Garden Design

Summer gardening offers an amazing array of flower colors and textures to choose from. When combining plants for a progression of blooms, gardeners like to focus on color combinations that they prefer. While this certainly makes sense, flower architecture can add additional interest to any plant combination or landscape scene. Flower architecture refers to the

Today we’re visiting with Joyce Hannaford. My 22-year-old garden continues to evolve here in Natick, Massachusetts. I’ve been gardening for 70 years, and both my parents were avid gardeners. The property that we bought was totally overgrown, so we had a blank slate once we removed the out-of-control shrubs and trees. We love to share

Today we’re visiting Brandy’s garden. I garden in Zone 9b in the sunny state of Florida. Gardening is my favorite hobby. If I am not in my garden I’m visiting gardens, watching garden television, or teaching others how to garden. This has been the most challenging and fun year, as I am currently changing all

We’re off to Malvern, Pennsylvania, with Carla Z. Mudry today. Midsummer has hit my garden, and I am in love with the riot of texture, colors, and scent. It is a dizzying array and so soul-satisfying to me. The summer colors are amazing, and it makes all of the digging, weeding, planting, and trimming worth

Learn how to protect your home from wildfires. Firescaping, or firewise landscaping, is the practice of growing and tending the plants around ones home to attempt to keep fires from easily catching in the area directly surrounding the house. Most fires are preceded by fire brands—ashes and debris that float ahead of the fire and

If you’ve ever stopped to appreciate an okra blossom or admire the lush foliage of a pawpaw tree, you’ve noticed that edible plants can be just as beautiful as ornamental plants. One area where beauty and utility combine flawlessly in the landscape is in the shrub layer. Providing flowers, fruits, and sometimes colorful foliage, edible

Tom Fisher is sharing his Buffalo, New York, garden with us today, including a feature in the garden that is popular with all sorts of visitors. We have a very small prefab pond we bought a few years ago. The day we filled it a toad took up residence. Since then, we’ve added a couple

Today we’re visiting Chris Cloutier’s garden in northern Michigan. I have been gardening for almost 50 years. I started with indoor plants—lots and lots of them in a very small studio apartment in downtown Detroit. Then I moved into a home built in 1948 just outside of Detroit with a yard that was totally unkempt.

Today we’re off to southern New Jersey to visit Laura Boissonnault’s beautiful garden. Laura’s house is a colonial-style home built in 1920, and her romantic, cottage-garden design complements the building perfectly. Soft pink hydrangeas (Hydrangea macrophylla, Zones 6–9) and blue clematis (Clematis hybrid, big-flowered group, Zones 5–9) glow against bright white fencing. Even the vegetable

It pretty much seems like drought is the norm these days.  No matter where you live—East Coast, West Coast, or anywhere in between—periods of no rain are commonplace. Some gardeners out there have been dealing with droughty conditions for decades while others are just starting to learn what a “real” drought-tolerant plant is. After a

Today we’re off to New York City with Virginia Sherry, a plant lover and founder of the nonprofit Native Plant Society of Staten Island. Good morning! The native and nonnative plants in my garden are starting to bloom, and the bees are visiting. Here are some highlights. Oeothera is a large genus. Some species, like

Today Bruce and Suzanne Pearce are sharing their garden with us. We live in the beautiful Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. Here are some photos of our spring garden. Despite roses’ reputation for being finicky, these look incredibly happy and beautiful. It’s hard to beat these incredible views from the garden! The hedge in the

Let’s talk about regions and zones On FineGardening.com, there are two ways to get a sense of what plants can survive where: zones and regions. The below map showcases how Fine Gardening divides up the regions of North America. This is not to be confused with “zones.” A “zone” in gardening refers to the USDA

We’re visiting Alex’s garden today. I am an IT project manager and avid fiber artist who lives in central Delaware. Gardening for me started in childhood with weed-pulling responsibilities in a Massachusetts suburban setting. I’ve personally landscaped and enhanced every house I’ve owned as an adult. Gardening provides a retreat and a calming place amidst

Gardening in a windy, exposed area can be a challenge. Luckily, some plants are not only impervious to the effects of gusts or breezes but will react in such a way that they’re transformed into living kinetic sculptures. Movement, elegance, and an extra layer of beauty transform the garden. Just picture how delightful it is

My name is Mayurika. The pandemic has taken a lot out of us, but I like to think in a positive way. This time has also allowed my 10-year-old daughter Trinolka and me to build a butterfly garden. We researched butterflies native to Maryland and proceeded to build a habitat for them, adding nectar-containing flowers,

Today we’re visiting with Art in Ada, Michigan, who has found a beautiful and unusual way to enjoy the bounty of the garden. There was a time when I had an expansive garden in suburban Chicago, but inevitable downsizing led me in new directions. Now focusing on container gardens and a new wildflower garden for

Today we’re visiting Lisa Countryman’s garden in Hillsboro, Ohio. Hanging baskets are an easy way to bring a garden into any space. In the foreground, the hanging basket combines a flower-covered begonia (Begonia hybrid, Zone 10–11 or as an annual) with variegated bigleaf vinca (Vinca major, Zones 7–10 or as an annual) trailing down. In

Marie Clark Taylor in the Fordham yearbook. Have you ever gazed through a microscope and beheld a plant cell?  If so, that may be in large part due to the work of one woman—Marie Clark Taylor—a forerunner in the science of how to provide perfect plant conditions in suboptimal environments and whose work to expand

With long-lasting blooms and gorgeous foliage, hydrangeas (Hydrangea spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9) are the heart and soul of the summer garden. But growing hydrangeas in the hot, dry Southern Plains can be challenging. Extreme heat and low humidity cause plants to wilt quickly, while unpredictable spring and winter temperatures threaten flower formation. But the