Fine Gardening Ideas, Tips & Guides

Hi GPODers!

You must be careful when you enter the backyard of garden designer Jeff Epping. No because you’re likely to trip on something but because you might be dive-bombed by a pair of nesting hummingbirds, or a bevy of butterflies, or any number of other pollinators that make this shady Midwestern garden their home. Jeff Epping is the principal designer at Epping Design & Consulting and the former director of horticulture at Olbrich Botanical Gardens in Madison, Wisconsin. Given this background, it’s no surprise that his home landscape is something special. He writes about this beautiful space in his article, Design an Engaging, Naturalistic Garden in the Shade.

Twenty-five years ago when my wife Kathy and I started searching for a new home for our growing family, she focused on all the qualities one looks for in a new house. I, of course, looked at what every gardener considers imperative—the lot. Thanks to Kathy, we ended up with a wonderful new place. And much to my delight, the property had one particularly important feature—good soil. The other nice bonus was that the backyard bordered a small city park, with lots of open space for the kids to play, so my garden design did not have to include an area for kicking a soccer ball. Plant-wise, however, there wasn’t much other than invasive shrubs and trees. So after removing all the nasty invasives, I had a clean slate to work with.

Do all gardeners secretly think they’ve got it the worst? For instance, because I garden in New England, I feel like the glacial till (aka unbelievably rocky soil) and massively unpredictable spring weather make my gardening more of a challenge than, say, that of gardeners living in Seattle. But is that true? Probably not.

There is little you can do to control how much shade or sunlight a garden bed gets. Sure, you can cut down a tree to let in more sun or build a pergola for shade, but you can’t adjust the tilt of the earth. To find plants that will thrive in your garden, you need to get a handle on how much sunlight reaches each bed throughout the day and in all four seasons. Fortunately, with good observation skills and perhaps a new app on your phone, you can gather all the information you need to choose plants that will grow well in your garden’s brightest sun, deepest shade, and all the partially shaded places in between. 

Susan Burke’s home and garden on the Nantucket shoreline off the coast of Massachusetts were designed from scratch when she and her late husband first purchased the property. Featuring tall borders of naturalistic plantings and hardscaping that weave off into nature in the backyard, this space also has a more formal garden in the front yard consisting mostly of native plants. A large dune comes up from the beach, where a buffer of native flora divides the garden from the beach beyond.

Starting a new garden from scratch can be daunting, but it’s also a fantastic opportunity to create exactly what you want. The vision I had for my new garden (two decades ago) was based on the many small English gardens that I was lucky enough to visit—not the gardens with impeccably maintained lawns and neatly clipped hedges, but those that had plants spilling out of every nook and cranny. Since its inception, the landscape has been slowly undergoing a transformation over the past decade, from a traditional shade garden to a more naturalistic one that embraces an ecology-first mindset. This evolution, however, hasn’t sacrificed the original intention of my dream garden—that it be a visually appealing space with plenty of activity.

The following plants come from habitats that are seasonally or permanently wet, yet they can thrive in drier upland regions too. They are also tolerant of different soil types and textures. 

Like many northern gardeners, I had red-hot poker envy for many years but ruled out growing them because of their iffy -chances of surviving winter in my region. However, I am very excited about some of the newer Kniphofia introductions we are growing at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Being able to overwinter a South African plant in the Midwest is pretty cool, right? 

We design gardens in northwestern Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills, and many of our clients’ properties have sections that are rocky and steep. Embracing the unique contours of each site, we have built rock gardens, terraces, and plantings that flow downhill. We see each hillside as an opportunity to put together a satisfying plant palette that is easy to maintain and beautiful to behold. A bonus with slopes is that they provide good drainage by their very nature.

This plan represents a bed along a property fence between the west side of a house and a large canopy tree. The edge of the border is curved because I find that adds visual interest. This plan includes many plants that are adaptable to sun and shade as well as some supporting players that add interesting textures and forms to the design and that provide repetition and rhythm. The plants are placed according to their needs:

Hi GPODers!

Name: Hydrangea arborescens ‘Kolpinbel’

Siberian irises are known for filling the bloom gap between late spring and midsummer. They blossom after Japanese iris (I. ensata, Zones 4–9) but before bearded iris (I. germanica, Zones 3–9). This 2024 introduction sports a compact habit that allows it to hold the stems of heavy blooms aloft without fuss. Each flower has saffron-yellow signals (outer petals) highlighted by dusty purple-blue veins. The center is a solid amethyst hue. The interesting, tiger-like striping is certainly the cat’s meow.

