The Garden Diaries Blog
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A garden/floral designer who has had a trowel in hand and dirty fingernails since I was four years old, I have over 30 years of hands-on experience. I am Claire - a writer, consultant, teacher, lecturer, beekeeper, and garden designer. I love to write about all my successes and failures (many of these!) in gardening.
The Garden Diaries Blog
5d ago
As a landscape designer, an increasingly frequent request from clients is getting rid of their lawn and replacing with more natural alternatives, like a pollinator friendly meadow. Water hogging and pesticide laden lawns are being replaced nowadays with different varieties of grasses, flowering plants (weeds!), and other perennials. Rewilding is a term that is being ..read more
The Garden Diaries Blog
1w ago
Have you seen a little yellow flower that you think is very cute blooming on your property??? It forms a ground covering mat of glossy green heart shaped leaves punctuated by buttercup like flowers. You might have looked at it and thought it was the first sign of spring! If your answer is yes, get ..read more
The Garden Diaries Blog
2w ago
Grape Hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) is an early blooming, perennial bulb in the Lily Family (Liliaceae) native to southeastern Europe. Not a true Hyacinth, the common name comes from the resemblance of the clusters of the small, bell-shaped, cobalt-blue flowers to upside-down clusters of grapes. Grape hyacinth is hardy in zones 3-9. Many people dismiss these common ..read more
The Garden Diaries Blog
1M ago
Top 10 Deer Strategies Having observed so many people get frustrated and ready to throw in the towel because of deer and rabbits, gave me the impetus to write this article. Taking all the pleasure out of gardening, animals can be a ongoing annoying and expensive problem, but that doesn’t mean it is insurmountable. There ..read more
The ups and downs of the gardening world
2M ago
There are so many flowers that you can use before cold temps subside in the spring (below 35 degrees Fahrenheit at night) that I make up at least a half dozen containers to cheer me up after a long cold winter. Having hung up my winter coat and wearing a light fleece, I am ready ..read more
The ups and downs of the gardening world
2M ago
Sunny yellow blooms fringed with a fringed ruff poking through snow is my first sign that spring has sprung. Eranthis hyamalis, or Winter Aconite, in the buttercup family, is a spring ephemeral, which means that it is a short-lived plant above ground with a burst of blooms, then disappears, remaining under ground until next winter ..read more
The Garden Diaries Blog
2M ago
An heirloom cutting garden – a patch of garden used primarily for cutting old fashioned flowers and arranging in vases – sounds kind of elitist. Like a prim and proper English lady who has a team of gardeners, and ventures out to the garden with a floppy straw hat with her ‘secateurs’ to cut flowers ..read more
The Garden Diaries Blog
4M ago
After a hectic year of non-stop landscaping work, I have some time on my hands and discovered ‘winter sowing’. I started doing it last winter in a small way with Bells of Ireland and was so successful, that I am winter sowing in a big way this January and February to save my precious time ..read more