Searching for a new shade-tolerant annual? Crack the wishbone flower

Shade is common among us plant lovers, especially those of us who adore and overplant trees and shrubs in our yards. Shade can be limiting, though, especially when it comes to infusing color and how many pots of impatiens and begonias can you plant, year after year, and remain enthused? So, I was excited to…

Hello Dahlia! Don’t delay another day to discover this diva of the late summer/fall garden

I have found dahlias to be about as addictive as wasabi peas and chocolate covered almonds. Oh, I’ve always found them enchanting, to be sure, and have certainly swooned while visiting the dahlia test garden at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum — that little caged jewel box of delights. But, this is my first year of…

Climbing up and spilling over

Plants that climb to the sky and and plants that spill to the earth are very dramatic performers in the garden and some of my favorite flora to incorporate into a space. Climbers transform a space like nothing else as they draw the garden visitors eye up, transforming the entire garden picture. Spillers soften hard edges…

A crazy-quilt container planting can have a place in your garden

Every Memorial Day, my mom, bless her soul, buys a ready-mixed container from the fun This Old House in Arlington, Minnesota, to put on my dad’s headstone. Every year she then gives me the planter, bless her again, to incorporate into my garden. A dear gardening gesture. Whoa, was this year’s container a kicky combo…

Everyone needs a pansy or two at this time of year

The pansies have landed and are at your neighborhood nursery or garden center. Every northern gardener needs to treat their garden and themselves to a pot of pansies as early as possible in the spring. Particularly after the winter we have all just weathered. Pansies will take a little frost, which makes them the ideal harbinger of…

The perils of a poinsettia in February

If you treat your holiday poinsettia as tenderly as you do your other indoor plants, chances are, it’s still looking pretty good. At a time of year when I personally would like to put anything winter out of sight and mind, my poinsettia thrives. It sets on my buffet, all Christmas-like and merry, as if…

A succulent dish for the patio table is fun and easy to do

I did an article for the current Northern Gardener magazine on succulents and the many choices available these days. If you go to the homepage of the site, you can click on the read a sample article link and check it out. As always happily happens, when I research a topic, I get bit by…