My HOCD-horticultural obsessive compulsive disorder–kicks into high gear when it comes to containers. I use more than 100 in my garden. I have hordes of mixed containers -those planted with a riotous array of plants, and many more outfitted with a single specimen. Even empty pots play a role (but more about that in a[...]
It’s raining. And snowing. Again. This February has been a record month for precipitation here. We’ve had it all—rain, snow, ice–and lots of it. Winter is hanging on. My trowel is gathering dust, and atrophy threatens my digging muscles. So, I decided it was time for a green fix and took off on my annual[...]
Of all the colors, orange is the most maligned. Maybe because it’s a cross between lurid red and zippy yellow, fiery orange exhibits a kind of hyper hybrid vigor—it’s more than the sum of its parts, way more. Perhaps because it is aggressively in your face, orange is a color that almost forces people to[...]
I’ve got a thing for dark foliage. I love its smoky, sultry color, the way it can deepen a planting and lend it an air of mystery at the same time. It’s also a great foliage contrast with almost any other color and since I’m one of those who believes in building gardens from the[...]
I credit Pamela Harper as the first to popularize the notion of color echoes, in her book entitled, of all things, Color Echoes. That simple but supremely satisfying way of creating color combinations relies on pairing plants on the basis of shared color characteristics. Everything is fair game: leaves, flower petals, pistils, stamens, thorns, fruit[...]