Maybe it’s the heavy rains we have had this fall or a sign of global warming, but I’m finding surprising things blooming. Yesterday, I discovered new blooms on an English Larkspur (Delphinium elatum ‘Pagan Purples’). I bought the larkspur late in the spring in hopes of getting taller flowers in the back of my front bed. According to the plant…
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There’s more to bulbs than tulips, daffodils and crocus. Many years ago, Mary Henry and Margaret Purcell wrote about so-called minor bulbs in Northern Gardener. I took their advice t and planted 80 squill (Scilla siberica) along with two different types of allium for a total of 157 bulbs in my Northfield garden. Mary and Margaret have only three rules…
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I stole this fall decorating idea from an item I saw in a Gardener’s Supply catalog. The catalog was selling a ceramic, pumpkin-shaped pot to display fall-blooming plants. Very cute, but why not use a real pumpkin? The pots start at $19.95 (not bad, considering how expensive pots are) but pumpkins each cost $3 at the Bridgewater Produce stand outside…
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The single best landscaping decision my husband and I ever made was to plant big trees on a new lot. Like many new homes, our house at the time was built on a former cornfield. It had been terraced, but it was bare. At the suggestion of our landscaper, Leif Knecht of Knecht’s Nurseries and Landscaping, we planted six large…
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Even though I edit a garden magazine, I’m not an expert gardener. My mother has a green thumb, but I was not one of those gardeners forced to pick beans or hoe weeds as a child who cannot get gardening out of their blood. For years, I refused to have houseplants because I killed them so efficiently. As a young…
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