Search results for: 'create'

  I got the idea for my living ornaments from a magazine called "State-By-State Gardening," whose author, Lisa Eldred Steinkopf, filled her glass balls with air plants and shiny bling. She bought Christmas floral picks at a craft store and cut them apart so she had a collection of tiny sequined balls, miniature lights, jingle bells and more. For mine I chose to keep it simple. I used a couple of air plants, plus some artificial berries and dried flowers on a bed of moss. I used Spanish moss for o...

Katie Rose Hillegas and her husband Jay Erickson have created a 4-acre meadow garden at their home in Pawling, NY.  I spoke with Jay about their garden, which is now in its third year, and what they learned that could be helpful to others. Here’s his story. “I’ve always been a fan of meadows,” says Jay. His earliest memories of meadows include grassland plants in the Rockies where he spent summers as a boy, and early spring bluebell woodland gardens in England where he lived during part of ...

Have you ever thought of creating a garden composed of flowers grown with the express purpose of being cut for floral arrangements? That's a cutting garden.  Once cutting gardens have been established, they tend to be low-maintenance projects that require just a little time each week for weeding and watering. How to Create a Cutting Garden Preparing the Site-- Like most successful gardening projects, cutting gardens require a bit of planning.  You can create a cutting garden within a vegetable garde...

Reprinted and Revised from an earlier story in Curious Gardener I learned about the container gardening concept of "Thriller, Filler, Spiller" at a class I took at the NY Botanical Garden.  When you're selecting plants for your container, the Thriller is the central plant that grows taller than the others and is the focal point. The Filler is the plant or plants that surround the Thriller, and the Spiller is the plant that spills over the edges of your container. It works as an organizing principle. ...

Watching the hummingbirds at my feeder is always a joy. Being in the Northeast I get ruby-throated hummingbirds, the most common here, and last year three females vied for the nectar in two feeders, one in front and one in back of my house. This year there is at least one male among the females. The hummingbirds are just one of the pollinators I try to support. In spring I don’t mow the dandelions, ajuga or the buttercups to allow the bumblebees to forage. A little later, my apple blossoms attract more...

  When Daisy Garnett and her husband moved into their London townhouse 10 years ago, the garden was overgrown with ivy and other entrenched species.  It was evident to Daisy that the previous owner, who had lived there since the 1940’s, had been a good gardener when she was younger. There was a well situated apple tree, a mulberry, a lilac and a bay tree, all of which still stand.  There was also a greenhouse that was falling down. After clearing the property she was left with a big brown pat...