower garden deserves at least one rose!
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Vines for the White Garden
Flowering vines add another dimension to the flower garden. Enjoy the many spectacular, romantic and often fragrant vines suited to a white garden or moon garden.
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Foliage for the White Garden
To enhance the overall effect of your white garden or moon garden design, plant gray, blue, silver or white variegated foliage plants along with your white flowers.
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Flowers for the White Garden
Flowers for the white garden or moon garden include multitudes of white flowered annuals, biennials, perennials, bulbs, rhizomes, and tubers.
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White Flower Garden or Moon Garden
Learn to design the white garden, a flower garden with only white blooms. Or design your own moon garden -- a white garden designed to be seen at night. Magic!
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