“(Spring) is absolutely critical,” he said.

The importance of the season is similarly strong for
those in the lawn care and maintenance business.

“It seems like this year, we’re busier than ever,” said
Don Conroy, owner of DJ Landscapes. He said when he bought
the business 12 years ago, there were about 50 clients.
Today, he services about 160 accounts.

During that time, his annual revenues have jumped from
slightly more than $100,000 to approximately
$400,000. Much of the growth has occurred in the past
five years despite the lagging economy, he said, with a 20
percent increase in the last year.

Conroy could not pinpoint a particular reason for the
increase other than to say he offered good work and a fair
price. He said all his business is “word of mouth”
referrals, he does no mass marketing.

Nationally, home vegetable gardening is on the rise,
while other segments have struggled somewhat recently due
to the economy, similar to Utah’s experience since 2007.

According to the National Gardening Association
website, in 2011, consumers spent nearly $3 billion on
food gardening while sales for other types of lawn and
garden activities saw a slight decrease.

In 2009 and 2010, sales for vegetable gardening, fruit
trees, berries and herb gardening totaled $2.9 billion.
Total sales for all types of do-it-yourself lawn and
garden activities fell 5 percent in 2010 to $28.4 billion
from $30.1 billion in the prior year.

The number of households hiring lawn care and landscape
services also declined last year by 8 percent. The
nationwide average amount spent on all lawn and garden
activities in 2010 was $363 compared to $355 in 2009.

In Utah, however, business is now improving thanks to
Mother Nature. For the most part, the weather is the
major contributing factor in determining how successful
any business will be from year to year, according to Kathy
Harbin, general manager of Cactus Tropicals.

The diary of Martha Turnbull, 19th-century home gardener and mistress of Rosedown Plantation, deserves a place on the bookshelf with better-known diarists, says Mac Griswold, a landscape historian and author of “Washington’s Gardens at Mount Vernon.”

“Especially great women diarists who wrote in code over a long stretch of time,” Griswold says.

By code, Griswold means Turnbull’s cryptic, always terse, comments on things going right, going wrong or yet to happen in her garden.

For today’s home gardener and horticulturist to appreciate Turnbull’s 59 years of talking to herself, someone had to “decode” the diary of the woman Griswold calls “the greatest hands-on gardener of the Deep South.”

Over the 15 years Suzanne Turner edited and annotated Turnbull’s garden diary, Turnbull’s handwriting became as familiar to Turner as that of a favorite aunt.

Turner, LSU professor of landscape architecture emerita and owner of a landscape architecture firm in Baton Rouge’s Beauregard Town neighborhood, has spent much of her career poking around in the 19th century.

“When I was teaching at LSU, women kept asking me to give talks on 19th-century gardens,” Turner said.

“I knew LSU had great plantation papers. I started reading those papers, correspondence mostly. Diaries and journals are rare other than financial records on cotton and sugar cane.

Educated women wrote in the standard penmanship of the day, Turner said.

“They wrote in what looks like something taught at finishing school,” she said. “Once you get over the hump, all the handwriting is similar.”

Martha Hilliard Barrow married Daniel Turnbull in 1828. Six years later, plant nursery invoices suggest that Martha Turnbull’s gardens were under construction at the same time Rosedown was being built north of St. Francisville.

Martha Turnbull traveled to the gardening meccas of America and Europe to get ideas and plants for gardens that would feed plantation slaves and her family, provide flowers and begin the landscaping that made Rosedown the graceful place people may visit today.

Turnbull’s diary covers the years 1836 to 1894, but Turnbull was stingy with day-to-day information. She makes passing reference to the Civil War which turned Turnbull from what Griswold calls “grandee planter” to a truck farmer.

The diary makes no mention of the deaths of her husband or children. She may have written about the life of Rosedown somewhere else, but the diary is mainly Turnbull’s notes on what would grow on her place and what wouldn’t.

She tried growing peonies, dahlias, asparagus and celery with varying success.

“It surprised me that she was trying to grow those plants,” Turner said. “She was trying to grow plants she’d seen people growing in the East where she went to school.”

The diary records purchases made in catalogs from nurseries in the Midwest and East. By river, ocean, railroad and wagon, the plants Turnbull ordered made their slow way to Rosedown.

Other plantation gardeners competed to beautify their holdings. When they couldn’t buy what caught their eye, they swapped cuttings, rootings and seed with the neighbors.