Spring cleanup can be a real mess. If you cut your own ornamental grasses, that’s especially true if it’s a windy day and you’re dealing with taller ­grasses (e.g., Miscanthus, Panicum) blowing everywhere as they’re cut and fall over.

I have grown alliums for their stunning architectural form for years, but one is by far my favorite: ‘Ambassador’. Although its bulb is related to garlic, onions, and shallots, this ornamental garden variety is a show-stopper. There are many other allium cultivars out there, ranging in size, color, and form, but ‘Ambassador’ rises to the top of my list for a lot of reasons.

Name: Mahonia repens syn. Berberis repens

Name: Cornus kousa var. chinensis

I was first introduced to Mohr’s rosinweed on a botanizing trip to northern Alabama. It’s a true native stalwart and one of the many durable plants in the genus Silphium that are indigenous to prairies, meadows, and grasslands across the United States. These resilient members of the aster family are known to be both beautiful and extremely low maintenance in a garden setting.

Name: Pycnanthemum albescens

Tested by Mark Dwyer

For years I’ve heard the same refrain: You can’t have a good-looking garden that is also eco-friendly. It seems that many folks think native plants are too wild looking and that taking a lighter approach to garden cleanup or care will lead to a messy, unkempt landscape. I argue that there are small steps everyone can take to encourage greater biodiversity in their space, all while keeping it attractive.

A couple of weeks ago we saw the bulbs and buds growing in Carla Zambelli Mudry’s garden in Malvern, Pennsylvania. (Check those posts out here and here.). She’s already back reporting on the flowers (some way ahead of schedule) that have emerged since then.

Happy Monday GPODers!

I have often thought of myself as “gardening against the odds.” My rural Black Earth, Wisconsin, garden is adjacent to a marsh and pond and is technically in Zone 5a, but the open farmland and subsequent winds around me place it closer to Zone 4b. I’ve lost plants to harsh winters, deer, rabbits, and woodchucks. I’ve had snapping turtles till up my garden beds to make nests and beloved woody plants destroyed by beavers. As if all that weren’t enough, the majority of the shade in the garden is from black walnut trees, which cause lots of problems, like robbing moisture and nutrients from surrounding plants.

Happy Friday, GPODers!

Creating an entryway that truly works is a worthwhile investment. You will enjoy how it makes your home look and feel, and providing a welcoming first glimpse of your home and property will increase that all-important ‘curb appeal’ if and when you sell your home.

Hey GPODers!

Hey GPODers!

Today we’re exploring more of Jay Sifford‘s lesser-seen back garden. We’ve toured and featured the award-winning landscape designer’s immaculate stylized meadow front garden, but now we’re wondering why the blooming bogs at the back of his home aren’t getting more attention.

It’s always a treat when award-winning landscape designer Jay Sifford sends in photos of his fabulous home garden in the mountains of North Carolina. Today, we have an extra-special treat:

Irvin Etienne is the curator of herbaceous plants and seasonal garden design at Newfields, a 152-acre campus with art galleries, performance spaces, world-class public gardens, and a nature park in Indianapolis. Irvin has been a frequent contributor to Fine Gardening, sharing his horticultural expertise through informative articles like A Bright Idea for Spring Containers, Big and Bold Plants for the Back of the Border, and Bring It In!, a primer on overwintering all kinds of tropical plants. In this episode he delves into the path that brought him to horticulture, the lessons learned from decades of gardening in public, and some of the (many, many) plants that earn their keep in his home garden.

It is your GPOD editor, Joseph, here today, sharing photos of more wildflower adventures, this time in southern Indiana. It is amazing to me what beautiful flowers I saw and how many of them I have never seen in gardens! There is so much more we can do to truly appreciate and grow our beautiful native plants.

When you first arrive at the home of Curtis Steiner, you’re not exactly sure you’ve found the right address. His storybook home sits off the main street, and the entrance is only accessible from a small alleyway that is not large enough for cars. But once you open the tall front gate, you are immersed in a purely magical garden oasis filled with whimsy and plants of every imaginable shape and color. The fact that you’re in an urban setting is instantly forgotten thanks to the dense foliage that envelops you from every angle.

Joseph here, your GPOD editor. Last week I was in the Cincinnati area for a work project, and I took some time to hike in a few area parks. It was perfect time for spring wildflowers, and I saw some real beauties!

Brigitta Stewart, the owner of the small mail-order nursery Arrowhead Alpines in Michigan, has a garden full of tiny treasures, many of them very rare—special plants that you don’t see in many gardens.