Hanging Baskets - Top Care Tips

A quick and easy way to add a splash of color to your porch or yard is to hang baskets of blooming flowers from brackets. To ensure the flowers stay healthy and beautiful, here are a few tips:

• make sure you water them well. Flowers in hanging baskets are easier to forget to water than those in pots and planters on the ground. Also, watering them on windy days can help keep the plant from coming apart;
• if it's early spring and there might be some ground frost at night, bring the plant inside overnight;
• secure the pot to the bracket with a twist-tie. It remains nearly invisible, but will help keep the pot secure in the event it's accidentally bumped or some neighborhood kids try to abscond with your flowers (whippersnappers!);
• remove any brown or wilted blossoms and leaves to keep the plant looking at its best;
• remember to fertilize for best results

If you have a very sunny spot, strawberries do well in hanging baskets.

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Japanese Gardens

Japanese gardens have become increasingly popular over recent years, with their soothing contemplative atmosphere achieved through the use of natural materials like wooden benches, raked sand and carefully placed rocks -- as well as running streams and quiet pools.

Along with the popularity, demand for plants to fit in Japanese gardens has grown. It's thus much easier to find bonsai plants from commercial growers than ever before. You'll usually find trained, mature plants which will do well but make sure your climate is similar to that in which the bonsai was created. Local nursery trees which are pot-conditioned are an option as well and can be worked on as a bonsai immediately. Look for bonsai characteristics such as branches low on the trunk.

Restraint is the keyword to Japanese gardening, which means you don't need many plants unless you wish to do so. The hard landscaping and uncluttered look provides a semblance of space, even if you're working with a smaller lot.

Some of the traditional elements found in Japanese gardens (in addition to water, which can be real or symbolic, and arrangements of rocks and stones) include a stone lantern, a wall or hedge enclosure and stepping stones.

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Gardens for the Cottage

Cottage gardens are usually informal in style and require little in the way of heavy-duty planning or landscaping. Usually you've simply got lots of colorful plants with a vegetable patch thrown in somewhere, connected by meandering brick paths or stepping stones.

Perennials that self-seed like pot marigolds (calendulas) enhance the look of colorful chaos, especially if you allow them to grow where they will. Pot marigolds in full sun are quick bloomers too (typically blooming in less than 8 weeks) so you'll see results almost immediately, and you'll get a mix of bright yellows, reds, and oranges in your garden from summer through fall. You can even add the petals from this herbal plant to your salads, as they are indeed edible.

Another hardy annual is the Limnanthes douglasii, colloquially known as The Fried Egg or Poached Egg plant. This sun-loving flower carpet boasts fragrant golden and white blooms in spring and summer.

If you don't want to have a dedicated vegetable garden, plant vegetables among the flowers. Runner beans, for example, have attractive foliage with red or white flowers. The taller plants that grow to six feet tall obviously need support, but there are dwarf runner beans that are short enough to be able to stand alone.

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Formal Gardens

If your personal preference is one of crisp lines and symmetry rather than a more natural grow-where-you-will approach, the neat edges and traditional designs of formal gardens might be the perfect oasis. In fact, if space is at a premium in your yard, a formal garden is actually easier to plan and manage than a garden is more natural looking.

A popular choice of formal garden is called the knot garden. These do not tend to be full of colorful flowers, but rather a variety of greens, shaped to have strong lines and interwoven patterns. Back in the hey-day of the 16th-century when knot gardens (parterres in French) were enormous, they were actually designed to be seen from the upper balconies of mansions and grand country estates in addition to being a place to walk around and sit in.

The appeal of knot gardens (on a much reduced size scale) continues to be the geometric designs of the clipped hedges, as well as the restful greenery throughout. However, there's a lot of work involved first to establish and then to maintain, so a knot garden really isn't one for the "lazy gardener".

To stay true to tradition, the spaces between the hedges should be filled with stone instead of flowers. The color of the gravel itself should be used to best display the series of shaped beds: white can help brighten a small, dark garden, but black can be used to great effect in a very bright space.

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Gardens in the Shade

Most gardens have a shady spot, and sometimes the growing area that's affected by shade thrown by a building or tree cover can be quite large. However, you can nearly always find some plants that will do very well in these sun-free areas. Just remember to differentiate between dry shade and moist shade, and choose the plants accordingly.

For example, the Japanese laurel (aucuba japonica) is suitable for dry shade, as are the elephant ears and heartleaf formations of the Bergenia hybrids (a strain of hardy evergreen herbaceous perennials, some of which bloom in winter).

The Common Snowberry (Symphoricarpos albus) is a shrub that does well in moist soil, and actually grows best in heavy clay soils. Snowberry (also known as the white coralberry) grows well in sun or shade, and is a vigorous plant that spreads rampantly -- in other words, a great choice for a difficult patch of shade.

Another plant that grows very rapidly in moist, shady conditions is the Salmonberry. In fact, this shrub can do well in full shade and is so hardy it can become invasive if not maintained.

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Garden Plants that Attract Wildlife

Birds and butterflies are nice visitors to have to your garden, and you can plant specifically to attract them (as well as control pests naturally, such as with beneficial insects like ladybugs that dine on garden eating aphids).

A thick hedge is a natural environment to wildlife where a fence or stone wall isn't, and the shrubs you might consider here include, for instance, the hardy Japanese Laurel (aucuba japonica), which will not only bring birds, but also a lovely splash of color with the red fruit in autumn set against the bold foliage. A prickly evergreen hedge like holly with its spiny leaves actually provides birds with food and a safe place to shelter during winter storms, hide from predators as well as to build nests and rear their young.

If you like bees in your garden (personally, I'm a bit of a chicken when it comes to wasps and bees!), border your garden with lots of Autumn Joy plants. Brilliant red clumps of little blooms make the "risk" worthwhile :-)

For pure yellow that brings only butterflies (o those creatures of no stingers), I like the look of alyssum saxatile -- known as Basket of Gold. It flowers from mid-June til October and is an attractive ground-hugging perennial flower that can actually grow as tall as 12".

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