Sunflowers & Superstars

While the large island border is always a reliable kaleidoscope of color and texture at this time of year (see photo above), I have a smaller planting bed next to our main patio that is rather more fickle. It receives blazing sun all day, has terrible, sticky, clay soil, is a magnet for rabbits and…

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Versatile Container Plants for Spring

spring container garden

After being buried under snow for weeks, my Seattle garden is finally green again – with splashes of yellow, blue, pink, and white as spring-blooming perennials and shrubs wake up. It's so exciting to see color! Inevitably a few things look worse for wear after the winter – especially some of my containers, but rather…

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Renovation of a Mature Border – Part 1

Is your whole garden a place of beauty where butterflies sip, birds sing and you love to linger? Or do you have an area of your garden that is "just what it is". You neither love it, nor hate it – you just haven't got around to thinking about it? I do. This is the…

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The Path Less Traveled

Have you been into your garden recently? Not to weed the borders or cut the grass – just to see what is happening? Set the alarm clock a little earlier tomorrow, grab your camera and go on a mini garden safari. I must admit I wasn't sure there was anything really worth photographing. I hadn't…

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Beyond Geraniums….

Are you struggling to do something different with your sunny container gardens this year? Do you always seem to start off with a geranium, add  some pretty million bells (Calibrachoa) and then tuck in some trailing vbacopa to finish it off? Cheerful but not very imaginative is it?Yet this early in the season these are…

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