“She propagated camellias, hedges, roses and evergreen stuff,” Turner said. “She saved vegetable and annual seed. It seems she had a greenhouse from the outset.”

A gardening revolution is recorded in the 59 years Turnbull kept her diary, Turner said.

“You see the technology explosion,” Turner said. “The size of flowers gets bigger. You see the tools and machines gardeners used.”

Before the Civil War (1861-1865), about 450 slaves worked 10,000 acres on Daniel Turnbull’s plantations, most of which was cotton. Rosedown Plantation’s acreage is recorded as 3,455 acres before and after the war.

In failing health, Daniel Turnbull died in the first few months of the war.

Slaves and, after the war, hired hands worked in Martha Turnbull’s gardens. Her formal gardens comprised 28 acres. The size of other gardens, including the truck farm Turnbull raised to make money after the war, varied in size as did the number of hands available to work in them.

Turnbull had a “watering engine,” a tank that could be pulled by horses or humans. She had a lawn roller and probably mechanical grass cutters. She nurtured a lawn of Bermuda grass. An attempt to grow Blue Grass in the 660-foot-long oak allee was one of Turnbull’s less successful experiments.

The diary doesn’t always make it clear what worked and what didn’t. At times, Turnbull seems to have been thinking out loud about what she might try next. Some entries appear to have been instructions Turnbull was leaving for someone who’d be looking after the gardens in her absence.

Other entries reference books or magazines Turnbull had been reading.

“I’d get frustrated,” Turner said, “because I couldn’t read what she was reading.”

Turner began gathering gardening books that would have been known to Turnbull including a few mentioned in the diary.

Turner’s book has drawings of gardening implements and machines that may or may not have been used at Rosedown. One of the sketches shows men using a “tree transplanter” to tip a large tree from the ground.

The machine was an axle supported by two wheels. The axle teed to a wagon tongue to which the tree was lashed. Men pulled the tree over and out of the ground using the axle as a fulcrum.

Daniel Turnbull understood the commerce of the Deep South, prospering despite national panics in 1837 and 1857. Turnbull was solvent at his death in 1861.

His widow did what she had to do to keep the plantation going. She raised vegetables for the market. She economized. In 1878, she applied to the U.S. government for a widow’s pension. She received $8 a month for her husband’s service in the War of 1812.

The last entry in her diary, dated “1st September 1895,” reads, “My Pension came I had not one dime to pay, Emma $2 — this month, August or any debts whatever.”

Turnbull died in September the following year. She was 85.

In June 1896, three months before Martha Turnbull’s death, her daughter, Sarah Bowman, wrote to Bowman’s son, Daniel, of his grandmother’s failing health: “Our dear old Ma’s condition continues to change from day to day. We begin to see that her strength is failing and her wonderful life cannot be spared many months to us. You cannot begin to understand the bitter woe that comes over me when I think that Rosedown has lost its founder, every Tree shrub was planted by her hands, won’t it stand a grand old monument to her memory.”

Mid- to late spring is when we start seeing tropical-like plants take off and start growing as we enter our warmest time of year. Instead of summer being a “down time” in the landscape, you can use these plants to enhance your warm-season efforts.

When you get beyond gingers, tropical hibiscus and a few others, most folks may not recognize some of these plants with hot-weather potential. They are available at many independent garden centers around the state, and May through midsummer is generally when they are most-widely available. So consider some of the following examples:

One of the popular fall-flowering plants seen at many retail garden centers in Louisiana during late summer and early fall months are cassias. These plants are now sometimes called sennas. They are a landscape show stopper in October and November. There are three cassias common in local landscapes.

Cassia splendida is usually the tallest-growing — making a 10- to 12-foot-tall tree. Cassia corymbosa is most often a medium-to-large shrub, and the candlestick tree can vary greatly in size depending on age and location in the state. All produce showy yellow flowers.

Pride of Barbados is a great, small-growing tropical tree. You see more of these planted in Houston, San Antonio and Austin, Texas, than you do in Louisiana, but we should use these plants more.

The scientific name of this plant is Caesalpinia. Plants usually are 5 to 8 feet tall by fall and start producing orangey-red flowers on the terminal growth in midsummer. Stems are spiny. Foliage is fernlike. And because this plant is in the legume family, it sets seed pods similar to what you see on beans.

