Like the crocosmia, agapanthus (Lily of the Nile) was love at first sight. The plant is native to South Africa, so it is used to a temperate climate. In Atlanta, it usually blooms in June and July, producing beautiful puffs of pastel flowers atop an elegant long dark green stalkContinue Reading

How often should new plants be watered and how much each time? Both questions plagued me that first summer. The best advice I found said water new plants every day, then as often as you water the rest of your garden. Having never had a garden, I didn’t find thatContinue Reading

By June 3, the azaleas on the east side of the yard had been moved to allow for the hosta garden. The herb garden had been planted, and now it was time for the botanical section, so named because it was the intended home of the more exotic plants.  Belatedly,Continue Reading

 Hostas were a favorite of my mother-in-law. I, on the other hand, was only vaguely aware of them, having seen them before but paid little attention. Once it became clear that the front yard next to the porch was always going to be shaded, I became interested in hostas.  IContinue Reading

Flip through a gardening book or magazine, and there will be page after page of beautiful flowers nestled together, colors flowing, blending, complementing—a paradise on every page. Wonderful! But time to get back to reality. Those pictures represent hundreds of carefully-considered choices and never-mentioned mistakes. A brand-new gardener with EdenicContinue Reading

After ripping out the liriope, a new problem arose— the yard was even with the sidewalk, so there was no way to prevent mulch from spilling from the beds. The two obvious choices for solving the problem were digging around the perimeter of the bed to lower it below theContinue Reading