A proper green and sturdy hedge sets a boundary, saying, “Stay on your side.” In an urban setting, a proper hedge can block prying eyes overlooking your hot tub or spare you from an unappealing view. A nice hedgerow through a field has a similar message, but it may invite voles, moles, and birds to settle in.
Category: Mid Atlantic, US
Holiday Lights Magical Brookgreen Gardens
Brookgreen Gardens in Murrells Inlet (near Myrtle Beach), South Carolina, celebrates the holidays with Nights of a Thousand Candles. I was there this December, and I will say I have never seen anything like it in all my holiday garden experiences. There is so much I could say about this incredible garden, but I’m going to let the photos attempt to share the magic.
Let’s Celebrate! Fredrick Olmstead made everything better
Let’s Celebrate!
Here’s something worth celebrating, and it’s not National Walk to Work Day (April 1) or Lima Bean Respect Day (April 20). Instead, it’s a yearlong celebration of the first American Landscape Architect, Frederick Law Olmstead.
Resting Places
There will always be work to do in a garden, but why create a bit of heaven on earth if we don’t occasionally sit and feast our eyes on the beauty right in front of us?
Daffodils, Jonquils, Narcissus, Oh My!
For those of us who love flowers, it is hard to imagine anything more delightful than Daffodils. This sunny yellow flower trumpets the return of spring showing up in gardens, paintings, and poems. Its arrival promises to end gray winter days. If they are not sprouting up in your garden, you may find bundles of closed buds appearing in markets in early March. We snatch them up to bring the promise of sunshine into our homes. They are for me an addiction, I am determined to see them open and believe in the season to soon follow. The sweet scent entices me to close my eyes and think of green shoots, fertile soil and blue skies. Addiction may be the right word as “Victorians once thought the scent of daffodils to be as dangerous as any narcotic.” (Kingsbury) We truly can be made to be fearful of anything.
Gibbs Gardens, North Georgia Beauty
When you really, truly, deeply love gardens you are inspired to share this love with all you meet. When your work in landscape design spans 40 years, while earning you and your landscaping firm 250 design awards, recognition from three US first ladies, (Johnson, Regan, and Carter) and every day you have ideas about what you would like to grow, why not make a garden as a gift to the land you love? Create the garden on land in the south, where your family has deep horticultural roots, where your grandmothers passed on their love of gardening to you. Seriously, why not?
Peace & Tranquility in Washington D. C.
U.S. National Arboretum
U.S. National Botanic Garden
Lost in the nonstop news coming out of Washington D.C. today is news of the remarkable treasures of our U.S. National Arboretum & Botanic Garden, “Where Science meets Beauty”.
Most Memorable Garden Moments, 2017
Gardens are my happy place, a refuge from the news, traffic, noise, and security checks. I embrace the blooms, the design, the human touch on a patch of the planet. It is a piece of heaven right under my feet.
An American Garden
Bartram’s — An American Garden
Philadelphia is known as the City of Brotherly Love, and for the men who gathered there to lay out the foundations of our democracy. This is where the Declaration of Independence was signed and the Constitution written. What many people don’t realize is that Philadelphia also claims to be America’s garden capital, boasting 30 public gardens within 30 miles of Philly.
Tree Houses in an Arboretum!
Visiting arboretums in my travels I naturally find myself walking in the woods. I enjoy the shade, the champion trees, meadows and blooming spring ephemorals such as jack in the pulpits, trillions, wood poppies, and may apple. Trees are the stars with their gnarly trunks, amazing branching structures and leafy canopies overhead. In spring the green color of new leaves is bright and clean.