People in south Louisiana should consider white and red flower forms of Texas star hibiscus (Hibiscus coccineaus). They are a hardy perennial, unlike the popular tropical hibiscus. Large five-petal flowers appear in early summer and continue through fall. Plants go dormant in winter and start regrowing from the roots in April. Birds, butterflies and bees are attracted to the flowers.

Cassava is a tropical, shrubby perennial. This plant goes by the scientific name of Manihot. The variegated form is the one you usually see in landscapes and is a personal favorite of mine. This plant thrives in the heat, so plant in a full sun garden. Once again, garden centers easily sell this plant when they have some available.

Alternanthera is what we used to call “Joseph’s coat.” It is typically placed in the warm-season bedding plant foliage category with plants like coleus.

The foliage of most alternantheras is multicolored. The most spectacular of these is the variety Brazilian Red Hot. This plant may be a perennial in protected landscapes in south Louisiana, but in most years it is probably best treated as an annual.

Some alternanthera do best in sun, and some do best in shade, so be sure to check to see which setting your variety prefers.

Copper plants also continue to be popular. The common copper plant in Louisiana is called Louisiana Red.

This variety is known for red foliage on a vigorous-growing plant. Other new copper plant varieties include Bronze, Beyond Paradise, Bourbon Street and Swizzle Scissors.

Similar plants to try include duranta, princess flower (Tibouchina), tricolor hibiscus, purple leaf vitex, ixora, esperanza and more. Check out these plants and see which are available locally.

All of them are great landscape plants for late summer in Louisiana. Keep in mind, however, that if you plant now, you will receive the maximum landscape enjoyment until the first killing frost in late fall or early winter.

Plant clinic

LSU AgCenter Master Gardener volunteers will be conducting a Plant Health Care Clinic at Harb’s Oasis nursery on Coursey Boulevard from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. Get plant questions answered, disease and insect samples identified, and vegetable and landscaping advice. Soil sample kits will be available.

Plant sale

Central Bloomers Garden Club will host its annual plant sale from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at 16524 Quiet Oaks Ave., in Woodland Subdivision in Greenwell Springs.

Pond tour

The Deep South Koi and Pond Society and Harb’s Oasis will host the 13th annual Baton Rouge Area Tour of Ponds and Gardens this coming weekend, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and noon to 6 p.m. Sunday, May 20.

Interact with homeowners and professionals about water features, fish, flowers, plants and outdoor entertainment areas, as you discover the drama that water in motion brings to the home and garden.

Tickets are available at Harb’s Oasis. There is a bus tour on Saturday only. Proceeds from the tour will benefit Brave Heart — Children in Need.

Learn more about the Deep South Koi and Pond Society by visiting http://www.deepsouthkoi.org.

Got a gardening question? Write to Bob Souvestre, horticulturist with the LSU AgCenter, at Burden Center, 4560 Essen Lane, Baton Rouge, LA 70809, or email to bsouvestre@agcenter.lsu.edu, or call Master Gardeners at (225) 763-3990.

Vinca time

It is vinca (periwinkle) planting time in Louisiana, Allen Owings, LSU AgCenter horticulturist, reminds us.

This is one of our most popular and widely planted warm-season annuals. We see many varieties and series of vinca used these days. The newer ones have resistance to phytophthora — one of the diseases that is a problem for this bedding plant.

Cora is a seed-propagated series that is genetically resistant, while Nirvana is the vegetatively propagated series that is genetically resistant. Good color range is available across both groups. Plant vinca in full sun and prepare well-drained landscape beds.

From 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. May 19, All Saints Episcopal Church on Hilton Head Island will present its 25th annual Garden Tour, a potpourri of gardens at eight of the finest gardens in the area. Tickets are $30, and there is a map printed on each ticket.

Speaking for all of us old-timers who’ve taken the tour, may I say, we’ve never been disappointed. Last month when I made my preview tour of the gardens I was curious to see how the record-breaking mild winter, coupled with a hot and dry spring had affected plants soon to be on show. Not to worry, the experienced gardeners who let us come and see what they’ve done in their yards are on top of it.

This year’s tour chairwoman, Mary Anne Gebler, along with All Saints’ selection committee chairwoman, Isabella Trenholm, made more then 100 phone calls using names given to them by local garden centers, garden club members and All Saints parishioners. The resulting eight gardens selected were first visited in May and June of last year. They could not be more diverse.

