A whole lotta garden-coaching is going on over on the garden-center blog I write for.
First up, I show off my favorite and most-recommended shrubs for turning a yard into a garden with big, showy ones, most of them fast-growing. Cheap, too. Like the Weigela above – ‘White Knight’ on the left, common pink on the right.
I’ve also compiled my favorite perennials and shrubs that brighten even the darkest of shady spots. Like the Euonymus ‘Emerald Gaiety’ above left or the Bottlebrush Buckeye on the right. Recommended perennials include Euphorbia amygdaloides, Solomon’s Seal, Hardy Begonia and Hakonechloa grass.
Take a gander at some super-common English Roseums on the shady side of my front garden.  Just posting this photo, I notice how much better they show off against the new fence than they ever did against the ivy-covered chainlink. Big improvement!  (Though I DO hear from neighbors who “miss the ivy”. I bet they wouldn’t miss the constant cutting back required to keep it off the beds and the sidewalk.)
But about rhododendrons, they sure don’t do well around here – except when they seem to flourish, and I may never understand why.  But even when they stay alive, my shrubs look great one year and then lose half their scrawny stems over the winter, and I start all over trying to nurse them back to a nice shape.  And this particular rhodie is often recommended as the most likely to succeed in this region.
On a positive note, the temporary nature of their perfection makes them all the more awesome today.
With so many people interested in adding native plants to their garden, I thought it was time to weigh in with a list of my favorites. That’s based on their actual performance in my garden, y’all.
I’ll fess up that this ‘Little Henry’ Virginia sweetspire isn’t mine, though. My full-size Itea is doing well and since seeing its little brother here in someone else’s garden, I ran out and bought 5 of them. Now it’s “Grow, Henry, grow!”
With cherry blossom petals everywhere, our eyes go straight to the dramatic boulder. Add a few leaves and flowers – of any plant at all – and the scene’s a winner in my book.
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I've instituted a new feature over on my blogging gig that pays the mortgage, and the cool thing is that plant profiles there include the wisdom of actual experts working at the garden center. In this case, the beloved gardening educator Gene Sumi weighed in on just how sustainable – or not – winterberry holly really is. For you fans of Latin, we're talking about Ilex verticillata.
Even in December, it's fun to wander my neighborhood just before Garden Blogger Bloom Day and see what's looking good. From the left you see winterberry holly, Nandina domestica, a lovely dry Miscanthus next to a Foster holly, and a close-up of Nellie Stevens hollies – all in my next-door neighbor's garden.
Their whole garden was designed to attract birds – avid birders that they are – so it's all about berries, feeders, and two ponds with a waterfall between them. Their landscape architect made a mistake in gathering berries for birds, though – birds won't eat the fruit of that Nandina. So I guess the good news is that this variety isn't being carried into natural areas by birds, (nandinas are notoriously invasive in some parts of the U.S.), but wildlife-wise they're no help at all. So like many landscape plants, their only purpose in the garden is to look good to humans.
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Above is another mixture of plants for humans and plants for wildlife – more Nellie Stevens hollies on the left, with Otto Luyken laurels and variegated liriope along the foundation. They're all wildlly popular plants with landscapers around here because they're such reliable do-ers.
Now go ahead and dis them – I know you want to.
