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Some of you asked what else I enjoyed at NYBG during my visit and I have to say one of my favorite areas is the Ladies Border. Both the Perennial Garden and the Ladies Border have been designed and overseen by the talented garden designer Lynden Miller since 1987. It seems anything Lynden touches I adore including the Conservatory Garden in Central Park and Bryant Park. A particularly striking combination in the Ladies Border was between golden Mexican-orange blossom (Choisya ternata ‘Sundance’) and David viburnum (Viburnum davidii). (photo) Important to note is that the Ladies Border is south facing and protected, and features half-hardy plants not normally grown outdoors in New York. The garden is hardiness zone 6a and 6b. The Choisya is zones 8-10 and the Viburnum is zones 7b to 9. It appears zone-denial is working in this case.

Recently I had the pleasure of visiting the New York Botanical Garden with close friend and fellow author, Denise Adams. It was a blustery day but my spirits were lifted when I saw numerous plants,  that I feature in my new book 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants. They were shining through the cold and stealing the show particularly in the perennial garden. With frozen fingers, down on my knees, I wrestled with my camera to get just the right angle on a combination featuring ‘Color Guard’ yucca (Yucca filamentosa ‘Color Guard’)(photo). I hope you will enjoy the visual—of the yucca that is! Also creating a focal point in another border was the beautiful native, rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium) (photo).  Other high-impact, low-care plants such as various sedges (Carex sp.) and hellebores were also looking very fine. We decided to forgo the lines at the Christmas train exhibit and headed around the gardens to enjoy the Henry Moore’s.  Along the way we oohed and aahed  the breathtaking  bark of  massive tanyosho pines (Pinus densiflora ‘Umbraculifera’) as well as yet another high impact plant, paperbark maple (Acer griseum)(photo). What a great day! Be sure to get out and enjoy the peace, and joy, of the winter garden.

Tags: 50 High-Impact, Acer Griseum, Eryngium yuccifolium, Low-Care Garden Plants, New York Botanical Gardens, Yucca Filamentosa

It’s happened to me! People have given my garden design/consulting services as a present. Of course I’m partial but what a great and unique idea!! (Click here to send me an email)  Besides hiring the services of a designer, you could hire a maintenance company for so many hours to help a friend get their garden into shape in 2009. Other upscale gift ideas include commissioning an artist to do a one-of-a-kind piece of art for the garden. What about in copper or glass? Two very talented artists I’ve worked with for pieces for my gardens and clients gardens are Renate Burgyan Fackler (Bronze Sculpture) www.chrysalissculpturestudio.com and Jacob Stout (Glass) www.jacobstout.com. Jacob does some amazing pieces that gardeners would appreciate for their homes as well (see photos ).

Tags: Art, Chyrslais Sculpture Studio, Design, Jacob Stout

In response to my blogs on gardener’s gifts I was asked about suggestions for gifts for inside the home that gardeners would love. Some of my favorite garden/ “natural world” inspired things are works by artists Robert Held www.robertheld.com Check out his California poppy series—one of these vases adds amazing energy to a lit cabinet in our kitchen. On my wish list this Christmas is a BOBtanical by Bob and Laurie Kliss—these “drop-dead” gorgeous and quirky glass pieces are a must for every garden-lover www.klissglass.com . I’ve been admiring them for several years. Also something I eventually want for our home is one of the autumn or winter nature paintings by Laura R. Joseph www.ljosephart.com . Her work is full of emotion and passion for nature—something shared by gardeners.

Tags: Bob and Laurie Kliss, gifts, Laura Joseph, Robert Held

There are so many fun and creative holiday gifts you can give to the gardener in your life. Of course we gardeners love plants but then there are also all the tools we use, the beautiful containers we adore, the books we read, the lotions we need for our working hands and ailing nails, and what about art supplies—that’s right—art supplies to keep our creative juices flowing over the long winter months. Here are some gift ideas from the “Queen of Deadheading” that are sure to please your favorite gardener. (Note fellow gardeners: Feel free to forward this information to your family and friends to avoid those unwanted non-gardening gifts!)

