Interested in using grasses in your landscape? Consider these principles when deciding what to plant with them.
Read more . . .Looking for some plant ideas that don't show up on every "Best for ..." list? Here's the first in a series of posts that will highlight some plants you may not know about and that deserve to be used more often. The topic here is deciduous flowering shrubs.
This is the second part of blogs providing substitutes and alternative plants to some of the more commonly found invasive plants. Part 1 focused on shrubs while this post covers other plant types.
Read more . . .The joy of the abundance of plant options!
While my last blog - Invasive plants: avoid these very bad boys! - was not very joyful, with listings of plants to avoid, I will get back to the "joy" of landscaping by providing substitutes for some of them. This post will cover shrubs while a future post will address other plant categories.
Read more . . .The joy of helping the environment.
My last blog discussed the rose rosette disease that was primarily introduced into the U.S. with introduction of an invasive plant, the multiflora rose. It got me riled up enough to help get the word out about invasives in general.
The first issue is defining "invasive". We typically describe plants as invasive when they start taking over our gardens through excessive growth and spread. While this can be a characteristic of an invasive plant, especially when it is planted next to a natural landscape, the primary definition of a plant that's on, for example, a state DNR's list of invasive plants, is: a non-native plant that takes over natural habitats or is destructive to the ecosystem. Often this occurs by birds transferring their seeds, or the seeds dispersed by wind.
The scientific community is acutely aware of the severe destruction caused by the plants listed below to natural habitats, and many long time gardeners have experienced their evil ways in their own gardens. But to further emphasize just how bad these plants are, DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT PLANTING THESE PREDATORS:
Read more . . .Interested in an iPad/iPhone app that helps you create Perennial Combinations for your garden? See our Perennial Match App on this website.