October weather can be both wild and beautiful with storms and rain alternating with calm sunny days and dramatic, low-angled sunlight. Tall-growing perennials and grasses responding to these changes will attract attention within the stable framework of any well planted garden. As the yellow daisy flowers of the heleniums and rudbeckias fade, the garden’s colour
Lunaria rediviva is a perennial Honesty that you don’t see in many gardens. What a pity as it is such a fantastic early flowering perennial. The neat clumps with bold foliage are useful when other plants are still taking their time to wake up in early spring. Their light violet flowers are delicate and generously
February is probably the most frustrating month of the year for a gardener. The winter pictures we so carefully planned are now beginning to fall apart. Those upright stems, seed heads, our so-called winter silhouettes, have finally started to collapse following rain, snow or storms. We need to get out into the garden and start
As spring arrives, early planting partners find associations that later will either disappear or change with perhaps just one plant dominating. The speed of growth in early spring is exciting changing the garden almost daily. Ferns are truly dynamic at this time of the year sometimes shooting up to nearly full size in just a
Theme plants dominate the garden in their season. Through repetition of a common characteristic such as colour, form or by planting different variations of the same plant species a garden theme can be created. In the garden a seasonal theme might be confined to just one area, but can also be spread throughout the whole
If you have time between now and Christmas don’t hesitate, just get outside and plant bulbs; it may not be too late.
It is March, winter’s end, and time to cut back the grasses and perennials in the Perennial Meadow gardens here in Amsterdam. It is still possible that some grasses are beautiful even after a long wet winter, but it is now time to cut them back and tidy up the garden. Some grasses like Hakonechloa
Early flowering Mahonia x media ‘Winter Sun’ is the highlight in my garden this Christmas in Amsterdam. ‘Winter Sun’ flowers from the end of November through into January. This is earlier than the better known Mahonia ‘Charity’ which will be ready to take over its role somewhat later in the new year. These easy growing
Mahonia x media ‘Winter Sun’—Small Garden Shrubs for Winter Read More »