Plants: Buy gift certificates to local garden centers or go on-line to mail order from specialty nurseries. Wonderful and often unusual plants can be found at Klehm’s Song Sparrow Nursery  www.songsparrow.com , Heronswood Nursery  www.heronswood.com , and  Wayside Gardens www.waysidegardens.com

Tools: Stainless Steel Red Handled Trowels are fantastic and relatively obscure so probably a safe gift for the gardener who has everything. www.brentandbeckysbulbs.com B & B also carry another favorite of mine: Garden Knife with Sheath.(see photo in my blog on Pruning for Winter)

Supplies: Looking for all things ORGANIC? Peaceful Valley Farm & Garden Supply is where I turn for safe pest control but they carry a bit of everything including organic seed. They are offering beautiful gift cards with hand written messages-cool! www.GrowOrganic.com

Garden Accessories: Birdbaths, birdfeeders and bobbles…Oh my! Bobbles add color and charm to any scene (photo) check out great bobbles, gardening tree ornaments, and accessories at www.gardenartisans.com and www.SmithandHawken.com .  Or how about a beautiful accent light fixture made out of copper that looks like a wildflower? See photo on page 131 from my book The Well-Designed Mixed Garden. Visit www.escortlighting.com

Books: I hope you will consider a gift certificate for my upcoming new book: 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants, Tough But Beautiful Plants That Anyone Can Grow. (January release) If they don’t already have Well-Tended Perennial Garden & Well-Designed Mixed Garden perhaps they deserve all three! Other titles I love are Plant Driven Design: Ogden/Springer-Ogden, Restoring American Gardens: Denise Adams, and Grasses for Livable Landscapes: Rick Darke.   Thanks to popular blog “Lilacs and Roses” for recommending one of my books as a favorite gift. Read it here.

Clothing: Look for fun and colorful garden/rain boots at most shoe stores.

Beauty Aids: My favorite for years now is Gardeners Hand Therapy Cream, by Crabtree & Evelyn.

Professional Memberships: Consider giving the gift of membership into groups such as The Perennial Plant Association www.perennialplant.org ,The American Horticultural Society www.ahs.org , or The Royal Horticultural Society in the UK www.rhs.org.uk Informative magazines accompany membership!

Art Supplies: Gardeners are artists. Help inspire their creativity and use of color by giving them a set of watercolors, colored pencils, fine-tip ink markers, or pastels. Include a book such as The Tao of Watercolor: Jeanne Carbonetti or Creating Textures in Pen & Ink with Watercolor: Claudia Nice (both have nature/plant inspired examples)

Games: Garden-opoly

For Kids: Consider giving the gift of gardening to a child rather than a video game. Tool sets, Window Sill Seed Starters or Mushroom Gardens foster family interaction and an appreciation for nature and the environment. www.parkseed.com

Thanks, Smith & Hawken! Thanks to all the wonderful staff at Smith & Hawken, Easton Town Center, Columbus Ohio who loaned me the beautiful and functional gifts for my “Gifts for the Gardener You Dig” segment on NBC 41’s Daytime Columbus with Gail Hogan. I hope lots of gardeners are lucky enough to find one or two of these great gifts under the tree Christmas morning.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Tags: Christmas gifts

November is the time when we prune some of our perennials in preparation for winter. Ideally we want to do this after several killing frosts. Prune stems down to 2-3 inches and avoid damage to the crown of the plants. Many perennials provide outstanding winter interest and structure in the garden, some are even evergreen, so we don’t cut them back until spring. Also to improve overwintering of any tender perennials or ornament grasses, don’t prune these plants now as the foliage may help protect their crowns from cold damage. We do prune plants that may become unsightly over the winter or that may reseed heavily. It’s also particularly important to prune any perennials that may have had disease or insect problems. Be sure to remove the pest ridden foliage from the garden to reduce incidence of trouble next season. My favorite tool for quick clean-up in the autumn is the Okatsune hedge shear pictured here along with some of my other favorite tools. For complete information on Pruning to Prepare for Winter see Chapter 12 of my book The Well-Tended Perennial Garden as well as the lists of what to prune and what not to prune in Appendix C.

