Category: Evergreen Perennials

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Carbon Garden / Evergreen Perennials / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Holiday Plants / Native Plants / Poisonous Plants / Wildlife Gardening / Winter

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Legends, Lore and the Truth About Mistletoe

  From November through May we can admire the living mathematics of the trunks and branches of hardwood trees.   Their leafy crowns have fallen, and their beautiful bark in all its silvery, marbled, textured variety is revealed once again. Looking up, we sometimes see lively green clusters of mistletoe shining in the treetops.  These shrubby, evergreen plants have been a part of myth and folklore since ancient times.  They live suspended between heaven and Earth, rooted into the branches of...

Evergreen Perennials / Ferns / Garden Design / Native Plants / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Evergreen Ferns Brighten Winter Gardens

  Autumn color and falling leaves turn a gardener’s thoughts to the winter months ahead.  While we’re still buying flats of bright pansies, pots of chrysanthemums and a pumpkin or two, let’s take the opportunity to also seek out evergreen ferns at local garden centers and online nurseries.  Evergreen ferns brighten the winter landscape as the ‘main event’ in winter container plantings, as ground cover under trees, and in borders and foundation plantings.     There are at least four...

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Carbon Garden / Deer / Edible Plants / Evergreen Perennials / Evergreen Shrubs / Fall / Ferns / Flowering Shrubs / Food Forest / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Keystone Species / Lepidoptera / Native Plants / Native Trees / Ornamental Shrubs / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Making the Choice: Native v. Imported Plants

  What do you consider when choosing plants for your home and yard?  We all have a checklist of criteria in the back of our minds.  Our criteria are very personal to our own needs and situation.  You may not purchase and plant as many plants as I do each year, but I’m sure that you enjoy the choosing and the planting just as much.     We gardeners have been encouraged to plant more native plants for quite a...

Beneficial Insects / Evergreen Perennials / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Invasive Plants / Native Plants / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Top Picks for Living Ground Covers (Part 3)

  How do you deal with a patch of bare ground in your yard?  That is the existential challenge of gardening, isn’t it?  The first, most logical choice for many is to plant a lawn.  We see lawns everywhere in our neighborhoods and public spaces.  Grasses may be the default ground cover for many people. But a grassy lawn gets expensive.  It costs time to maintain.  It requires ongoing investments in grass seed, fertilizers and other chemicals to feed it...

Container Gardens / Evergreen Perennials / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Moss Gardening / Native Plants / Perennial Care / Permaculture / Sustainable Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Cultivating Moss Part 2: Propagation Methods

Mosses are wild, native plants, and find spots to grow where conditions support them.  They reproduce sexually with tiny spores that blow on the wind.  They need consistent moisture to transform from a spore to a small plant, but they do it without any interference from the gardener.  One way to develop a moss garden is to provide favorable conditions and let the mosses colonize on their own terms.  This may take several years, even with consistent efforts to keep...

Evergreen Perennials / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Moss Gardening / Native Plants / Perennial Care / Propagation / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Cultivating Moss Part 3: Photos and Further Resources

A fern table needs mosses to serve as mulch, holding the planting medium in place.   Moss Garden Resources Find links to some excellent books, informative websites, and good sources for moss listed below: Hamilton, Helen.  Ferns and Mosses of Virginia’s Coastal Plain.  2017. Martin, Annie.  The Magical World of Moss Gardening.  2015. Nordström, Ulrica.   Moss: From Forest to Garden: A Guide to the Hidden World of Moss.  2018 Smith, Richard R.  New Methods in Moss Gardening:  How to Grow...

Birds / Carbon Garden / Container Gardens / Evergreen Perennials / Ferns / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Native Plants / Perennial Care / Permaculture / Propagation / Soil Conservation / Sustainable Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Unraveling the Mystery of Growing Ferns from Spores

Ferns have successfully propagated themselves in nature, with no human assistance, for millennia. So it shouldn’t be too complicated, right?

Animal repellant products / Beneficial Insects / Birds / Bulb Gardening / Container Gardens / Crafting With Plants / Edible Plants / Evergreen Perennials / Ferns / Flowering Shrubs / Fragrant Plants / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Herbs / Lepidoptera / Native Plants / Ornamental Shrubs / Perennial Care / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Making Container Gardens for Wildlife

  An older woman made her way slowly through the aisles of the garden center’s outdoor display area, leaning heavily on a cane.  As I turned, hands loaded with small pots, she was behind me.  She smiled and asked whether I had seen any bee balm on the display of herbs I’d been scanning. We began to chat, and it turned out that she wanted to attract hummingbirds to the balcony of her apartment.  Someone had told her that hummingbirds...