Today's Green Living tip falls into the Water Conservation category... recycle water by adding a rain barrel! Adding a rain barrel to your landscape is a pretty simple project that can be completed in a single day. Did you know a typical 1/2" rain storm will fill a 50 gallon rain barrel, while a 1" rainstorm produces 1/2 gallon of water per square foot of [...]
The Toad Lily With its beautiful orchid-like white flowers with purple flecks and graceful arching growth habit, Toad Lily (Tricyrtis hirta) compels anyone who gazes upon it to stop for a closer look. A must have for any garden, the Toad Lily blooms from late summer through the fall season and happily grows in the shade, providing an unforgetable eye-catching colorful interest. The plant typically stands 2-3 [...]
Amy Goldman's Favorite Heirloom's I was thumbing through the May 2009 issue of the late, great Metropolitan Home and found the "Seed Saver" feature which shared Gardener Amy Goldman, an aficionada of heriloom fruits & vegetables, and her favorite varities from her half acre plot in New York. It's a wonderful feature, and since it's the season, I had to scan & share with a close up of the text, below.
Free Seed Packets from DIYLife are GardenWise! We saw this offer on DIYLife.com and couldn't resist sharing the info! FREE wildflower seeds for the first 1,000 people who list an item on Diggerslist. We could recap DIYLife's story, but we just wouldn't do them justice, so here in their own words on the GardenWise blog . . . "Need that extra push to get rid [...]
August Color for Your Garden Nothing can ruin a garden experience faster than the August heat and a potential lack of water for your plantings and containers. It's easy to forget how often to water in the August heat. Plan now for August, the toughest summer month on your garden. It's also a great time to take a closer [...]
A GardenWise Adventure with Vines Vines can play a key role in a garden space. These wonderful and adventurous climbing plants create vertical interest as they wrap themselves around garden elements, such as gazebos, arbors and trellises, adding new dimensions and important focal points. They can also soften architecture and disguise areas that aren't fully developed. Strategically placed, vines can also hide areas that are [...]
Larkspur – A Late Spring Bloomer If you didn’t sow Larkspur seed in October for flowering in late spring, no worries. You can buy the plants at your local gardening center. Larkspur (Delphinium consolida,) which symbolizes an open heart, tends to be a bit fussy, and I’ve not had much luck in the DC-area. But if you have success, [...]
Congratulations to Our Own J. Mark White! The Hill Rag has named Mark a top landscape architect on Capitol Hill for "setting the standard for good landscape architecture and design on Capitol Hill" in their "Homes & Gardens" special isssue. You can read the story here. Mark's been thinking of landscape architecture for as long as he can remember! [...]
Welcome Back, DC State Fair! For those of us inside the beltway, calling D.C. a state isn't as strange as the out of the district dwellers may think. And we now have a State Fair! DC has a strong "state" attitude, a beloved and popular newspaper, excellent colleges , and fatastic restaurants -- it seems all the interesting "Top Chef" [...]
Older Trees Make Excellent Garden Focal Points We're re-posting this 2009 "Problem Solved" profile of one of our DC projects as it appeared in SOUTHERN LIVING magazine. We've worked with SOUTHERN LIVING on four profiles of four of our projects to date, and this was my favorite garden to shoot. It was a great project (with wonderful clients) that centered around an [...]