New gardeners in the coastal Lowcountry can get educated about what succeeds here with a visit to Ramona Kramer’s yard in Hilton Head Plantation. If it flowers in May, it’s there to see. Ramona has a way of combining shrubbery with colorful plants that’s unusual; the problem of what to plant under mature trees has been solved here with mini-gardens of ferns and flowers.

The huge hanging baskets and patio pots bursting with color are not this year’s annuals; they were planted last year and lived through winter. Don’t miss the creeping yew or variegated Angel’s Trumpet.

Corliss and James Zampino’s gardens in Hilton Head Plantation are filled with surprises. If you like the unusual, you’ll be entertained, not only by the plants — guaranteed there are at least a dozen that are unfamiliar — but also the fun they had with creative hardscape. If you’re like me and want to know what you’re looking at, be glad that Corliss will have signs. I carried a white, fuzzy, fragrant flower with me for 10 days before I found someone who could ID it.

The stunning color blend of the house interior has been carried outside into the backyard of Sissy Haskell and Allen High’s residence in Port Royal Plantation. Don’t be surprised to learn that an interior decorator lives here. “Pretty in Pink” comes to mind, what with the “Knock Out” roses, dozens of impatiens, pentas and more New Guinea impatiens than you could find in a garden center. Sissy loves blue, too; agapanthus, lobelia and salvia plants are interspersed with white lilies and impatiens. Sissy has scattered now-flowering wildflower seed between the garden’s border and the adjacent golf course.

At the arboretum at Port Royal Plantation, you’ll find 6.6 acres of Lowcountry native plants. Follow woodland paths through a tour of well-marked native plant species. Established in 1966 by island naturalist Orion Hack, the arboretum is planted and maintained by volunteers. The variety of natives seen here is both educational and exciting in its scope.

The Korosi Vegetable and Herb Gardens at Hilton Head Island Elementary School for the Creative Arts are national award winners.

You’ll see every vegetable and herb plant that could be growing in the Lowcountry in May. Nadine Korosi is the plant lady here; she plants and maintains the gardens with the school children. Adjacent is the butterfly garden created and maintained by the Avid Gardeners Garden Club.

Did you ever notice that interesting people have interesting gardens? At Anna and Jim Buckingham’s residence in Leamington, you’ll note Indian Hawthorn in the front and up the wall, and a magnificent Canadian palm.

Jim tells you his favorite plant is a Walter’s viburnum and walks you to the backyard where he tells you to turn your back to the house and walk until he says to turn around. You do and “POW,” you’re in California. You see a replica of a Spanish hacienda fronted by a stone-filled dry creek bed and surrounded by all manner of cactus and succulent plants.

Jim claims that the hardest thing to grow in the landscape is grass. With plants, he says, it’s all in the architecture, hence the dwarf Yaupon in interesting shapes, and unusual privet. When Buckingham is not in his garden, he can be found at his restaurant, Bistro 17.

Each pathway you take at the home of Jill and Patrick Graybeal in Sea Pines leads to another landscaping marvel. What a feel for drama this lady has. It’s the curves and the grouping of the different textures and stripes, the water feature that looks like nature put it there, and a grouping of seldom seen, red-berried, Florida natives, Ardisia. You’ll love the happy snails nestled amongst Durante and ferns. You’ll remember the show of 30 flowering pentas grouped together and “Best in Show,” a rare, standard Abutilon tree A. pictum with creamy, yellow bells that flowers almost continuously.

To round out the tour you are invited to visit the Gardens of All Saints at All Saints Episcopal Church, 3001 Meeting St., Hilton Head Island.

The Barbara B. Hodges Columbarium, a tranquil garden setting, is to the right of the church.

The Spirit Garden with a Japanese motif is across the parking lot in front of the preschool.

SALT LAKE CITY — For the past few years northern Utah has jumped from winter directly into summer, bypassing the spring season those who make their living from the soil so desperately seek.

It’s a different story in 2012 for the lawn and garden industry.

“It’s been a night and day difference from the last couple of years,” said Loren Nielsen, owner of Wasatch Shadows Nursery in Sandy. Weather impacts the business even more than the economy, he said.

“(When) the two combine against you, weather sinks you and the economy is the knife twisting in your back,” Nielsen said.

But, after a few years of wetter and cooler than normal springs resulting in declining revenues, the landscape and garden industry is again blooming.

