Q: Should I cut back my hydrangea plants now? A: First of all, you are not going to kill your hydrangea if you cut it back or prune it at the wrong time, but you will lose the blooms that you would have had this garden season. So we want to be mindful about when we are pruning, so that we enjoy the maximum number of blooms. Second, prune-time depends which hydrangea bush you have. If you have Hydrangea macrophylla (also known as big leaf hydrangea or mophead hydrangeas) then don't cut them in the spring! They are a shrub (like lilacs) that you only want to "prune after bloom ..read more

In the March episode of The Garden Show & Home with Sally Spillane, Victoria and Sally talked about ways to simplify your garden design to increase the visual impact and decrease maintenance. Incase you missed it, we thought the we’d share the key takeaways. Victoria has a long-held design principle, “You want your garden to quiet your heart.” Simplicity can support the feeling of calm we are all aiming for. What’s the opposite of calm and simple? Chaotic, messy, anxiety-inducing! That can mean visually, but it can also mean a complicated maintenance schedule, the constant need for deadhea ..read more

Your Expert Guide to Early Spring Gardening in the Hudson Valley Hudson Valley Magazine did a great article on early spring gardening advice. They interviewed local professional Gardeners and Garden Designers, including Victoria Coyne from Victoria Gardens. :) The advice she gave is something she also talked about on the March episode of the Garden and Home Show with Sally Spillane on WKZE: Divide but be “quick and quiet.” “If we’re on a job site and we know we’re not coming back for a month, and there’s some giant Siberian iris that wants to eat the world, we will dig it up then and put a sma ..read more

As we move into autumn, there is a way to bring more color, more interest, and more drama into your backyard. By planting fall-fruiting bushes you will have the double benefit of colorful berries and the colorful birds that the berries attract. Many bird species gorge on fall berries before they migrate south and many other species, like cardinals, nuthatches and blue jays stay for the winter and continue to feed off the berries in your garden.  Want to attract more birds to your backyard? Start with these attractive, fall-fruiting favorites: Juniper  There are hundreds of varieties ..read more

Cool nights and autumn rain make fall a great time to plant. At Victoria Gardens, located on the corner of Cottekill Road and Rt. 213 between Rosendale and High Falls, we call it the “2nd Planting Season” because we plant as much in the fall as we do in the spring. What makes the fall such a great time to plant? Warm soil encourages root growth, and even as plants lose their leaves, their roots continue to grow until the ground freezes. Trees and shrubs in particular benefit from a well-established root system, followed by the dormancy winter provides as they adjust to their new home. But cool ..read more

Creativity, unexpected beauty, a remarkable sense of Community, ...and joy! Yup! That just about sums it up.  This was a sister's trip, so Victoria and her sisters explored Buffalo over this past weekend and picked up a map and toured more than 300 creative, playful, colorful, and delightful gardens. "Garden Walk Buffalo attracts visitors from around the U.S., Canada and beyond. Tens of thousands of visitors visit beautiful Buffalo to enjoy the creativity and work of its best ambassadors - its gardeners." And it's free! https://www.gardensbuffaloniagara.com/garden-walk-buffal ..read more

Spongy moths are incredibly destructive! They defoliate trees and in some circumstances, that defoliation can kill the affected trees. "Spongy moth populations rise and fall in cycles of roughly 10-15 years. Populations vary during the cycle, from years with few caterpillars and very minor damage, to years with large numbers of caterpillars and very noticeable leaf damage and tree defoliation. These population cycles are driven by predator-prey interactions, specifically the interactions between spongy moth, small mammals, and acorn production." Spongy moth defoliated tree in mid-June Ma ..read more

At Victoria Gardens, we seek out, stock, and plant trees that both stand out and thrive in our region. We have a Seven Sons Flower tree planted outside our nursery and garden center, so we have a front row seat to all 3 seasons of it's unique showy features. Heptacodium miconioides (seven sons flower) zones: 5-9 This plant matures to be a large, multi-stem shrub (or small tree—depending on your perspective) with peeling bark. White, jasmine-like flowers bloom in late summer, but the real show happens once those flowers fall off. In September, the sepal (the flower structure that remains) tur ..read more

Here’s what the client had to say: Vic, I’m shouting in excitement: THE GARDENS AT MAD ARE LOOKING ABSOLUTELY SPECTACULAR!!!!!!!! We just went by and the rain must have helped everything shoot up — we cannot believe how extraordinary it looks!!! The thing we most wanted was height, color, visual interest and composition and you have absolutely delivered that in a way we’d been struggling to figure out for YEARS at MAD. Wow wow wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you Vic and team!!!!!! This was a really fun and interesting project for Victoria Gardens in partnership with Shawn McCloskey of Aurora Land ..read more

Many of our clients continue to add to their gardens after the initial design and install. Gardens mature and it’s always fun to go back and see all the progress and change! In the back garden, the shrubs and the perennial gardens have filled in and matured. Many of the ground covers have naturalized and spread. As have the allium bulbs. The trees and bushes along the front walk are lush and offer a tapestry of textures year round with variegated boxwoods and other evergreens lining the bluestone path. The Japanese maples and lush ferns give the walkway a calm, encompassing feeling, like you ..read more