McLean Nursery is gearing up for a big Christmas holly decorating season! Hundreds of fluffy festive bows are hanging from the workshop ceiling and the 'elves' are busily making the many wreaths and boxwood trees that are destined to deck the halls of some lucky customers. And those customers come back year after year as …
Continue reading "Handcrafted Fresh To Your Home at McLean Nursery"
Christmas porch pots are the easiest method to decorate your outside entrance or deck inexpensively and quickly. If you need some pizzazz to greet visitors, create a live green arrangement with evergreens and twigs cut from your property. Jazz it up with something sparkly and you can leave it in place for weeks without any …
Continue reading "Top 10 Tips for Creating Outdoor Christmas Arrangements"
Thanksgiving dinners require a WOWÂ centerpiece to go with the cornucopia of food. I recently attended a floral design class with Jane Godshalk at Longwood Gardens and created a centerpiece that was a fitting accent at the table. Low enough to talk over and interesting and creative enough to grace any dining room table, I learned …
Continue reading "Thanksgiving Centerpiece of Gourds and Pumpkins"
Having decorated for Christmas at the White House for several years, my fondest memories of the time spent there is the official unveiling of the intricately detailed candy-adorned gingerbread house. Gingerbread Construction & Placement The annual tradition occurs around the last day that we are feverishly decorating, when the enormous and very heavy piece of …
Continue reading "Gingerbread at the White House"
An easy centerpiece to whip up for your fall themed table, using a handsome pumpkin, can be done in half an hour. Integrating dried flowers, pods, and juicy succulents, your centerpiece will last for weeks. Drying flowers all summer long from my garden gave me ample stock to pick from, and I had a bumper …
Continue reading "How to Make a Succulent Pumpkin for Fall"
September means ordering bulbs and getting ready to plant in October and November. I plant bulbs in my garden every year to increase my varieties and numbers as I like to bring fresh cuts in to enjoy. The average vase life for tulips is a good 10 days! But many people ask what varieties I …
Continue reading "Bulb 101-Tips for Growing and Deer Strategies"
In the landscape business for over 25 years, I have seen it all. I have worked for large landscape businesses and now run my own landscape design/build service. Meeting with many clients over the years, working on large estates to small courtyard jobs, I feel that I have observed every mistake in the book before …
Continue reading "Crimes Against Horticulture – Landscaping Mistakes to Avoid"
When you have oodles of tomatoes coming in every day, I had to do something with them besides sauce. There is only so much sauce I can use throughout the year. So, I tried 2 recipes, one for heirloom tomatoes, mostly red, and the other for yellow grape tomatoes which had a banner year in …
Continue reading "Sweet and Savory Easy Jam Recipes"
Liking to cook, garden and design, when I noticed these beautiful focaccia breads all over the internet, I had to make some. It makes sense to decorate focaccias, as they are a blank canvas waiting to be adorned with art- edible art! Focaccias have always been my favorite easy-to-make bread in my bread machine and …
Continue reading "Bread Art with Botanicals"
Elderflowers are reaching a new level of popularity because they are easy to grow and use in recipes, and have many health benefits. The sweet umbels of creamy colored flowers that can reach 12" across are so fragrant and have a unique smell - kind of like floral, creamy, and summery all in one …
Continue reading "Elderflower/Elderberry Ultimate Guide"
Edible flowers are frequently for sale at farmer's markets but most people are hesitant to take the plunge and actually eat them. Garnishes - yes, but actually eating flowers??? For most people that is a different story. But flowers can add a lot to the flavor as well as appeal of a dish. Go to …
Continue reading "The Edible Flower Garden – Petal to Plate"
Gardener's Dictionary Hypertufa (n.): An artificial and lightweight stone that gardeners can create from a recipe and mold into plant containers, troughs and any other shape. If you mention hypertufa to a non-gardener, you would probably get a blank look. But in the gardening world, it is very trendy and a sign of a serious …
Continue reading "Make Your Own Hypertufa"
Giverny, designed by artist Claude Monet, looks good in any season, but spring time visits are glorious! Bulbs, early spring flowers, blooming shrubs and trees, make it a impressionistic painting of flowers. Visually striking from the moment you step foot in the garden, most people upon entering, pause and let it all soak in before …
Continue reading "Springtime in Giverny"
I am traveling to Scotland in July and am very excited about seeing parts of Scotland that I haven't seen before and visiting favorites that I want to go back and see. I will be leading a small group of intrepid travelers, some new and many repeats of my previous tours. My garden tours are …
Continue reading "Scotland’s Gardens, Islands, and Castles"
Deer resistance is a huge buzz world in the gardening world and for good reason. Many of us battle these animals daily and too many just throw up their hands and give up. All it takes is to educate yourself on the many possibilities that are available - both native and non-native - and throw …
Continue reading "Deer Resistant Landscaping"
Turf grass lawns are an American tradition. Everyone who has any kind of yard or property aspires to having a perfect green manicured carpet. But as we now know, grass can be a dead zone for native insects and birds, devoid of any nutrition or habitat for native species. Mowing, watering, fertilizing, and pest controls …
Continue reading "Planting a Pollinator Friendly Bee Lawn"
Gardeners and Hellebores Ok, drumroll here....I think I can say that Hellebores are my favorite perennial plant. A well-kept secret of garden enthusiasts, Hellebores should be more widely known to serious and not so serious gardeners alike; this is a plant that is worth seeking out. What other plant resists deer, neglect, likes shade-even deep shade, is …
Continue reading "Hellebores-Deer Resistant, Low Maintenance, Shade Perennial"
The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) runs from Feb 18-22, 2022, which is an unique opportunity to get the family involved in this popular hobby to record bird sightings. An event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of bird populations, the GBBC is a great …
