Here are the six steps I took to end up with this groundcover growing around the base of my ginkgo tree. You can skip some of the steps, but you cannot skip the last step. Step 1. Grow up with a dad who takes you and your siblings out to the woods in the springtime to hunt for morel mushrooms. On the edge of the woods, you'll find some violets. Beg your dad to let you dig some up and take them home because you love them and you know your mom does too. Step 2. Plant the … [Read more...] about Six Steps to Establish a Beautiful Groundcover
ground covers
A New Family In The Garden
It always starts out so innocently. For several years, in early May, a local garden club has held a plant sale at the home of one of their members, just off a busy road that I drive up and down many times during the week, especially on the weekends. Every year, I see their sign advertising the plant sale but always on the day of the sale, I seem too busy and rushed and hurried to stop and look. But this year, I made myself slow down, for just a few minutes, and stopped in to see … [Read more...] about A New Family In The Garden
Winter Green
Show of hands - who got some snow yesterday? I hear that out on the East cost they didn't get "some" snow, they got a bunch of snow. And even saying "a bunch of snow" is probably an understatement as different garden bloggers are starting to shovel out and post pictures like the ones that Robin at Bumblebee posted. They got a lot of snow. Over a foot of snow. An impressive amount of snow. Snow. Here in my garden the temperatures hovered around 33 F - 34 F all day, which … [Read more...] about Winter Green
Goodbye Stella!
Goodbye, Stella (Hemerocallis ‘Stella de Oro’). It’s time for you to go. Life is too short and the garden is too small to give you all the space you are taking.You’ve gone all commercial on me and I see you everywhere. You’ve grown common. It’s time… it’s just time.But it’s not just you, it’s me, too. Don’t make me admit it! I’m not ashamed. Yes, I’ve been to a local daylily garden and well, it isn’t that I don’t like you any more, it’s that you’ve become so common and yellow compared to other … [Read more...] about Goodbye Stella!
Ground Covers: Must Take Action
I can't remember a better spring for plant growth around here. As a result, much of the ground cover in my garden is very effectively covering the ground......and also covering some hostas, a row of daylilies, my favorite variegated phlox, and the blue-eyed grass, Sisyrinchium bermudianum. At least those are plants I've either seen trying to escape a ground cover around them or that I have looked for and found beneath some ground cover.Who knows what other plants are struggling under the sedum … [Read more...] about Ground Covers: Must Take Action
Ground Cover and Elizabeth Lawrence
What I like about the writings of Elizabeth Lawrence is that I can pick up one of her books like Beautiful at All Seasons edited by Ann L. Armstrong and Lindie Wilson and start reading anywhere and find myself nodding my head in agreement.For example…On ground cover, Lawrence wrote, “There are two difficulties with ground covers: first to get them to grow, and then to get them not to… Once established the ground cover begins to travel, and then it may travel too far. A plant that is hard to keep … [Read more...] about Ground Cover and Elizabeth Lawrence
