Gardens & Gratitude As I cut these flowers last week, I was thinking about your kind messages, your willingness to take the time to pass along informative suggestions and your comments. These inspire me every day. You help us all learn more and make it easier for more people to garden with native plants. I was thinking I wish I could send you these flowers. Perhaps one day, a drone delivery! I am especially grateful to those of you who allow your gardens to be shared on Nuts for Natives. Gardens can be very private spaces and allowing us to visit is a privilege. This years’ gardens were s ..read more

A transition well underway! Stoneleigh, near Villanova University outside of Philadelphia, was everywhere this summer. The New York Times and the well known gardening podcast, A Way to Garden, to name just a few places. When Baltimore garden friends told me they loved it, I knew I had to go. The Haas family donated the property to Natural Lands, a non-profit saving open space, caring for nature and connecting people to the outdoors in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, in 2016. Natural Lands' stewardship is beginning to take hold and people are noticing! The focus on showing gardens with native pla ..read more

If you are looking for the Chesapeake local, it's Eastern Blue Star! If you encourage gardening friends to add native plants to their gardens, you probably get asked which plants to start with. I always include amsonia because it is so very easy to grow and other than a one time cut back in spring, if that, it needs absolutely no maintenance. This post amplifies all the amazing attributes of amsonia and there are many! One thing about this perennial, it takes a while to get going. If you plant a quart size plant, in my experience, it isn't going to really bulk up and do its thing until year ..read more

Foliage! As November arrives, the true brilliance of native foliage color does as well. Evergreens are beginning to step forward in the landscape, off-setting the reds, oranges and yellows of native perennials, shrubs and deciduous trees. When a warmish day slips in, what a month it is! It is amazing what a difference a month can make in our gardens. One of the accidental surprises in our small urban garden is the borrowed view. The brilliant orange tree behind the Colorado blue spruce is across the street. I'd like to say I planned it that way .... but no! As you may note, the Colorado blue ..read more

Fall flowers, native cheer, easy. Native fall gardens offer an abundance of nature to fill your home. Whether you choose a single small branch from a shrub or tree with fall color to place in a vase or an armload of flowers, bringing a bit of the outdoors in is one of fall's small but lovely rewards. Simple Any flower gathered in a bunch always makes an eye catching bouquet and oh so easy! As if we need another reason to plant the native cultivar, heuchera 'Autumn Bride' (Heuchera villosa 'Autumn Bride'), this perennial is still sending up fresh flowers. A combination of fresh and almost pas ..read more

A desert like plant at home in a woodland garden bed Garden designers remind us to focus on foliage and texture rather than flowers to create a year round garden of interest. Blooms are fleeting while foliage lasts all growing season and for evergreens, year round. Putting that advice into practice requires selecting plants with different leaf shapes. Adam's needle (Yucca filamentosa), technically a shrub, looks like a perennial with stiff sword like foliage. It is said to be easy to grow and drought tolerant. Growing in full sun or part shade, it needs very little to no maintenance. In the ..read more

The seed pods. Full stop. These seed pods are one of the Chesapeake native garden's most wondrous sights. Every fall, I seek them out. As a shrub matures, more and more seed pods develop. The shrub itself? I was always hard pressed to recommend it. Even in my own garden, I have moved it several times because it is, well, ungainly. Hearts-a-burstin (Euonymus americanus) grows in part shade and does best in moist and rich soils. It is said by experts to tolerate clay soils. Often described as growing 4 to 6 feet wide and high, it is just as likely to be described as sprawling and suckering. It ..read more

Fall flowers! Think Asters October in the garden can be resplendent or quite damp. A stalwart to carry your garden through either scenario is the aster. It is hard to think of more reliable late bloomers than the array of native asters we have around the Chesapeake watershed. Even better, they are widely available at garden centers and native plant nurseries. There are asters for shade and sun. There is one challenge with asters. While asters are growing through summer, the growth habit of the foliage can be rangy. It's totally worth it though to have all of that fresh color in fall. A couple ..read more

Free plants anyone? The very best plants are free volunteers. First, they are free. Two, they have indicated to you they like where they are. Three, it's so easy to acquire them! Volunteer seedlings are sublime. As your native plant garden matures, you may find yourself with more and more volunteer seedlings. September is a very good time to be on the look out. Seedlings have likely been growing for a bit and have some substance. Likely you already know which of your plants are the prolific self sowers. Blue mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum), black eyed susan (Rubeckia fulgida), celandine ..read more

What changes: the garden or our aesthetics. I think a lot about how to get people excited about having a different type of garden - one with native plants. A few weeks ago, I stayed in a rental house with a shared driveway. The homes on either side of the driveway had the exact same layout -- a slope from the main road down to the homes and a grassy area between the homes and a lake. Identical lots but the landscaping could not have been more different. I have no idea what motivated the planting of the meadow, the age of it or the maintenance practices. I do know the feel from one side to th ..read more