“A good spring like this … kind of brings hope back,” he said. Sales at his store were up 60 percent to 80 percent in April over last year.

He said that approximately 30 percent of his revenue is generated in the three-month spring season as homeowners set aside time to plant their flower and vegetable gardens. The focus typically changes right after school breaks for summer, and families plan vacations and spend less time tending to their yards.

“A good summer won’t maintain booming sales,” Nielsen said. “You see an almost instant 20 to 30 percent drop (once summer starts).”

He said sales during the eight to 12 weeks of spring usually determine whether his business makes a profit or loses money for the year.

“(Spring) is absolutely critical,” he said.

The importance of the season is similarly strong for those in the lawn care and maintenance business.

“It seems like this year, we’re busier than ever,” said Don Conroy, owner of DJ Landscapes. He said when he bought the business 12 years ago, there were about 50 clients. Today, he services about 160 accounts.

During that time, his annual revenues have jumped from slightly more than $100,000 to approximately $400,000. Much of the growth has occurred in the past five years despite the lagging economy, he said, with a 20 percent increase in the last year.

Conroy could not pinpoint a particular reason for the increase other than to say he offered good work and a fair price. He said all his business is “word of mouth” referrals, he does no mass marketing.

WILLIAMSBURG — The Busch Gardens landscaping team has been putting in many long hours planting, pruning and weeding that is again being recognized by the industry experts. For 22 consecutive years, the Williamsburg-area theme park has been awarded “The Most Beautiful Park” award by members of the National Amusement Park Historical Association.

“This truly reflects the passion and hard work exhibited by our landscaping team,” said Busch Gardens’ President Carl Lum. “This award has tremendous meaning to our team members.”

The NAPHA survey is the oldest of its type. “Over the past twenty-six years, the survey has been highly regarded not only to enthusiasts, but to the industry. Many parks feature the results prominently in their marketing and advertising materials,” said Marlowe McClasky Futrell, NAPHA’s survey coordinator.

When built in 1975, care was taken to preserve the mature landscaping and natural terrain of the park. To this day, the park carefully stays true to its beautiful European theme and landscaping with more than 125 flower beds, 300 hanging baskets and 700 container gardens.

For more information on Busch Gardens, visit www.buschgardens.com/va or call (800) 343-7946.

Spring’s early arrival has been a boon for garden centers as homeowners get a jump on the growing season. But anyone living in a community association should review rules and regulations before picking up a trowel.

In Portsmouth, N.H., the 23-unit Atlantic Pointe condominium association is suing two owners for planting heirloom perennials, shrubs and other greenery in the mulched common areas adjacent to their units.

The plaintiffs, who say they received permission from the developer before owners took over the association in 2010, are fighting back. They filed a countersuit that claims the board’s rule against such plantings was passed illegally. They also claim their plantings beautify and improve the community and that removing them will devalue their units.

Meanwhile, daily fines that started at $25 and escalated to $50 and legal fees have run into the thousands of dollars. The association also placed liens on the plaintiffs’ units. A status review is scheduled for late May.

“Condominiums have lots of rules, and rules are necessary, but this one has gone a little too far,” said their attorney, Paul McEachern.

In the Chicago area, associations have varying attitudes toward the planting issue, said Marcia Caruso, president of Caruso Management Group in Naperville.

“There are two main schools of thought,” she said. “One is very rigid. Associations say we handle everything. Others are more lenient. It really depends on the personality of the community and the look they want to achieve.”

A few associations are so tight on funds for landscaping that they are grateful for and encourage owners to plant whatever they like, she added.

Caruso said she understands both sides. One of her client associations is re-landscaping the front yard of every home. The association saved up money for several years to afford this expensive makeover and wants to keep the new design intact.

Absolute leniency can save associations money, but it will subject them to the taste and discretion of participating owners. It’s better to provide guidance, unless lawn ornaments, sprinkler systems, koi ponds, playground equipment and corn stalks are acceptable. Be aware that an owner who spreads mulch could be invalidating the warranty on the existing mulch.

“What I like is either have the money to do it all or give the homeowners choices,” said Caruso. “Give them a list. You can plant, but you have to plant these things: tulips, daffodils and whatever. Control the choices, and you’ll have a controlled environment.”

Some associations have gardening committees that make recommendations for suitable plantings and grant owner requests, said Katherine Susmilch, president of Winston Management Group in Elmhurst.

