A few years ago I started planting flowers in my vegetable garden. At first, it was because I simply ran out of room in my yard and had nowhere else to go but the vegetable garden.
By adding flowers and herbs throughout my vegetable garden I had unknowingly created a habitat for beneficial insects. I started to notice my vegetable plants were thriving and producing more with less bug and disease problems.
In fall I feel so fortunate to live in the Northeast, where people travel to see the beauty in the changing of the seasons. This is a time of year when plants native to the Northeast really shine with a variety of vivid colors. When designing a landscape, Catherine Volić takes care to consider how plants look with their fall foliage, so you can enjoy the contrasting colors of the season in your own space. Clients are often pleasantly surprised by the dramatic changes they see as fall arrives. Even when summer blooms are finished, fall brings plenty of color and beauty to a well-planned garden.
This September, horticulturist Christine was amazed to find over 100 monarch butterflies roosting in a tree in her yard! Monarchs “roost” (gather to sleep) in groups overnight in sheltered spots on their long, yearly journey south to Mexico. While Christine is used to seeing a few monarchs in her large home garden, this year at least 20-50 of them dropped in daily in September and October.
Winged visitors are a pleasure to spot in the garden. Butterflies, moths, dragonflies, song birds, and birds of prey interact with the plants we choose and each other as they fly through in search of food, shelter, and mates. Learning to identify garden visitors and making sure to plant the native vegetation they need can transform gardening into conservation. Here are notes on some of the winged visitors Catherine has photographed at her home garden and in the gardens of clients.
Using the right plants can make a garden inviting for both humans and native pollinators, including one of our favorites - hummingbirds. Sweetgum Horticulture founder Catherine says, “visits from these winged creatures add a surprise layer of movement, sound and color to my designs.” Read on for some of our favorite plants for attracting hummingbirds to your garden. We think you will enjoy these plants and their visitors too.
Yes, it is possible to compost in the winter, even with more than two feet of snow on the ground! It also makes a great excuse to get outside and enjoy a few minutes of fresh air (and sometimes even sunshine!) on frigid winter days.
Last summer, when I was playing with my kids at Weezie’s Garden for Children at Elm Bank in Wellesley, I made the acquaintance of Frank Hamm, who was doing maintenance work on some of the many structures that he had built in the garden. My kids have spent hours climbing in his two story “tree house”, as well as in the woven twig “birds’ nests”. I was always amazed by the creativity and craftsmanship of these structures, and so I was pleased to meet him in person. I took his card, and when it was time to build a fence for a future kitchen garden in my backyard, I gave him a call.
Looking back over the images of the herbs and vegetables that I grew in containers around my patio last summer, I was struck by how an edible garden in a container does not have to be a static creation that you just plant at the beginning of the season and forget about. It has a life cycle comparable to that of a garden in the ground. A great example is the miniature herb and vegetable garden that I planted in this large ceramic pot in May. It contains lemongrass, variegated nasturtium, curly parsley, red cabbage, yellow Swiss chard, red Swiss chard, golden pineapple sage, and yard-long beans (on the tripod of bamboo stakes). While the yard-long beans are getting a slow start in the back, all the other components are growing strongly.
As I mentioned in my last post, a vegetable and herb garden planted in containers can be just as dynamic as a garden planted in the ground. The baskets in these images were found at my town’s reusable area. The brown baskets are florist baskets that were already lined with plastic. I poked several holes in the plastic to allow for drainage. The green basket came without a liner, so I lined it with a scrap of permeable weed barrier before filling it with my special potting soil/compost/fertilizer mix. The weed barrier prevents the soil from washing out through the spaces in the basket, but allows water to drain freely.
That was the phrase printed on the box that arrived at our house a few days ago. (Humus = the organic component of soil.) Cute, huh? The box contained our new Soilsaver compost bin. In pieces, of course. With just this tiny plastic wrench and...
Sweetgum Horticulture is serving clients in the Metro West communities of Boston, MA, including Wellesley, Weston, Newton, Needham, Natick, Wayland, Lincoln, Dover, Sherborn and Sudbury.
Gift certificates are available for all of Sweetgum Horticulture's services. These make great birthday, thank-you or Mother’s Day gifts.
