Just as they review their yearly financial statement, many gardeners do a plant assessment as they consider their gardens for the following year. This is no different than the trialing done at the Gardens at Ball Horticultural. The few new varieties that follow have been chosen from the broad range of annuals (plus one crossover perennial) that are available for the 2012 market.   >> read article

When you buy the right tools you can make garden maintenance easier (and less painful). Here are a few must-have favorites. Gardening isn’t all joy. Watching the garden evolve and change with the seasons is one of a gardener’s greatest pleasures but the pleasures also entail a lot of work. Therefore, the avid gardener is always searching for tools that will make maintenance easier ...   >> read article

“Why would I want a large, green, basically flowerless plant? I have plenty of lawn, trees, bushes and shrubs,” my friend sputtered when I suggested hostas as her landscaping solution. Like most new gardeners, she had dreams of profuse, lovely scented blooms everywhere. Later, realizing that gardens of Eden with bounteous blooms, need full-time gardeners, she wanted easier plantings.   >> read article

When are you supposed to prune lilacs? How about forsythia, weigela, beautyberry and roses? The biggest question about pruning is when to do it. The most common question I’m asked about pruning is when to prune a plant. There are different ways or reasons, but the biggest mystery usually is the timing. There are three “times” of year I suggest ...   >> read article

This easy care container plant will provide year-round excitement to a shady corner of your yard. The star of the show will certainly be any one of the plants in the Helleborus Gold Collection, but this container features Cinnamon Snow, with its pink and burgundy tints. Should you want to continue with a flowering plant through the summer, you can gently remove the hellebore and place it in another container or in the ground; then add a pink, purple or white Torenia that will bloom continuously until a hard frost, when you can return your Lenten rose to the container for a seamless year-round event.   >> read article