Category: Garden Design

Carbon Garden / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Invasive Plants / Larval Host Plants / Native Plants / Native Trees / Organic Vegetable Gardening / Soil Conservation / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Natural Plant Fertilizers for Your Garden

  How do you fertilize your garden without buying any fertilizer?  That is a key question for gardeners and farmers throughout the world today, as it was a key concern for our ancestors who couldn’t purchase commercial fertilizers for their fields.   Soil must be fed to remain productive.   Many popular crops, like corn and cotton, deplete the soil after just a few years.  Our ancestors learned to use many natural fertilizers to keep their soil productive.   The Importance of...

Animal repellant products / Community Gardening / Compost / Deer / Edible Plants / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Organic Vegetable Gardening / Raised Beds / Seeds / Spring

 by Elizabeth McCoy

The Real Magic- Starting With Seeds

  Growing our own plants from seeds opens up a wide horizon of choices never even imagined by those who depend on the big box stores for their starts each spring.   There are many varieties of vegetables, herbs, flowers, and trees that have never been marketed in our area as seedlings.  Even within a popular type of vegetable, like tomatoes, there are many delicious named cultivars, many of them heirloom, not in commercial production as seedlings. Malabar spinach, a vining...

Carbon Garden / Climate Change / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Native Trees / Soil Conservation / Tree Care / Weather

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Planting Trees and Other Hacks to Manage Wet Soils

  Water may be a blessing or a curse.  Gardeners usually want abundant rain to nurture their plantings and generally have a back-up irrigation plan for dry spells.  Providing the right amount of water for each plant is one of the keys to a gardener’s success. Working With the Water Cycle Just as leaves absorb carbon from the air, so roots absorb water from the soil.  The water, and any chemicals or elements dissolved in it, may be stored in...

Birds / Garden Design / Perennial Care / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Deborah Bussert, Master Gardener, Class of 2016

2023 Perennial Choice

The Perennial Plant Association has named a new cultivar of the familiar black-eyed Susan as its 2023 perennial plant of the year – ‘American Gold Rush’. Like its older cousin ‘Goldsturm’, this plant is a hybrid among several species of Rudbeckia. It is said to be easy to grow with a long period of bloom in late summer on a compact habit and foliage that is less disease-prone. We are all familiar with the daisy-like bright yellow flowers with dark...

Container Gardens / Garden Design / Garden Maintenance / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Permaculture / Tender Perennials / Winter

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Weather Alert: Winter Cold

The Williamsburg area has recently been rezoned by the USDA to a slightly warmer Zone 8a. But temperatures can still get down to 5°F or -15 °C, although we don’t typically see temperatures much below the 20s. So as we pull out our gloves and coats, here are some simple things we can do even now to prepare for when extreme cold weather is in the forecast. Tips for Protecting Plants Potted shrubs and perennials hardy to Zone 6 or...

Birds / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Holiday Plants / Native Trees / Permaculture / Poisonous Plants / Sustainable Gardening / Wildlife Gardening

 by Elizabeth McCoy

Holly, King of the Winter Forest

  In late autumn, the Williamsburg area woods light up with evergreen holly trees as the hardwoods lose their leaves.  It is their time to sparkle in the winter sunshine.  Their broad, prickly leaves are waxy on top, reflecting what light reaches them through the forest canopy. Unobtrusive throughout the summer, hollies are among the few forest trees, along with wax myrtle, pines, cedars, and magnolias, which remain bright green and covered in leaves throughout the year. Holly King Legends...

Beneficial Insects / Birds / Evergreen Shrubs / Flowering Shrubs / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Heirloom plants / Invasive Plants / Keystone Species / Native Plants / Native Trees / Ornamental Shrubs / Permaculture / Poisonous Plants / Wildlife Gardening / Winter

 by Elizabeth McCoy

A Winter Wildlife Garden- “Inviting the Stranger”

  Cardinals nest in a large evergreen shrub beside my kitchen window.  Though the shrub, Ligustrum, is frowned upon by many contemporary gardeners as invasive, the birds don’t know that.  They delight in its abundant berries and the insects that visit year-round. We delight in watching the birds come and go, even as they peer in the windows at us.  We amuse one another.  Cardinals, titmice and other birds also perch in the crape myrtle tree a little further out...

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 / Fall / Garden Design / Gardening on the Wild Side: Working in Harmony with Nature / Wildlife Gardening

 by Judy Kinshaw-Ellis, Master Gardener, Class of 2015

Attracting Butterflies

Who doesn’t like butterflies? They are beautiful. They make us smile. They drink nectar from our flowering plants. They are colorful. We love them—even the little brown ones. So what can we do to bring them into our yards? Like other wildlife, if we want butterflies, and let’s include other pollinators, too, we need to provide water, food, and shelter. Lucky for us, the plants we plant for food will also provide shelter. And right now, the fall is a...