Articles Index - page 2

Choosing Plants for a Small Garden
Every plant looks tempting in the nursery center or catalog. How do you know what will do well in your garden? There are some guidelines for what to consider when shopping for plants for your garden. While there are times to indulge yourself with whatever plant catches your fancy, when designing a small garden, every plant matters. Choose wisely.

Garden Design for Small Spaces
Garden design for a small space has its pros and cons over grand scale gardening. In small garden design, the gardener can pay attention to detail. You can keep on top of maintenance, while still having time to sit and enjoy your small garden. The principles of good garden design still apply, but you’ll need to tweak them slightly. Virtually any plant or garden style can be worked into a small garden space.

Selecting and Caring for Cut Flowers
Keeping cut flowers blooming and looking fresh starts by choosing healthy flowers and then handling them well. The cut flower care tips outlined here can help keep your bouquets beautiful for weeks.

The Language of Flowers - Watch What You Say
Flowers have held meaning for centuries. You know a rose says love, but how about expressing yourself with violets for modesty, peonies for shame or daisies for innocence? The language and meaning of the flowers in you garden or bouquet can be as involved or as fun as you choose to make it.

Small Garden Design for Front Yards
If there is one place that small space gardening should be more widely practiced, it is in front yards. We have surrendered the front of our homes to foundation plantings of overly pruned evergreens and uninspiring dots of geraniums. It is intimidating to experiment in full view of every passer-by, but the pay off is great and I think you’ll find most people, neighbors included, will be delighted.

Garden Focal Points
Focal points are used in garden design to draw and direct the eye. The first thing you notice is this focal feature. Once your interested is concentrated there, you start to branch out and notice other plants and features in the garden. The garden is slowly discovered rather than swept through.

Using Focal Points in Garden Design
The purpose of a garden focal point is to bring the garden into focus. What may start out as just a grouping of plants is given definition by a focal point. Viewers instantly know where to bring their attention. We'll demonstrate some techniques in the following photos, but placing a focal point, like garden design in general, is largely a matter of trial and error. The more you do it, the better trained your eye will become.

Biltmore Estate Gardens
At the Biltmore Estate, the house gets most of the attention. The job of designing gardens to complement this masterpiece was given to Frederick Law Olmsted, the father of American Landscape Architecture. Obviously most of us could never try and replicate gardens on the scale of the Biltmore Estate. However there is much to be learned from studying the variety and selection and the way Olmsted incorporated them into the naturalistic landscape of a very formal estate.

Elements of Garden Design - Working with Color
Color is arguably the most prominent factor in a garden design and often the first one considered. Good garden design involves knowing how to combine colors so that the final product has a cohesive and pleasing effect. Here are some tips to train your eye to see color and for combining color in the garden.

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