How to get Years of Bloom from your Tulips
One way to enjoy tulips is to treat them as annuals. That way you choose any type you like, and have the fun of a trying a new color scheme every year. And that’s what I did before deer made…
Tips for Photographing your Garden
Before the season’s over don’t forget to record the way your garden looks now, so that you can remember what worked well and what didn’t, what empty spots need filling in, and so on. Plus, you’ll be able to relive…
Favorite Recipes for my August Garden
My garden is outdoing itself this August. The second crop of beans, just planted in mid-July, is already producing enough for dinner every other day, and the peas just planted last week where the cucumber vines had been are already…
Tough, Drought-Tolerant Plants for Curbside Gardens
Who SAYS the strip of land between your sidewalk and the street has to be covered with turfgrass? Okay, in some places the government actually says that but most of us have the freedom to plant something a little more…
The Next-Door Gardens of Wendy and Margaret
I recently attended an “open garden” event held by the Takoma Horticultural Club, during which I grabbed these photos of USDA-trained horticulturist Wendy Bell, whose talk about conservation landscaping we reported here on the blog. Above, Wendy and Viv’s house…
New Back Garden Ready to Show
It’s been a while since I showed off my new front garden in Old Greenbelt, and finally, I can show off the back garden, too. (Which in Old Greenbelt is called “garden side”. In contrast to what most of us…
Buying Crape Myrtles and Panicle Hydrangeas in Bloom
If I had room in my tiny garden for a crape myrtle or two, I’d buy them right now, when we can see exactly what color they are. I never trust the photos on the tags or even less, the…
How I invite birds into my garden
Over the years I have been adding more native plants to provide better food sources for birds and I have gotten rid of most of my lawn and replaced it with ornamental perennials, trees and shrubs. If I am spending…
Watch the new Mini-Documentary about Wangari Gardens
Launching today, the 5-minute documentary chronicles one man’s journey to reclaim an abandoned piece of land in Park View neighborhood of D.C. and transform it into a shared green space for his neighbors. It shows the determination of one person…
Color and Seating in the Garden
You know what I like even more than the grandest of professionally designed gardens? Personal gardens, the funkier and more colorful the better. And I found a fabulous one in Rockville the other day, thanks to a garden-coaching client wanting…
Time for Succulents!
The National Capital Cactus and Succulent Society participated in our recent Garden Party, and gave us a chance to reconsider these plants that seem to be better suited to a hotter, dryer climate than ours. But now the Mid-Atlantic is…
Storm-Altered Landscapes
Horticulturist and frequent Behnkes speaker Carol Allen has this report from her post-Derecho garden. Today an entourage of fourteen Pepco-affiliated service trucks descended on my little gravel road. They put up a new pole and strung some obviously temporary lines!…