Image from Proven Winners Are you thinking about curb appeal, wanting to clean up the planting beds along your home’s foundation? Did you just add a deck, and the yard around it looks bare and forgotten? Does your back yard have a pretty garden space left over from the former owners, but now it looks […]

I’m so grateful for peony season … when my very favorite perennial shows off! There is just nothing like the enormous ice cream cone blooms of an old-fashioned peony.  Scent, cut flowers, great foliage – these perennials have it all.  Maybe you have some questions about peonies and are thinking of planting some, now that […]

One of my very favorite ornamental trees, Magnolia stellata, or star magnolia, is just a showstopper in the springtime.  Its strappy white blooms flutter in spring breezes (or sometimes FLAP in Iowa’s bluster!) and are such a welcome sight early in the season. The tree is native to Japan and handles our central Iowa culture […]

People often ask what plants to combine in a garden – How does a person choose? Take this clematis as an example.  What blooms would work with this simple stunner? There are many factors that inform a decision about plant combinations.  One way to help the decision is to get to know the delicate intricacies […]

I’ve noticed the landscaping outside an office building near me for a few months.  The strip of ornamental grasses between the parking area and the road has consistently looked amazing.  The “hellstrip” – that area that is baked in the sun and surrounded by asphalt – is a tough area for anything to grow.  These […]

Looking for a showy native shrub? It seems that new hydrangea cultivars appear everywhere you look, but this old stand-by is tried and true. Consider Hills-of-Snow smooth hydrangea (Hydrangea arborescens ‘Grandiflora’) for your garden. It was discovered growing in the wild in Ohio around 1900 and is native to moist, wooded slopes and stream banks […]