Bring The Beauty of Nature Into Your Life
Seasonal Plants
Plant profiles, seasonal highlights and combinations, bring the beauty of nature in a focused way to our garden spaces.
Gardening Tips and Tasks
Take advantage of knowledge that leads to best practices in planting, pruning, and yard maintenance.
Tools and Techniques
Learn about gardening tools and how best to use them, as well as recommended types and brands.
Desirable Design
From the basic elements of landscape design to the garden styles that work best with your home and lifestyle, explore the trove of articles here.
Beginning Gardening
Landscape 101
All the Basics
Garden How-To
Get quick tips and collated articles on the design topics you’re looking for.
Site Tour Sampler
Overview of the entire site with a breakdown of the main points of interest.
Our Knowledge Nursery
Think of this site as a garden nursery of knowledge about plants and landscape design. Seeds of inspiration and guides for getting the most out of your planting efforts should sprout into experience of nature which is the real teacher in this endeavor.
The importance of gardening technique and tips is that the success it gardners fuels your enthusiasm and helps you to not give up in the inevitable failures. Life is ever changing, in which the garden a microcosm of that truth. Plants are lost to freak cold snaps or heat waves and droughts, but the fresh and unexpected beauties of the earth overshadow any losses.
Don’t underestimate your possibilities or those of your garden. As you experience the special characteristics of your climate and soil, you will also discover your own capacities and delights in cultivating your ground.
My hope is that you discern what type of gardener you are, what most delights you in the outdoor space, and develop the capabilities of making the most of both.
Garden FAQ
Quick answers to frequently asked questions can be found in the Garden FAQ, which then will link you to in depth articles on the topic.
Good Soil
Building healthy soil is the foundation of every successful garden. Mulching, compost, soil amendments all help.
Specie Tulips Are Picture-Perfect in Miniature Gardens
Discover Wildling Tulips The specie tulips have a charm all their own, with the small size, but tough constitution of plants that grow in the wild. Tulipa polychroma is an example of the delicacy of the flower and form of the species class. Grown in pots makes them...
Ephemerals in the Garden
Some of my flower favorites are ephemeral plants -fleeting flowers which grace a garden and then disappear into the ground, waiting until the next year. Oriental poppies, Bleeding Hearts, Virginia Bluebells, Wildflowers of all sorts are among the numbers of perennials...
Dwarf ‘Tiny Wine’ Physocarpus, Ninebark Beauty in Smaller Proportions
Good News for Small Gardens Physocarpus bushes can get huge, but they have so much all-season interest and are so easy to grow that they rate a place in a garden. I grow 'Diablo' with dusky purple foliage, and now there is a dwarf variety,'Tiny Wine' Physocarpus for...
Do You Like Gardening Quotes?
“Designing the garden is like learning to speak. You begin with odd words learning the individual plants. Then you create a simple phrase, finding two or three plants that look well together, next comes a sentence and finally the complete story.”
~ Beth Chatto
The most serious gardening I do would seem very strange to an onlooker, for it involves hours of walking round in circles, apparently doing nothing. ~ Helen Dillon
A Suite of Sites
“Ilona’s Garden Journal”, my original blog, has a new home and a new name: come visit the Home Garden Companion!
The Garden Librarian is home to reviews of interest to gardeners.
Ilona1.com lets you know what’s happening with my sites and social media.
