Echinanea ‘Cheyenne Spirit’ in a Drift of Coneflower Colors (photo All-America Selections) You have a plant bed covered in sun most of the day, which needs something growing in it, but your lack of inspiration keeps you away. In 2013, the All-America Selections winners list included melon, grape tomato and watermelon food plant id [...]

We are halfway through the summer growing season and hopefully you have tried out plants competing in the 2013 American Garden Awards selection. In growing these flowering plants in your own garden, you have first-hand experience to greatly inform your choice. The American Garden Awards voting ends August 31, 2013. A second choice is to see t [...]

  Potted Gardens and Paradise Found are still my favorite container books. Used books shops are worth exploring for garden books with potted inspiration. Photo credit Chris Eirschele.   Bushel baskets, black iron racks, green plastic flower boxes and, what, a suitecase? All make my eclectic funky container garden sing. Photo credit [...]

One of my tricks to keeping my desire to grow plants going is trying new plants.  As a garden writer, I am especially lucky to sometimes try new plants before they are at the local garden center.  Here are some I tried last summer. Two more verbena, last year I loved Royale Chambray for its strong blue color. Superbena Royale Iced Cherry and [...]

The watermelon plant, Sugar Baby, fits in a rectangular container. The plant will yield watermelon fruit large enough for two people to share. It was not too long ago that growing vegetable plants in containers was the odd way to get food out of the backyard garden.  Thankfully, with large numbers of cultivars that will survive, yes even thr [...]