After a career in horticulture, Julie Buttigieg now focuses on her own garden and the results are magnificent The Buttigieg koi pond is surrounded with beautiful plantings of annuals, perennials, conifers, and shrubs. Text and photos by Lisa Steinkopf As you drive by the Buttigieg home, it only takes one glance to know a serious gardener lives there. Yet the front yard is just a hint of what the back garden holds. On this three-acre property, there is not only an extensive fairy garden and hundreds of hostas, but also a roughly 16,000-gallon koi pond. What’s even more amazing: in 2015 none of ..read more

If you want to enjoy summer-flowering bulbs in your garden, you may be disappointed if you wait until all danger of frost has passed before planting these beauties. Flowers may come late in the fall and be missed. Consider an early start (roughly mid March to mid April) for larger cannas, large-flowering dahlias, elephant ears, and anything else you want to have in flower earlier than late summer.  Materials needed to get bulbs started: 6- or 8-inch pots, lightweight planting soil, bulbs, and plant labels. Read the planting directions on each bulb package. If you saved bulbs from last yea ..read more

Spring is coming! How can you tell? Don’t glance at the calendar—look at the plants around you. Since they useheat from the sun to become active, plants and bugs are better than the weather forecasters. They are like little solar panels that absorb heat. When they get enough, they begin to develop and change according to how much they have absorbed. Scientists use a system that is based on days that the temperature reaches 50 and above to calculate this activity—they call it DD50 (Degree Day of 50 degrees). Most insects and plants need a temperature of at least 50 degr ..read more

One of the most time-honored Michigan traditions is traveling “up north” to spend idyllic weeks in the sunshine, water and woods. Some of us have cottages or second homes up north. While we don’t want to turn a cottage into just another suburban home, many cottage dwellers like to plant a few ornamental plants to enjoy flowers. Often, roses are rejected as being too fussy for up north. Nothing could be further from the truth. The growing conditions up north are indeed different than a typical suburban garden. The most obvious difference is the weather. That’s a big reason we trek up north—it’s ..read more

by Jeff Ball Building and managing a vegetable garden can be much simpler if we change our behavior considerably. In the “old days” we rototilled or “double dug” our patch every spring. We took soil tests to help us determine how much and what kind of fertilizer we should use each year. Watering was a real concern in the heat of the summer. We seldom caught up with the weeds. We had to always keep our eye out for any insect problem that might appear. We had to learn about disease for all the different vegetables we were growing. Some could be fixed and others required removing the plant from t ..read more

The 2023 plant hardiness zone map is based on 30-year averages (from 1991 to 2020) of the lowest annual winter temperatures at specific locations. It is divided into 10-degree Fahrenheit zones and further divided into 5-degree Fahrenheit half-zones. The 2023 map incorporates data from 13,412 weather stations compared to the 7,983 that were used for the 2012 map. Plant hardiness zone designations represent the “average annual extreme minimum temperature” at a given location during a particular time period (30 years, in this instance). Put another way, the designations do not reflect the coldest ..read more

Chris Hansen is a plant hybridizer by trade, and he tests his creations in his superbly colorful home garden Chris Hansen displays an abundance of color in his garden using predominantly the foliage of perennials, conifers, trees, and shrubs. by Lisa Steinkopf / Photographs by Chris Hansen To meet and spend time with plant hybridizer Chris Hansen is an adventure and one I will not soon forget. Chris is one of the most plant (and life in general) passionate people I’ve ever met. His enthusiasm for plants is second to none—it makes you want to rush out and buy some! His home garden in western M ..read more

These handy lists will help you select excellent shrubs and place them in the right spots Shrubs play a major role in landscaping, as we create a hedge here and cover the ground there, there, develop a backdrop in one spot and a pivotal year-round focal point in another. As I design, each shrubby player begins as a set of desirable characteristics, sans name. My rough sketch might have a note like this next to a prominent circle: “Eight feet tall, rounded in outline, winter interest, and color in one or more seasons.” Then, auditions begin and I select possibilities, working from a list of abo ..read more

by Mary Gerstenberger Autumn in the vegetable patch is a busy time. Cold-sensitive veggies such as tomatoes and peppers need to be harvested before first frost, or to extend their season, cover them with a sheet or tarp on nights when a frost is predicted. Cold tolerant plants such as radishes and lettuce can still be planted. Late in September is the time to plant garlic cloves for next year’s harvest. More importantly, autumn is the time when garden cleanup as well as garden preparation begins. Good garden cleanup is fundamental to having a healthy garden next year. Many types of fungal spor ..read more

Shine even in shade Although these perform best in sun or part shade, in the shade they still manage to please: Chinese spicebush Dwarf white pine Fragrant honeysuckle Laceleaf red elder Leatherleaf viburnum Panicle hydrangea Spring witch hazel Ural false spirea Ward’s yew Notable spring flowers: Showy before summer solstice Chinese spicebush Chokeberry Fragrant honeysuckle Koreanspice viburnum Laceleaf red elder Quince Sargent viburnum Slender deutzia Snowmound spirea Spring witch hazel Summer pick-me-ups: Blooms in late June and later Blue mist spirea Bottlebrush buckeye Dwarf spirea Ka ..read more