Continue reading "Great Backyard Bird Count 2022"
David Austin Roses evokes trusses of fragrant many petalled blooms hanging on an arbor in the quintessential English garden. I have seen many of these examples over the years in my travels in the UK and also the western part of the country, but in the Mid-Atlantic region, this effect is harder to get, but …
Continue reading "Stars of the Garden – David Austin Roses"
Everybody is into seed starting this spring because of renewed interest in gardening and there are tips and tricks to this great money saving hobby. New gardeners frequently think that you just throw some seeds from a seed packet into potting soil and place them in a bright window and hope for the best. But …
Continue reading "Secrets of Great Seed Starting for Experts and Beginners"
After a hectic year of non-stop landscaping work, I have some time on my hands and discovered 'winter sowing'. I started doing it last winter in a small way with Bells of Ireland and was so successful, that I am winter sowing in a big way this January and February to save my precious time …
Continue reading "Now is the Time to Winter Sow"
Recycling a fresh cut Christmas tree into a bird feeding station is the ultimate repurposing of your Christmas decorations. Setting up my old tree next to my bird feeders gave me hours of enjoyment watching birds feeding, chirping, and feasting - not to mention the squirrels pigging out! Just watching the squirrel antics kept us …
Continue reading "Bird Feeding Station From Recycled Christmas Tree"
If you haven't had a chance to get to Longwood Gardens this year for the 'Fire & Ice' Christmas decorations, you still have time. Scheduled to be open until January 9, 2022, the decorations were over the top. Each year I think they can't outshine the previous years, but 'Fire & Ice' was fantastic! Opposites …
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Everyone is decking the halls, by cutting boughs of greens from their property and using them for decorating. Foraging is the trendy way of describing the time honored tradition of using what you already have. When spruce cones start to form on trees, I venture out with my long reach pruners and snip them off …
Continue reading "Deck the Halls With Foraged Christmas Arrangements"
Crossing out several names on my Christmas list this year, I was left with a bird lover/watcher who I knew would appreciate homemade bird treat ornaments. Feeding hungry songbirds in winter is a great way for people to interact with nature and help birds get through the tough months of winter. Studies show that bird …
Continue reading "Bird Lover’s Homemade Gifts for Christmas"
It's that time of year when all of our fresh garden flowers are gone and we turn to those that we dried or preserved for the long winter season. For my post on the rebirth of dried flowers which were very popular in the 70's and 80's, go to Dried Flowers Back From the Dead. …
Continue reading "Christmas in Dried Flowers"
Christmas at The White House is magical - both for volunteer decorators and visitors. And I got to be a decorator again for the fourth time this past Thanksgiving week and never tire of doing it. People from all over the country converge on The White House on Thanksgiving week to decorate the People's House …
Continue reading "White House Christmas – Gifts From The Heart"
Christmas porch pots are the easiest method to decorate your outside entrance inexpensively and quickly. If you need some pizzazz to greet visitors, create a live green arrangement with evergreens and twigs cut from your property. Jazz it up with something sparkly and you can leave it in place for weeks without any care. Long …
Continue reading "Christmas Porch Pots for Instant Pizzazz"
McLean Nursery is gearing up for a big Christmas holly decorating season! Hundreds of fluffy festive bows are hanging from the workshop ceiling and the 'elves' are busily making the many wreaths and boxwood trees that are destined to deck the halls of some lucky customers. And those customers come back year after year as …
Continue reading "Christmas Decorating with Holly at McLean Nursery"
Porch pots are an old fashioned way to decorate a deck, porch, or other entrance to and give you instant fall color. Burning bush, dogwood, viburnums, hydrangea flowers, and other fall colored branches are available for the taking along road sides or your property. Foraging in the Wild Burning bush has escaped to the wild …
Continue reading "Porch Pots for Instant Fall Color"
"Should I leave the leaves? " is a question I am getting more and more frequently. With all the recent information flowing out about "re-wilding" and keeping things "natural", I wanted to address the dilemma of raking or not raking your leaves. You certainly don't want to bag them up and add to a landfill! …
Continue reading "Should I Leave the Leaves?"
Celebrate the fall season by these top 10 ways of pumpkin decorating. From mini chalk-painted pumpkins to gorgeous hand-painted marble creations, step up your style this year with these no-carve painted pumpkin ideas. These creative painted pumpkins think outside the box with modern metallics, fresh florals, and gold studs. Get inspired to take your pumpkin …
Continue reading "Top 10 Ways to Decorate Pumpkins for Fall"
Garden mums should be in every garden for that last blast of color before the first freeze withers everything. One of the last plants to bloom before frost, I savor the blowsy colorful flowers that come in a range of reds, oranges, and pinks. Attracting many pollinators as they are the few things that are …
Continue reading "Garden Mums for a Last Blast of Color"
Bottle Brush Buckeyes are blooming everywhere and if you are in the know, you are planting more of them. Attracting hummingbirds, butterflies, and other native pollinators by the dozens, this native is a great understory plant for shady woodland areas. Deer and rabbit resistant, it forms a dense, mounded, suckering, deciduous, multi-stemmed shrub which typically …
Continue reading "Buckeyes Are Blooming – Summer Garden Queen!"
When COVID reared its ugly head in March, I started to spend a lot more time at home as my garden travel schedule was cancelled. Trained as a floral designer, and also an avid gardener, I decided to grow more plants that I can use in floral arrangements using my preferred method "garden style". Arranging …
Continue reading "Home Grown Bouquets at #BouquetoftheDay"
