Dry stone walls have an appeal all their own. We associate them with charming English gardens and the rocky, picturesque New England countryside. Some of the best of these walls were built by unskilled laborers, and there is no reason why the home gardener cannot enjoy equal success when he makes a wall of his … Read more
Hardy heaths, of which Erica carnea and its horticultural forms (named varieties) are good examples, are excellent rock garden plants, are attractive massed in front of evergreen or flowering shrubs, and, in perennial flower borders, provide a splendid change of pace, their needle-like leaves a pleasant contrast in texture. The major delight in growing them … Read more
Planting fancy-leaved caladiums is an inexpensive and straightforward way of having abundant color in your summer garden. No foliage plants outrank them in brilliance or ease of cultivation, and many modern varieties are as popular flowering plants. These tropical caladiums are splendid for partially shaded places where most blooming plants will not give their best. … Read more
When you see the Carolina silver bell ( Halesia carolina) this spring, look upward through the loose branches at the little white bell-shaped flowers peeping from among the pale green leaves. The most important home-ground value of the silver bell is that its blooms can best be seen from below. This is a rare characteristic … Read more
“The purple petals, fallen in the pool,Make the black water, with their beauty gay,Here might the red-bird come, his plumes to cool,And court the flower that cheapens his array,Rhodora, if the sages ask thee whyThis charm is wasted on earth and sky.Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing,Then beauty is its own … Read more
Like franklinia and shortia, Carpenteria californica is one of the so-called “lost” plants—discovered, then unsuccessfully searched for, and at last rediscovered. In California it has been in cultivation for thirty-five years. Because there are so few natural stands of bush anemone, it is probably one of the plants seen more often in gardens than in … Read more
If the tree expert is the doctor, you are the nurse. This is your busy season because your shade trees need the most help between now and mid-July. This is the time of year when trees face the most ravaging effects of insects and diseases. It is when trees must be at their peak efficiency … Read more
From a postage-stamp-sized city backyard to the rolling hills of a magnificent country estate, there is hardly a garden or landscape where vines can’t be used to give the scene graceful beauty and vitality. And few other plants serve so many practical purposes as well. Vines have character and individuality. Some are modest and attract … Read more
A well-designed front-yard planting should provide a setting for a house but should not compete with it for attention. Flowers and colorful trees and shrubs can easily dominate a landscape scene, but they may be used in the front of your house and still not steal attention from the house itself. The pictures opposite and … Read more
Are you taking advantage of the many interesting, dramatic effects you can achieve in your garden by using annual vines? If not, you overlook one of the easiest and least expensive ways to lift your garden out of the ordinary by giving it the third dimension—height—which too many gardens lack. Even on the smallest home … Read more