by Danniel on March 23, 2012
Most perennials and bulbs bloom for 4 weeks or less.
A garden designer can help you plan for bloom rotation, so that you have something blooming all of the time.
A good designer can create a series of stunning combinations, so your garden has a different look every 4 weeks or so, and colors don’t ever clash, and you don’t have dead times in the garden when nothing is blooming.
A terrific designer can plan a garden that is at its peak during your annual summer party.
The very best designer is Mother Nature, and she gleefully trashed the work of all of those delusional human designers by throwing out a spring like this one.
by Danniel on March 21, 2012
this spring we will have the earliest tulips ever….the daffodils are already blooming their wee heads off.
If your bulb foliage is up, and you have deer visit your property, you may want to spread a little Milorganite around. It is the best deer repellent.
by Danniel on March 17, 2012
As a novice gardener, I was occasionally distressed by plants that did not look their finest. I used to clean up my gardens carefully, getting rid of all last year’s debris. The longer I garden, the more I enjoy every single change. This year, I am appreciating last year’s debris. For example, normally I would have cut this grass back (or burned it) before the crocus bloomed. Look what I would have missed out on:
Up close, the crocus peeping out of the cliff green (Canbyi’s Paxistima) with the Japanese grass, all fluffy and dead: 
Here’s what it looked like last fall:
Up close:
One true pleasure of the garden is constant change.
by Danniel on March 16, 2012
Here is a bouquet from last year, held against a grim gray sky, unretouched. There’s a metaphor here, but I am too tired this morning to create it. You are on your own.
by Danniel on March 14, 2012
Drag and drop imaging software lets me show clients what the project might look like upon completion…
by Danniel on March 13, 2012
Annuals offer far more color all season long. Flowering woody plants are so darn big and so showy that you cannot not notice them in bloom-that is why everybody knows Forsythia, Magnolia, and Lilac.
But perennials, because the melt away over the winter, and then reemerge, a little bigger and little bloomier–perennials teach us how to live.
I am grateful that they do so.
