Journal

Who says you need a dedicated space for a cut flower garden?

cut-flower-garden With a little imagination and creativity, you can incorporate the beauty of cut flowers into your existing borders, vegetable gardens and herb gardens. Think about selecting butterfly, hummingbird, and pollinator friendly plants, including a mix of annuals, perennials, shrubs, and naïve species into your yard that support a variety of beneficial wildlife.

Take a walk through your garden and identify spaces where you can incorporate cut flowers. Look for gaps within existing plants or areas where you can add height and color. Choose a mixture of plants that bloom at different times throughout the gardening season to ensure a continuous supply of cut flowers.

Small Space Container Garden

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Limited outdoor space should never discourage you from growing fresh vegetables and herbs. With container gardening, you can transform your deck or patio into a mini garden.

Whether you have limited space or just need the convenience of growing fresh vegetables and herbs close to your grill, container gardening offers a practical and efficient solution.

By using containers and vertical gardening techniques, I transformed a small, previously under-utilized area on my deck into an attractive and convenient green oasis. This area is now full of my favorite meal ingredients just steps away from where I prepare my meals.

Flowers in the Kitchen Garden

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A few years ago I started planting flowers in my vegetable garden. At first, it was because I simply ran out of room in my yard and had nowhere else to go but the vegetable garden.

By adding flowers and herbs throughout my vegetable garden I had unknowingly created a habitat for beneficial insects. I started to notice my vegetable plants were thriving and producing more with less bug and disease problems.

Fall Color

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In fall I feel so fortunate to live in the Northeast, where people travel to see the beauty in the changing of the seasons. This is a time of year when plants native to the Northeast really shine with a variety of vivid colors. When designing a landscape, Catherine Volić takes care to consider how plants look with their fall foliage, so you can enjoy the contrasting colors of the season in your own space. Clients are often pleasantly surprised by the dramatic changes they see as fall arrives. Even when summer blooms are finished, fall brings plenty of color and beauty to a well-planned garden.

Monarch Report from Christine's Garden

This September, horticulturist Christine was amazed to find over 100 monarch butterflies roosting in a tree in her yard! Monarchs “roost” (gather to sleep) in groups overnight in sheltered spots on their long, yearly journey south to Mexico. While Christine is used to seeing a few monarchs in her large home garden, this year at least 20-50 of them dropped in daily in September and October.

Winged Visitors to the Garden

Winged visitors are a pleasure to spot in the garden. Butterflies, moths, dragonflies, song birds, and birds of prey interact with the plants we choose and each other as they fly through in search of food, shelter, and mates. Learning to identify garden visitors and making sure to plant the native vegetation they need can transform gardening into conservation. Here are notes on some of the winged visitors Catherine has photographed at her home garden and in the gardens of clients.

Favorite Plants for Hummingbirds

Using the right plants can make a garden inviting for both humans and native pollinators, including one of our favorites - hummingbirds. Sweetgum Horticulture founder Catherine says, “visits from these winged creatures add a surprise layer of movement, sound and color to my designs.” Read on for some of our favorite plants for attracting hummingbirds to your garden. We think you will enjoy these plants and their visitors too.

Composting in Winter

Yes, it is possible to compost in the winter, even with more than two feet of snow on the ground! It also makes a great excuse to get outside and enjoy a few minutes of fresh air (and sometimes even sunshine!) on frigid winter days.

Rustic Kitchen Garden Fence

Last summer, when I was playing with my kids at Weezie’s Garden for Children at Elm Bank in Wellesley, I made the acquaintance of Frank Hamm, who was doing maintenance work on some of the many structures that he had built in the garden. My kids have spent hours climbing in his two story “tree house”, as well as in the woven twig “birds’ nests”. I was always amazed by the creativity and craftsmanship of these structures, and so I was pleased to meet him in person. I took his card, and when it was time to build a fence for a future kitchen garden in my backyard, I gave him a call.

The Life of a Container Garden

Looking back over the images of the herbs and vegetables that I grew in containers around my patio last summer, I was struck by how an edible garden in a container does not have to be a static creation that you just plant at the beginning of the season and forget about. It has a life cycle comparable to that of a garden in the ground. A great example is the miniature herb and vegetable garden that I planted in this large ceramic pot in May. It contains lemongrass, variegated nasturtium, curly parsley, red cabbage, yellow Swiss chard, red Swiss chard, golden pineapple sage, and yard-long beans (on the tripod of bamboo stakes). While the yard-long beans are getting a slow start in the back, all the other components are growing strongly.