Sharing Plants

Sharing plants is a great way for gardeners to encourage friends and family to appreciate the beauty of the garden. Perennials are commonly divided and given to friends, but how about shrubs? Fortunately there's an easy way to make more shrubs from your collection, it's called layering. It's something that many plants do naturally. You've probably noticed that forsythia roots readily where its branches swoop to the ground and get buried in mulch. This spring I went looking around my garden for other plants that might exhibit the same habit and found newly rooted plants ready to be dug from under a European Snowball viburnum, Brouwer's Beauty andromeda, and Blue Princess holly. My sister received the viburnum. I'll pot-up the others and give them away too.

Welcome to my inaugural posting...

On this blog feel free to ask me questions about landscape architecture/design and garden or landscape photography whether or not they pertain to the current topic. I'm also always looking for topics to write about in my monthly column in RI Home, Living and Design magazine. Let me know what interests you!

I'm finally planning to get around to finishing a small crushed stone terrace at my home. It'll replace an area that was difficult to maintain in turf. I also have a couple of Vardar Valley boxwood that never made it into the ground last year that I overwintered in a protected location. Yesterday I found a spot for them, as soon as the ground thaws I'll have to get them planted.

What landscape improvement projects are you planning this spring?