“You submit your plans to the gardening committee and say this is what I’d like to plant,” she said. “If you want to deviate from the list, you can talk to them about it.”

Another way to maintain aesthetic control is through fair, reasonable rules, said association attorney Gabriella Comstock of Keough Moody in Naperville. “Then, if the association doesn’t have a lot of money, and someone says I’m willing to plant my own flowers, you know they aren’t going to go too far or have too many decorations that change the feel of the community.”

Comstock offered some rules to consider: Require owners to get approval before planting. Give leniency to planting behind units. Limit the size and number of gardening containers. Don’t allow owners to enlarge existing beds. Rules also should require owners to maintain anything they plant.

“Some people like to plant flowers, but they don’t like to weed,” said Comstock. “That’s an issue. The weeds can spread into the lawn areas, which increases the association’s costs for weed control.”

“To me, the key to a good rule or regulation strikes a balance between consistency in the community but still allows for some individuality,” said Susmilch.

Periodically review your rules to make sure they still work for you, she said.

“Frequently you don’t find out until after you’ve been burned that there was an omission that had an unintended consequence,” she said. “Sometimes it goes the other way. You realize you are limiting people in a manner you never intended to.”

Close to 600 homeowners have replaced grass with drought-tolerant landscapes in the three years or so since the Long Beach Water Department began its lawn-to-garden turf replacement program.

In just more than a week, May 19, 30 of those landscapes will be featured in the first lawn-to-garden tour. The citywide event is actually more of an open house than a tour — the homeowners and other experts will be available at their homes and at the Water Department administrative headquarters from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. that Saturday to talk about the transformations. People will be able to visit any or all of the yards on their own with a map provided after they register.

“I think this is a real unique opportunity,” said Matt Lyons, director of planning and conservation at the Water Department. “You can discover how to get rid of a grass lawn and design a garden. There are a million combinations.”

Long Beach’s Water Department began aggressively promoting drought-resistant landscaping and native gardens in 2008, during the height of the most recent drought. Other municipalities soon picked up on the water-saving technique, and now the Metropolitan Water Department subsidizes the city’s rebate program to help people take out lawns.

A conscious decision to focus on landscaping comes from the reality that 60% to 70% of home water use takes place outside. Water for the lawn comes from the same source — and costs just as much — as the water used inside for drinking and bathing. So saving water outside means more water available for inside uses, as well as saving money.

That savings may be the reason why the May 19 tour is generating a big buzz, said Joyce Barkley, the water conservation technician in charge of planning the event. With virtually no publicity, the tour already has more than 1,750 registrations, and participation now is expected to top more than 2,500.

“A few days before, we’ll send everyone who has registered maps to those homes on the tour, the places where the homeowners and experts will be,” Barkley said. “They can talk about the process. There also will be plant lists available.”

For the last two years, the Water Department has offered a $2.50 per square foot rebate for removing grass, up to 1,000 square feet. That would be a 100-foot wide by 10-foot deep swath of grass, so it covers most front lawns.

“Experience has shown that, if you’re willing to do most of the work yourself, you can pretty much come out even,” Lyons said. “Then there are those who do a larger area, and use this essentially for seed money.

“We’ve worked hard to make the process simple. You can apply (for the rebate) online, and it usually only takes a day to say whether you’re eligible. Then you design it, and once we make sure it’s drought-tolerant, you can apply for the rebate.”

Offering information is the goal of the lawn-to-garden tour. In addition to home owners telling of their own experiences, landscape architect Barbara Paul, who has designed many of the yards already done through the Water Department Program, will be on hand at the department’s administration building, at 1800 E. Wardlow Road. There are drought-tolerant demonstration gardens at the administration building, as well.

Registration for the tour can be done at the department’s website dedicated to the lawn-to-garden program, www.lblawntogarden.com. Day-of registration is available at the administration building.

Lyons said that the city has up to $500,000 for lawn-to-garden rebates in the next fiscal year. Applications for that program, as well as information, are at the same website.

Annie Huston

Containers 1

Provence-like decorative containers

Containers 2

Provence-like decorative containers

Bio

Annie Huston is the Co-Founder of Columbine Design, Landscape Professionals in Englewood, Colorado. A native of France, Annie is an award-winning seasonal container designer and her creations have been featured in numerous publications, including Colorado Homes and Lifestyles and Sunset magazines.

