Design Blog
August 12, 2010
Native plants. What's all the buzz about? First off, it helps to understand what exactly makes a plant “native”. Native Wisconsin plants are defined by their existence in the Wisconsin landscape prior to the 1800’s; basically before European settlers arrived to the area. Their popularity has grown over the last decade because of the green movement to reduce our impact on the environment. Native plants have spent centuries adapting to their natural environment, so require less water to grow. That translates to less money spent on the energy bill. And how much of your lawn do you actually use? Rather than mowing it week after week, using up gallon after gallon of gas, transform a corner of the yard into a small prairie. This corner of the yard will also attract the many native butterflies and native birds, plus it’s a pretty cool idea. Imagine telling your kids, “Hey Timmy, this same kind of plant might have been growing in this very spot hundreds of years ago!” Sounds pretty good,...more
June 21, 2010
It occurs to me that I approach my blog much in the same way I approach gardening. If anyone reading this entry has been to one of my speaking engagements, you’ve heard me say time and again that I am a good horticulturist, but a lazy gardener. When I plant something in the yard, it has one chance. If it dies or requires too much care or just isn’t performing at the level I want, I’ll replace it next year. If I really like the plant, I’ll give it one more shot, but that’s it. Merciless, maybe, but I live, eat, breathe, and sleep horticulture almost every day, April through November. My husband, however, does not. After spending an entire afternoon slaving away on my patio containers I will ask him how they look and he responds, “Oh…yes, they are very nice. Now can we go to dinner?” He appreciates what I do to improve the yard, but just can’t quite muster the levels of enthusiasm I possess. Obviously on the days off we have together, his idea of a good time is not weeding or...more
March 4, 2010
This is a frustrating time of year. We get glimpses of spring with a week of balmy temperatures in the upper 30’s. I decide that it’s safe to wash 3 months of salt off my car. I don’t have to shuffle across 2 inches of ice from the garage to the back door. The snow drifts that formed concrete walls around the garbage cans have started to abate and I can easily get them to the curb again. The air smells different, fresher. Birds are singing louder. Could it be? Tra la, tra la, winter is almost over! Then temperatures plummet, it starts snowing again, and I’m left feeling foolish that I forgot this is Wisconsin, it’s March, and we don’t get off that easily. But on the bright side, I have at least another month to get my laundry list of projects finished before spring arrives and I fall off the grid, because in the horticulture biz, spring is a flurry of activity and deadlines. But what do I do to shake these winter blues in the meantime? I need some color for inspiration...more
December 24, 2009
I would like to dedicate the following blog entry to Mother Nature, who decided winter should start with a bang this year. Two weeks ago I was driving home through the blowing snow and I noticed how beautiful the neighborhood trees looked, wrapped in holiday lights and dropping under the weight of heavy, wet snow. The next morning I noticed that the same trees had broken limbs and were completely bowed under the weight. Upright evergreens like arborvitae and juniper and mature specimens of spruce seem to have been hit the hardest. I’ve taken several calls from people whose large paperbark birches succumbed to the elements. Birches, in particular, don’t have very strong branches so are prone to breakage. One woman had a large Austrian Pine planted on a slope and the snow actually caused the roots to heave out of the ground, the tree was buckling so much. She wanted to know if we could come out and stake it straight again. My advice to her, and anyone else with the same...more
December 7, 2009
Well, Mother Nature finally decided that it was time to deliver us winter. Our unusual fall allowed my fall containers on the patio to look decent until a week or so ago. But now it’s time to strip them down and put the containers away before they become an eyesore. Or is it? Winter doesn’t mean you have give up beautifying your patio/porch/deck with plants. Nature’s bounty offers a wide array of evergreens and deciduous trees and shrubs that, when cut and placed in your containers, create a festive display. Many garden centers this time of year (like Johnson’s Gardens) offer bundles of branches that can be arranged in containers for the holiday season and will last well into winter. But your own yard can be a good place to harvest the materials you will need. When doing the fall pruning, save the bright red stems of red twig dogwood. Or maybe you have a spruce tree that needs to be limbed up because it’s growing into the driveway. If you don’t have enough plants in your...more