Tags: Books, gardening, Martha Stewart Living, Okatsune hedge shear, pruning, Sirius, Tracy DiSabato-Aust, Well-tended Perennial Garden

I’m just returning from an amazing trip to Italy where my husband Jim and I competed for Team USA in the Duathlon World Championship in Rimini. Please go to my triathlon page if you would like to read more about this fantastic experience. When I wasn’t racing, eating (a lot) or sightseeing, I had the opportunity to visit two beautiful gardens in Florence-Villa La Pietra and Villa Gamberaia. These were highly recommended to me, as must sees, by Charles Quest-Ritson a friend, colleague, and author of the book Gardens of Europe. I was particularly struck by the breathtaking views of Florence from Villa Gamberaia. However I think I was just as touched by the tiniest gardens on the window sills, or patios of the Italian’s apartments and condominiums, as well as their small country gardens. In many ways I felt a strong spiritual connection in Italy — the home of my ancestor. Both my grandfathers who emigrated as children from Italy were avid gardeners and I attribute my love of gardening to them. My grandmother was an incredible cook—making her own pasta, sauces etc. (I didn’t get this trait!). My parents were both into fashion and shoes, which the Italians do so well!! I was definitely at home with these warm, friendly people who embrace everything about life.  

Click “Continue Reading” below for Italian garden ideas….but first, here’s a slide show with some photos I took while in Italy. Enjoy!

Continue Reading »

Tags: Italy

Recently Columbus TV personality Gail Hogan interviewed Tracy about the new book:

Tags: 50 High-Impact, Gail Hogan, Media

September is an ideal month to plant because the temperatures are usually starting to lower and the rains are starting to return. Also planting or dividing now gives plants time to establish before winter sets in.  There are a few plants to note that don’t do well when planted in the autumn including coralbell (Heuchera sp.), Japanese anemone (Anemone xhybrida) and red-hot poker (Kniphofia hybrids ). These plants have a tendency to frost heave (push out of the ground) due to fluctuating winter temperatures. They are more successful with spring plantings.

Division now is particularly suitable to spring and summer flowering perennials. You know a perennial needs division if there is a reduction in the flowering or the vigor of the plant, a hole develops in the center, or there is a “traffic jam” appearance to the stems.

One of my favorite quick and easy methods of division, that I learned over 25 years ago (yikes!) while working at the Kalmthout Arboretum in Belgium, is the double-fork method. This is great for large thick clumps of plants, such as Shasta daisy (Leucanthemum xsuperbum), hosta, daylily (Hemerocallis) and border phlox (Phlox paniculata). To divide clumps using this method, first lift the entire clump from the ground with a spade. Then insert on spading fork into the center of the clump, and insert a second fork parallel to the first, setting the forks back-to-back with the tines of the two forks intersecting. Pull the forks inward and then out-ward, and the clumps will separate in two. You might have to repeat this process several times with a large clump. Once the large clump is broken up, a sharp nonserrated knife can be used for further divisions to obtain smaller pieces.  Perennials such as peonies, which are fleshy rooted, do not divide well with the double-fork method and are best divided using a knife.

Here’s a  quick video on this subject:

I cover division and planting in detail in my book The Well-Tended Perennial Garden and you may have heard us discuss this topic on Martha Stewart Living Radio on Sirius Satellite for the Living Today show with Mario Bosquez on Monday September 8, 2008.  You may have tuned into the new show Daytime Columbus on WCMH-TV, Channel 4 Columbus, NBC4I.com, with Host Gail M. Hogan on September 23, 2008 where we demonstrated the double-fork technique and discussed follow-up considerations with soil and watering.  If so, welcome to the website!

Tags: coralbell (Heuchera sp.), Dividing, Double-Fork Method, Fall, Gail M. Hogan, Martha Stewart Radio, red-hot poker (Kniphofia hybrids), September, Sirius Satellite, WCMH

Robin Lane Fox of London writes an excellent weekend column in the Financial Times. I was honored that his most recent comments draw a little inspiration from some of my writing on the subject of “deadheading”.  You can read his column by clicking here.

Tags: Books, Deadheading, Financial Times, News, Robin Lane Fox