How to fix up a Muddy Yard with Drains and Rain Gardens
How to Fix a Muddy Yard – if you have mud, you need solutions. I hope this post helps you quickly solve your soil and poor drainage issues and gets you started toward planting a sustainable rain garden (or other permanent solution). Every gardener will t ...
How to Design a Garden Layout Using Shapes To Inspire Your Design
I recently met up with a couple of my former instructors from when I attended the English Gardening School. Robin Templar Williams and Moira Farnham were running a design seminar at Tower Hill Botanic Garden, and given they were so close to my new home I ...
Building a Dead Hedge: Healing the Land and Creating a Living Barrier
Many of you might recall the ongoing saga with our neighbors—the ones who hired (and I use that term loosely) a so-called logger to clear-cut their property and, in the process, take down 15 of our trees. It was brutal. The woods, once a natural boundary, ...
How to Bring Dutch Garden Design Style into your Landscape
Garden design is renowned for its innovative and aesthetic approaches. The people known for their tulip fields and meticulous landscaping, take pride in their expertise in garden design. Dutch garden designers are recognized worldwide for their ability to ...
Desert Gardens and Living Ocotillo Fences – Fouquieria splendens
I recently discovered a unique garden feature of the desert southwest – the ocotillo fence. The Ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens) is native to the desert southwest. It is a unique shrubby cactus-like plant (though it isn’t technically a cactus) that can be ...
A Landscape Designer’s Ideas for Better Kids Play Areas
You know what I dislike more than anything else in the garden? Isolated garden play areas where some sort of crummy swing set thing is thoughtlessly plopped down to simultaneously compartmentalize kids away – but then, also, not away. The worst offenders ...