Category: Evergreen Shrubs

Citizen Science / Conservation / Evergreen Shrubs / Garden Maintenance / Master Gardener Home Visits / Native Trees / Pruning Clinic / Sustainable Gardening / Tree Care / Trees / Trees in Winter

 by Elizabeth McCoy

The Annual Pruning Clinic

  Woody plants remain healthier, more productive and more beautiful with strategic, well-timed pruning.  Pruning young plants guides their growth into a strong and balanced structure.  Pruning older plants opens them up to sunlight and airflow, limiting the opportunities for disease to infect them.  Proper pruning can also rejuvenate them with new, more vigorous growth. Pruning wisely is both an art and a science.  Some homeowners and gardeners may have questions about how and when to prune the many shrubs...

Citizen Science / Conservation / Evergreen Shrubs / Evergreen trees / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Master Gardener Home Visits / Native Trees / Permaculture / Tree Care / Trees in Winter / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Pruning: Dos and Don’ts

  Pruning woody shrubs is both art and science.  Selecting which branches to leave and which to remove allows a gardener to train a woody plant into a pleasing, balanced shape that fits the available space.  Some gardeners use pruning techniques to create neatly trimmed topiary, elegant hedges, or espaliered fruit trees.  Gardeners may also prune roots and branches and remove leaves and buds to train trees to live as bonsai in shallow containers.  Woody plants are extremely adaptable and...

Birds / Conservation / Evergreen Shrubs / Evergreen trees / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Heirloom plants / Native Trees / Permaculture / Plant Literacy / Tree Identification / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Broadleaf Evergreen Trees & Shrubs Every Master Gardener Should Know

Broadleaf Evergreen Trees & Shrubs   Buxus microphylla, Littleleaf Boxwood Buxus sempervirens, Common Boxwood Ilex opaca, American Holly Ilex vomitoria, Yaupon holly Ilex aquifolium, English Holly Ilex cornuta, Chinese Holly Myrica cerifera, Southern Wax Myrtle Myrica pensylvanica, Bayberry Osmanthus heterophyllus, Holly Tea-olive Pyracantha coccinea, Scarlet Firethorn Quercus virginiana, Live Oak   Broadleaf Evergreen Trees & Shrubs with Showy Flowers   Camellia japonica, Japanese Camellia Camellia sasanqua, Sasanqua Camellia Kalmia latifolia, Mountain Laurel Magnolia grandiflora, Southern Magnolia Rhododendron spp. Azaleas and...

Carbon Garden / Citizen Science / climate change / Climate Change / Conservation / Evergreen Shrubs / Evergreen trees / Ferns / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Invasive Plants / Jamestown Island / Mycorrhizal Fungi / Native Plants / Native Trees / Permaculture / Protecting the Chesapeake / Shoreline Erosion / Soil Conservation / Sustainable Gardening / Weather / Wildlife Gardening / Williamsburg Botanical Garden

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Managing Rain and Run-Off with the Right Plantings

The Elements of Life Water, light, and air fuel our lives.  We depend on them, as does every plant and animal.  Light energy powers the chemistry of photosynthesis to transform elements like carbon and hydrogen into sugars, food.  Oxygen fuels the production of life energy in every living cell.  And water fills every cell of every living creature; gives us sap and blood; powers every process of life.  There is no life, not even the tiniest microbe, without water.  ...

Prized Plants at the Olympic Games

Container Gardens / Edible Plants / Evergreen Shrubs / Evergreen trees / Fragrant Plants / Heirloom plants / Herbs / Ornamental Shrubs / Therapeutic Gardening / Trees

 by Betsy Beyer

Prized Plants at the Olympic Games

  The Olympic Games, a symbol of international unity and athletic excellence, incorporate plants and flowers into their ceremonies. These botanical elements enhance the visual appeal of the events and carry cultural and historical significance as well. Laurel and Olive in Ancient Greece In ancient Greece, victors of the Olympic Games were awarded olive wreaths, known as kotinos, made from the branches of the olive tree which is sacred to Zeus. This tradition dates back to 776 BCE and symbolizes...

Birds / Carbon Garden / Conservation / Edible Plants / Evergreen Shrubs / Flowering Shrubs / Food Forest / Foraging / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Larval Host Plants / Native Trees / Permaculture / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Part 2: PNV: Potential Natural (Native) Vegetation

  Appropriate Species for Tiny Forests in Eastern Virginia Tiny forests designed following the Miyawaki method include a wide variety of native trees, shrubs, and ground covers planted randomly and densely, varying the heights of trees to establish a canopy layer, intermediate layers, and a ground cover layer.  Plant as many as 3 to 5 plants per square meter into the prepared soil.  Plants grow quickly, reaching for the light.  A forest that takes a century or more to develop...

Tricolor culinary sage

Container Gardens / Edible Plants / Evergreen Shrubs / Food Forest / Fragrant Plants / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Herbs / Hummingbird Gardening / Propagation / Summer Color Plants / Wildlife Gardening / Williamsburg Botanical Garden

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Sage ‘The Savior’

  “Why should a man die in whose garden grows sage? Against the power of death there is not medicine in our gardens But Sage calms the nerves, takes away hand Tremors, and helps cure fever. Sage, castoreum, lavender, primrose, Nasturtium, and athanasia cure paralytic parts of the body. O sage the savior, of nature the conciliator!” From the Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum ca 1100-1200 CE   The name Salvia officinalis, designating our common culinary sage, derives its species name from...

boxwood / Carbon Garden / Evergreen Shrubs / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Hedge / Hedgerow / Heirloom plants / Native Trees / Ornamental Shrubs / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Hedges and Hedgerows Part 2: Making Good Choices

  Planting Reliable Shrubs in Tough Conditions Home builders and contract landscapers rely on tried-and-true shrubs that they expect to out-live their warranty.  That doesn’t mean that they are planting the most beautiful shrubs in new neighborhoods, or even the most appropriate ones for the site. They certainly don’t try to replace the sorts of native shrubs that might have grown on the site before it was razed for construction.  But they choose reliable shrubs that they expect prospective buyers...

Birds / boxwood / Carbon Garden / climate change / Conservation / Edible Plants / Evergreen Shrubs / Evergreen trees / Flowering Shrubs / Food Forest / Foraging / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Hedge / Hedgerow / Heirloom plants / Native Trees / Ornamental Shrubs / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

 Hedges and Hedgerows for a Healthier and More Peaceful Life, Part 1

  The Living Fence Gardening is the art of domesticating the wild, of creating living geometry within our landscapes.  Order, symmetry, lines, and boundaries please the eye and soothe the spirit.  We are inclined to organize and define our spaces by dividing them up into smaller pieces we can manage, to protect them within walls and behind gates.  We contain what is ours, setting aside sacred space, our own ‘paradise,’ from the wider world.  We exclude the unwanted wildness living...

Carbon Garden / Colonial Williamsburg Arboretum / Conservation / Evergreen Shrubs / Food Forest / Foraging / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Larval Host Plants / Native Trees

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Yaupon, A Native American Tea

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other word would smell as sweet.” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet v. Q2 1599     What is in a name?  How does naming a thing affect its destiny and how later generations will view it?  The story of how a popular native holly came by its name, and how that name destroyed a promising Colonial American industry, demonstrates that names have incredible power to shape the future....