She likes to share her enthusiasm for her latest discoveries in the gardening/landscaping field and welcomes feedback from her readers at annie@columbinedesigninc.com.

Columbine Design Landscape Professionals provide homeowners in the Denver Metro are the expertise of a full-service landscape design, construction and maintenance company. Since 1985, Columbine Design’s design teams and construction crews have installed thousands of gardens in Colorado and continue to take the lead in water conservation landscaping projects. Columbine Design’s maintenance department offers residential gardening services including award-winning seasonal color.

Visit Columbine Design online at www.columbinedesigninc.com or read more at their blog here

Need More Ideas? Find Columbine Design on Pinterest here

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Posted: Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:01 am

Bring a Piece of France Home With Decorative Containers

By Annie Huston; Co-Founder of Columbine Design, Landscape Professionals- Englewood

Community Media of Colorado

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Every year, each spring brings me to France to check in on the latest nuances of container gardening and annual beds.

This year in the Provence region, the most striking containers were the ones planted with solitary trees. These containers can easily be planted in lieu of annuals beds to frame an entrance or a terrace. Doing away with container groupings, these simple and elegant containers are a versatile look that complements any taste of existing landscaping.

Get the Look

The traditional look can consist of sculpted trees on either side of formal entryways.  For a more natural or rustic look, try using a single container with an olive tree as a twist on this formal look.

Similar plantings can be created in our Colorado climate with specimen trees, large shrubs such as boxwood or burning bush, tall grasses, or even bamboo. Your plant choices will determine the specific feel of the container. For instance, an olive tree will give you a rustic, Mediterranean feel, while an Alberta spruce has the charm of a formal French garden.

Putting the Containers to Use

These containers can serve as either the centerpiece of a simple garden or a place to rest the eye while taking in a more elaborate landscape.

For a splash of seasonal color to complement the look, add bulbs, annuals or trailing vines to the containers, though simplicity in the design should always be the rule. The larger the container and the tree, the better. This way, the containers become an unapologetic aspect of your garden; the emphasis of the look itself is on the container, which becomes an architectural statement in itself.

For such a centerpiece in your landscaping, I highly suggest purchasing organic containers, made of terra cotta for example, as opposed to those made of inorganic materials. These containers will last all season long, and can be brought inside over the winter to protect both the tree and the container from the frost.

A conservatory or greenhouse is perfect for wintering your plants, and the container will become an element of your interior design. If the tree should outgrow the container, it can be transplanted permanently to your landscape.

We often marvel at gardens on journeys abroad; with this simple container, you can easily bring the charm of the French countryside to your own home.

 

 

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Thursday, May 10, 2012 10:01 am.

RINGWOOD — Whether garden gnomes or a horse drawn plow, garden art provides interest and ornamentation to complement a yard’s natural beauty.

Rich Cording, Jr. of Ringwood’s CLC Landscape Design incorporates garden art in his clients’ landscaping because he said non-plant ornamentation provides interest all year.

“You can watch flowers grow taller every day growing up the statue or ornament, and you can see that change being contrasted with a permanent element,” Cording said.

Each year, as part of the Saddle River Show House charity, interior and landscape designers are given a room or garden to renovate in a Saddle River mansion that needs TLC. This year CLC participated by designing a butterfly garden.

In addition to plants butterflies love, CLC included butterfly and insect art created by local Japanese-American origami artist, Itoko Kobayashi. Folded with weatherproof plastic instead of traditional paper, the creatures Kobayashi created include insects, butterflies, dragonflies and even an origami frog.

“We wanted to celebrate the natural landscape space that typically has butterflies and dragonflies buzzing around,” Cording said.

Although Cording’s butterfly garden incorporates art inspired by nature, some of the most memorable garden art isn’t typically found in a garden at all. Ringwood native Bethany Bauer admires the sculptures of musicians her friend made of reinforced steel bar and used to accent the landscaping around his backyard pool.

“They looked like three dimensional stick figures,” Bauer said. “They were really unique.”

Ringwood State Park employee, Rosemary Ross, finds a discarded chair each year to paint and places a flowerpot in the seat. Jodie Bross of Glenwild Garden Center in Bloomingdale places small glass ornaments strategically among her flower garden.

“I place them somewhat hidden so they don’t jump out at you,” Bross said. “You have to look twice to see if you actually saw that magical thing out of the corner of your eye.”