Beckie Fox

What prompts a person to love gardening? Is it when they move into a house and want to beautify their property? Is it when they realize the most local foods they can eat are the fruits and vegetables they grow themselves? Or are they inspired to garden because they knew an avid gardener when they were growing up? No doubt all these circumstances can be an influence, but I … [Read more...] about Inspiring future gardeners

There’s plenty of choice in the clematis family, and if you choose varieties from each of the three main groups, you can have blooms from early spring to early fall. If you want the vertical interest of their flowers, you’ll need to provide some sort of support for them to climb. It’s difficult for their wiry leaf stems to twine around anything bulky, so thin bamboo stakes, or … [Read more...] about Do-it-yourself-clematis supports

If you’re looking for near-instant gratification from a flowering plant, you won’t go wrong with an annual vine. Most are easy to grow from seed, they grow and flower quickly, and they relish the heat — something we seem to have a lot of most summers. Best of all, annual vines are incredibly versatile. They make flamboyant container plants when support is provided. Or let … [Read more...] about Versatile annual vines

I used to be leery of planting tall perennials in small borders, fearing they would need too much room. In fact, many tall perennials have a relatively small footprint, taking up little space at ground level, but adding another layer of interest above the mounding and clumping plants below. The narrower the profile, the easier they are to squeeze in. This week, the fluffy, … [Read more...] about Tall meadow-rue grabs attention

The longer I garden, the more eager I am to find space for another tree on our property. This seems counterintuitive given that at my age, I won’t see the trees I’ve planted in the past few years reach maturity. No matter. We plant trees for the future, not for ourselves. We inherited four nondescript trees when we moved into our house 19 years ago, and have planted more … [Read more...] about Making room for special trees