October 8, 2009
I love fall. It’s my favorite season. I love the colors, the smell of dried leaves in the air, seeing my breath puff in the morning. I love that we need an extra blanket on the bed. I love that I can get out my heavier jackets. I love that I have an excuse to freshen up my tired summer patio containers that I’ve neglected since the novelty wore off in August. And I love the beautiful, tempting array of fall blooming annuals to replace my summer flowers. However, everyone has budget limitations. The good news is not all annuals need to be replaced. Most of my petunias still look good and can withstand light frosts. If you incorporate perennials into your containers, many of these can stay, too. Basically, you just need to know which summer flowers are hardier and won’t “melt” when temperatures dip to freezing. Over the weekend I showed no mercy and ripped out my dahlias, summer snapdragons, coleus, and impatiens. The blue Krossa Regal Hosta I have in a shady location...more
August 31, 2009
I've always liked butterflies, so I started researching how to create gardens that attract these colorful insects. This blog is about 8 key factors in creating a successful Butterfly Garden at home. Plus, some extra places for you to go for more information.
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March 9, 2009
March is here and we are experiencing some very unpredictable weather. Only in Wisconsin does March creep in like a kitten, and the next day bare the fangs of a lion. When we do get a serendipitous pre-spring melt, it is the perfect opportunity to get a head start on any landscape improvements you may have been dreaming about all winter. It’s time to get out those spring plant catalogs that have been arriving in your mailbox and put them into action! But before you start making your wish list, it’s a good idea to get it all down on paper to determine whether or not you have the right plants in the right spot before you plant. The first stage of any good landscape design is compiling all of the information you’ll need for the drawing. Since we have this reprieve from snow, get outside and take some photos of the area you want to plant. Take shots from several different angles to remind you of what it looked like, in case we see snow again. If you are redoing an existing area, make...more
February 13, 2009
My husband will tell you that one of the problems with being married to a horticulturist is that we can’t go anywhere without me talking about plants. Whether driving through a neighborhood on the way to breakfast, an excursion to Miller Park for a ballgame, or our neighborhood jogging route, I always notice the yards we pass. And I always feel the need to educate him on why one landscape is good and the other could use some improvement. He is a patient man, but I think this a fair trade considering the times I have to listen to him go on about a movie that I will probably never see. The front yard is the first thing people notice when they pass or visit your house. One common characteristic I see in many yards is that the landscaped beds around the house are just too narrow. Narrow beds result in a limited plant palette and often mature plants that have overgrown their borders, which often means extra shearing or pruning needed. Typically, when starting with a blank yard canvas, I...more
January 23, 2009
My first blog entry is inspired by winter, which we are experiencing in huge amounts this year. I look out my office window and see dunes of white swirling around brown skeletons of shrubs. Birds are congregating around the feeder and dash back under a massive spruce, its limbs wrapped with a blanket of snow. It’s beautiful. And then I notice one of the gardens by a parking area. Where are the plants? They are mercilessly buried under a mound of snow, courtesy of a plow. My patio at home has met the same fate because it looks onto the lot of our apartment building. I am certain I won't see the table and chairs again until June the snow is piled so high. I’m sure many gardeners have the same frustrations, especially when you have landscaping along the driveway. You make a valiant effort to blend a long stretch of concrete into your yard by installing planting beds. Then a snow blower or plow comes along and, between the extra snow weight and liberal amounts of salt, you are left...more
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About Carrie Hennessy
Carrie Hennessy is a retail sales representative at Johnson's Nursery. She has her degree in horticulture and manages our We Plan-You Plant retail design program. Her blogs will be discussing landscape design ideas and elements.
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